Ohio State Women’s Basketball Press Conference – Ohio State Buckeyes
3/19/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 19, 2004
Questions to Student-Athletes
REPORTER: Just for you two guys, this isn’t really your home court on a regular basis, but how comfortable are you having the opportunity to play in Saint John Arena for the NCAA tournament?
LaToya Turner: I think that we’re comfortable because we play a couple games here during the season, so it’s just like I mean it’s basically playing in — I think it’s mental.
Caity Matter: I mean, it’s mental. We’re pretty comfortable playing here. We know we’re going to have the fan support that we have at the Schottenstein Center so it’s going to be more comfortable for us playing here with the fans behind you because you got to come it play wherever you play and this is no different.
REPORTER: Caity and LaToya, if you could both answer this, from the tapes you see, what impresses you most about West Virginia and have you faced another team like them at all this year?
Caity Matter: Well, I think they like to get up and down the floor and they play together as a team very well and shoot the ball well, but our Big Ten schedule has prepared us to play anybody throughout the country and whoever we’re going to face, so we’re ready to go.
LaToya Turner: Like Caity said, our Big Ten schedule did help us get ready for this game and we’re just going to go out there and play how we play any other team.
REPORTER: They do like to play at a pace, and at a quick pace, and I’m just wondering, when you run into a team like that, how many teams — how many teams have tried to play you that way this year, and how have you done against them.
LaToya Turner: I can compare this team to Rutgers because they had a lot of outside players who do a lot of things, and we’re not going to take away their post players because they’re strong offensively and defensively so we just basically got to play them. We play them like anybody else. Like I mean they’re quick. They can shoot. They can handle the ball. They have a very smart point guard. And we’re just going to go out there and play.
REPORTER: I just wanted to ask both of you players, with both the men’s and women’s first and second round games being played here, do you feel like the women’s tournament is getting less attention than the men’s, and if so, why?
Caity Matter: I think it’s a great atmosphere in Columbus this weekend. You have the high school girl’s state tournament. You have our first and second round and the men’s first and second round. It’s a great atmosphere for the city of Columbus, and I think we’re going to have enough supporters at each event that we can’t focus on that. We have to come ready to play.
REPORTER: You guys have played similar teams. You both play Rutgers, and it seemed like you — you guys have both played Rutgers, seems that they’ve lost to Rutgers, you lost to Rutgers. Do you look at similar teams that you guys have played to kind of gauge how you’re going to play them? Or do you just look at tape of them separate of that?
LaToya Turner: We just prepare for every team the same. All you do is watch film and find out what you can do against them and just go out there. It’s just basically all about just playing.
REPORTER: And what is your strategy to try to slow them down ’cause when we talked to them earlier, that’s all they kept saying was that they were going to try to run you, try to run you, try to pull the big post outside.
Caity Matter: We just have to play our game. It’s, you know, we just got to come out and play the way we’ve been playing all year and stay within ourselves and we’ll be fine.
REPORTER: A couple of the younger kids, the freshmen, told me a couple days ago that they’re kind of nervous about this ’cause they obviously never experienced it before, but do you guys have any jitters coming into the NCAA tournament?
LaToya Turner: I don’t think they’re nervous. I think they’re excited and sometimes they get that confused. I think they’re just — they see us pumped up so they get pumped up. They can’t control themselves.
Caity Matter: I have to be excited. You know, there’s going to be a little bit of nervous energy, but we’re playing on our home floor so there’s got to be a lot of excitement. It’s the NCAA tournament and you’ve got to be excited to play in that if you’re a college basketball player.
REPORTER: Do you guys think that you have any advantage because you were in the tournament last year and they haven’t been to the tournament since the early ’90s?
Caity Matter: I think any experience that you can get is going to help, especially for the veteran players on our team, but we have people on our team who haven’t been there so they’re going through it the first time, too, so both teams are going to through it the same way. We have a couple of veterans who have been there.
