Oct. 11, 2010

Head Coach Muffet McGraw

On this year’s team…

“I’m really excited about this team because of their intensity and focus. This is a team that loves to come to practice, and I’m really looking forward to it. Last year we weren’t really a great practice team. We had a lot of days where we felt we didn’t get enough accomplished. I think because we had such a veteran team, they were the team that knew they were going to get it done in the game, but this is a group that really wants to get it right.”

On Skylar Diggins…

“Skylar is going to be playing a lot of point (guard), and I think the ball is going to be in her hands a lot of the time, and we expect big things to happen when she has the ball in her hands.”

On this year’s biggest challenge…

“Its going to be who will replace the leadership from Lech (Melissa Lechlitner), (Ashley) Barlow, (Lindsay) Schrader and Erica (Williamson), and I think Skylar will have the ball in her hands and she’ll be the leader on the floor, but I think we are definitely going to miss the maturity, poise, and the leadership that we lost with last year’s senior class.

On who might see time at point guard other than Skyler Diggins…

“I expect Brittany Mallory is going to handle the point quite a bit. I think she is going to be one of those steady, poised people that we are really going to need to rely on. Kaila Turner is going to play some point, and Kayla McBride, as a freshman, we are kind of waiting to see if she is going to be able to handle any responsibilities at the point position.”

On having Carol Owens back as an associate coach…

“We are so excited to have Carol back to work with the posts, and I think she has already established a really good rapport with the players. We are expecting Devereaux Peters to really step in and play a much bigger role in the post than in the past. Carol is going to be able to work with her and hopefully get her to do a lot of scoring down there.”