Head Coach Amber Whiting on lessons learned from year one in the Big 12
“First and foremost we learned how we need to recruit in this conference. This conference is bigger, faster and stronger than we had experienced so we needed to get in the weight room and we also wanted to revamp the way we play. We turned the offense over to Lee and are just letting him roll with it. We are going to play a little bit faster and shoot more threes as a result.”
On the bigger, faster stronger nature of Big 12 teams
“We noticed that the game is just faster in this conference when we made the jump last year. The weight room really comes into play because our guards last year got knocked off of their base a lot and so we had to amp up our work in the weight room. As far as how we play, we needed to ramp up our conditioning as well.”
On the BYU vs. Utah rivalry
“It is unmatched. Fans get a little crazy and wild when it comes down to it. You can't quite know what it means until you are in the moment. There aren’t many blowout games in it [the rivalry] and it's out for blood. There’s no friends, it's just go.”
On the depth of this year’s roster
“We have had the challenge of trying to find a starting five. They went at it every day, went at each other and having that depth of who is going to step up today, I think we are starting to get to that point of knowing the rotations. I have a lot more depth than I had last year for sure.”
On non-conference scheduling with the Big 12 slate looming
“Going into the Big 12 [schedule], you have to have some challenges within your non-conference in order to get ready. We have Iowa, Rice and Washington State that will all be really good challenges for us, but you never want to walk through it [the non-conference schedule] because you will get there and it [the Big 12 schedule] will be a wake-up call. That was really strategic, I’m really excited about what we have laid out for the non-conference and I think it will benefit us.”
On growth from summer workouts and places for continual improvement
“I’m a defensive coach, so what’s keeping me up at night is how we are going to stop people. I tell these guys, if we score 100 points, but give up 101, we still lose. That is first and foremost at the front of my mind. There is a fine balance between playing too many, or too few minutes, and figuring out how that rotation going to look. I have a lot of girls who are hungry and ready to step up to the plate, so I am excited to see what they can do. When we got down to the end of last year, we were banged up, bruised up and having the depth this year will help with that and if I can be better at rotation through players, that can help too.”