REPORTER: Do you think you should win this game?
Caity Matter: We go into any game thinking we’re going to win, so we just have to have that mind-set going into this game.
REPORTER: I guess a lot of people are saying you have this game not, of course, on your home court, but right here in your hometown. What’s the thought to say how much of an advantage that is? Do people just assume because you have this game on a familiar court, that you automatically have a leg up?
LaToya Turner: No. I just think what makes it exciting is our fans and our family and all our friends are going to be here, and that’s just the only difference. If we were in West Virginia, I mean it would probably be the same thing. So I don’t think it’s like really an advantage. It’s a tournament. Who’s not going to come?
Caity Matter: I have the same feeling. You have just got to come ready to play. It doesn’t matter what court you’re playing on and things like that. You really can’t focus on that if you’re a player so we’ve just got to come ready to play.
REPORTER: Last year you guys were in similar circumstances in Louisiana. Do you feel that La. Tech had a big advantage on your last year or even the — did you just kind of close that all out of your minds?
LaToya Turner: Just basically closed it out of our minds. Just didn’t bring a lot of fans like they did. That’s how I look at it.
REPORTER: LaToya, for you, you have been through a lot in your career, injuries, surgeries, you’ve been to a number of NCAA tournaments. Is this one any more special for you now?
LaToya Turner: I think it’s special because it is here in Columbus. And it’s great and it’s like this is what you play for…tournaments like this. Home court. Your family. I graduate tomorrow, by the way. I mean Sunday. But I mean, you just — this is what you play for.
Questions for Head Coach Jim Foster
REPORTER: Can it be a pitfall just by everybody thinking that you’re playing on your home floor, that you have a built-in advantage whether you — first of all, do you believe that you do have an advantage? Secondly, can that also work against you, I guess?
COACH FOSTER: Well, I couldn’t have found my way here through that maze that I just walked through, so I don’t feel the least bit comfortable other than I’ll drive home tonight and have a pretty good idea where I’m going. We played two games over here, and we practiced here about five times this year. So I would not say that this is where we live. And — that’s what we think of it. This is not the Schott.
REPORTER: I know that St. John Arena holds about 13,000 people, but as of 8:00 a.m. yesterday, only about 5,000 tickets had been sold and you had predicted that earlier in the week. Is that discouraging? Everybody is making this big stink about being at home and having the home fans, but the numbers are showing right now that people really aren’t stepping up and buying the tickets to come out.
COACH FOSTER: They’ve got about 18 hours. And I’m a great believer that people will wake up tomorrow and just sort of turn their cars on and their cars will just drive them here. I think we’ll have a big crowd. I think it will be loud and boisterous, and I think there are a lot of people coming to watch the state championship games in high school. I think we’ll have a very big walk up, and I think the environment will be a great environment for college basketball game.
REPORTER: And West Virginia, when we were interviewing them earlier at their press conference, they had mentioned that they were going to try to run you that they thought that Ohio State was going to start off in a zone, but that you had the ability to run many different defenses. Are you going into this thinking you’re going to start off one way and probably have to adapt because they may change — I know they work with their guards a lot. They switch forwards to guards back and forth. Do you see it as being a very fluid moving game in that sense?
COACH FOSTER: We play a lot of defenses, and we play a lot of defenses within the course of every team. I don’t anticipate this being any different than that. As three point oriented as that team is, and we played teams with some pretty darn good point guards, and I think they have a really good point guard. You played 30 some games, and about 30, this will be 30, I guess, and you’ve seen a lot of different things. If this was November or December, and you hadn’t seen something like this, you didn’t have any frame of reference, be an entirely different scenario, but I think teams from power conferences play a wide variety of styles of play within the framework of their conference, and, generally Speaking, they’re prepared for the post season. Teams coming from maybe mid major conferences that don’t play that wide variety of teams have a little bit more of a problem, but West Virginia played Connecticut, Rutgers, played some very good teams. So have we. So I think we’re both prepared for what’s in front of us?
REPORTER: Latoya brought up Rutgers as a team that sort of reminded her of this. Is that a team or is there another team?
COACH FOSTER: I think Rutgers is very half-court oriented. And West Virginia likes to get out and go. She might have been comparing (West Virginia’s Yolanda) Paige and Cappie (Rutgers’ junior guard Cappie Pondexter.) I think you could probably put them in the same sentence.
REPORTER: Coach, what impressions do you have of Kate Bugler from the tapes you’ve seen?
COACH FOSTER: I think very good basketball player. She can shoot a three, put the ball on the floor; go by you right and left, competitive. Very good player.
REPORTER: How about her sister? She’s had a very good freshman year.
COACH FOSTER: Watched her in high school, thought she was a terrific player. I coached Susie McConnell way back when she was on an Olympic team and very familiar with them because they played for her. They’re not a surprise to me.
REPORTER: The coaches in the Big East who have played them this year talked about they’re a bad match up for some teams with their players and being able to go inside and out. Can you see that from what you’ve seen on tape?
COACH FOSTER: We like to consider ourselves a bad match up. On film sometimes people don’t realize that our post players can run. So I think people just make a general generalization that bigs don’t move very well, but I think our big kids can flat-out run, and it gives us a different dimension. Took us a while to figure some stuff out, but once we figured it out, we were a pretty good basketball team. And they had the ability to step out and guard on the perimeter, which a lot of bigs don’t.
REPORTER: Coach, a lot of West Virginia fans probably remember you from your days at St. Joe’s.
COACH FOSTER: Old fans.
REPORTER: Do you have any recollection of match ups with West Virginia back in that time frame?
COACH FOSTER: Yeah. The first time they fired that gun, I almost died. You know, it should like give a little notice that it’s going to happen when people come in there. Had some great match ups. I had a guard named Debbie Black. President of your university at that time was Gordon Gee, who has been here and at Vanderbilt and was a big women’s basketball fan way back when. I remember Gale Catlett taking time to talk about Debbie Black on his TV show, how impressed he was with her. And Rosemary (Kosoriek) was a heck of a guard. And Georgeanne Wells was first woman to dunk in a game. We had some great match ups in Morgantown. Broke down once on the way home. There is some back roads in that state, let me tell you. I didn’t think they’d find us for three days.
REPORTER: I noticed in tomorrow’s schedule you guys have a 4:45 a.m. shoot-around. Have you ever had a shoot-around at four in the morning? Or any reason to be up at four in the morning?
COACH FOSTER: I’ve been up often at 4:45 in the morning. Especially with this team in January. Now, I can honestly say that’s a first in 26 years. We passed on the shoot-around. But you’re welcome to come and see if we’re there.
REPORTER: So today’s practice was your last practice before the game. How did everybody look? Did the girls feel good? Did it look good? Do you think you’re ready?
COACH FOSTER: We’ve had very good practices. Last week we did a lot of fundamental things and this team has learned how to practice hard. It’s learned how to compete at a different level. Earlier on in the year, this time off probably would have caused a little bit of a problem, but we’ve matured a great deal.
REPORTER: The team that lost in the second round last year, do you think this year’s team is better than your team last year?
COACH FOSTER: Yes.
REPORTER: Why?
COACH FOSTER: I think we’ve added two very, very talented freshmen in (Jessica) Davenport and (Brandie) Hoskins. I think the experience of last year made Turner and Matter better basketball players. I think Wilburn has matured. We are a much better offensive team than we were a year ago. And defensively we’re more diverse team than we were a year ago. We’re older, with experiences.
REPORTER: I noticed Michelle Munoz’s practice, is there a chance she can play tomorrow?
COACH FOSTER: Yeah. Yeah. She’s had some good practice opportunities this week, and for someone who’s missed as much time, she looked pretty sharp.
