Carrie Graf | Van Chancellor | Dee Brown | Michael Cooper | Anne Donovan | Suzie McConnell Serio | John Whisenant | Eastern Conference Coaches Carrie Graf Phoenix Mercury Audio Opening Statement: Thanks for having me. We are really looking forward to the season and it’s going to be an exciting time. I’m ready for your questions. Q: Has the hoopla surrounding Diana Taurasi caused any distractions and how is she to coach? Graf: Obviously there is a lot of hype around her, but she is a great player. She has a great personality. She is going to add a lot to our team. We bottomed out last year and the only place for us to go is up and she will be a big part of that. Q: What is the responsibility of a coach when they have such a great young player like Diana who everybody expects to be a star? Graf: The responsibility is on our team to maximize Diana’s talents to become a better team. She can shoot the ball and pass to involve her teammates. I think it’s up to us, the coaching staff and players, to maximize those talents. This franchise should not be on her shoulders, it is up to us as a team to help out this young star. Return to Top of Page Van Chancellor Houston Comets Audio Q: What do you think of the trend of former NBA players or coaches in the WNBA now? Do you think it’s bad that there are less women coaching in the league? Chancellor: The people owning these teams in the front office are all NBA people. The connections are through the NBA. Michael Adams, Michael Cooper and Bill Laimbeer are well known in their respective organizations. I hire the people that I know and am comfortable with as well. That’s who they think is the best person for the job. If you look at Laimbeer and Cooper they have done a pretty good job. In America you have the right to hire the best person you think will get the job done. Maybe the people should have women’s basketball experience and maybe those people should be women, I don’t have all the answers to that. I just know that each individual organization is going to make the best decision for their team. Q: How do you see the West shaking out this year? Any shift in power? Chancellor: I think the West has gotten much stronger with Shannon Johnson in San Antonio. Sacramento really helped themselves last year with DeMya Walker. Teresa Weatherspoon in L.A., Betty Lennox and Sheri Sam are in Seattle, Minnesota has picked up two young college players and Phoenix got one of the best player I have ever seen in Diana Taurasi. If I had to handicap the field I would say L.A., Sacramento, San Antonio are up there really fighting on top, then Seattle, Houston, Minnesota, Phoenix trying to stay alive. Q: Having the Olympic stoppage this year, is there any trepidation that it will really hurt the season or is this just a one-time thing? Chancellor: I don’t think it’s going to hurt one bit. The fans that follow us are different then any other type of sports fans in America. They are not your casual fans. The people who follow and support the WNBA are so loyal, loyal, loyal. All the Olympics are going to do is heighten the interest in women’s basketball. When we come back we will be getting ready for the playoffs and I think we’ll be rolling. Q: Is this as balanced as you’ve seen the Western Conference? Chancellor: I don’t like to use the word balanced, I like to use the word strong. This is a great division. Everybody has gotten better. Q: How do you go about coaching two teams at once and how will you handle that with the break this summer? Chancellor: It has not been a problem so far. My wife Betty told me that if I wanted to have both jobs I needed to get in shape, so I have dropped about 18 pounds by working out. When it’s USA Basketball I put all my energy and enthusiasm into that team and when that’s done. I pick up the Comets and go with them. I keep two different notebooks. I’m 60 years old and have a high level of energy and love coaching. I’m just excited about it all. Q: How is Kedra Holland-Corn working out so far for your Houston team? Chancellor: Unbelievable, defensively beyond my wildest dreams. Great person in the locker room. Has fit right in and will be starting tomorrow night. One more thought. You talk about a dream come true. We brought in a young woman, Felicia Ragland, who two days before training camp opened, I thought was wasting her time coming in here to make this ballclub. Well she has just played her heart out and she will start for us tomorrow night, just a great story. Return to Top of Page Dee Brown San Antonio Silver Stars Audio Opening Statement: I would like to say I am excited to be back in the WNBA after being away for a year. I am excited about the opportunity to coach this San Antonio team. I think we have improved in the offseason, but at the same time so has every other team in the Western Conference. We still have some work to do to catch up with those teams. I am excited to start our season against the Houston Comets. Q: How will your experience coaching Orlando help you with coaching this San Antonio team? Brown: Just learning to coach these players and the different philosophies of the teams. I need to grow as a coach and it was great that I got this job a few months prior to the season and I got to build it the way I wanted to. In Orlando I got the job two weeks before the season so the timing is much better here. I still have a lot to learn and going up against great coaches like Bill Laimbeer, Van Chancellor and Michael Cooper will just make me a better coach. Q: Could you address your backcourt situation and how those pieces will fit together this year. Are you confident they can get it done offensively? Brown: I think we have a very good backcourt. We didn’t know what Jen Azzi was going to do in the offseason so we had to protect ourselves and get a point guard. I knew Shannon Johnson from coaching in Orlando and she is an Olympian and an All-Star. Having Shannon come in via trade was huge for us especially after Azzi retired. Then we have Marie Ferdinand who is one of the better two-guards in the league. With those two together, hopefully, we are not only better offensively but also defensively getting steals and pressuring the ball. Our backup point guard is Tai Dillard who is growing into the position and also Semeka Randall. We have some physical guards but also quickness with Ferdinand. I am confident in them offensively. Shannon can get her own shot off anytime and now she just has to work on getting her teammates involved because they are scoring weapons as well Q: Did you keep up with the WNBA during your time out of the league? Did you want to get back into coaching as soon as you could? Brown: Yes I did. Watching while being out of the game was great, seeing what Detroit accomplished. The league is very solid now getting rid of one team and the rosters are so deep. The reason why I didn’t go to Connecticut was because of my family situation at the time. When this opportunity came up with San Antonio and I got the call from them, I was still very interested in coaching in the WNBA. Q: Did everyone get to training camp on time and is everyone healthy? Brown: There were a couple late arrivals. Margo Dydek from Poland was a little late. Everybody was there other than her. We have had a majority of our roster during the preseason; we just had to fit people in here and there. It’s a new system with a new coach with some new key players on a team with some All-Stars. It’s not going to happen overnight, but we just hope to get better and better each night out. Q: People are talking about this team making a significant step forward from last year, what is your thought on making the playoffs in the West? Brown: This core group is still the same one since they left Utah, the same team that lost to L.A. in the Western Conference Finals. The core group is still there with added pieces such as Latoya Thomas, Shannon Johnson and Agnieszka Bibrzycka. We all look good on paper in April, but we still have work to do, we still have to mesh together. The West is tough; everyone else is deeper now also. There are going to be ups and downs. This club has some veterans who have had a taste of the postseason and they want that feeling back. Hopefully, the rest of our team can get attached to them and get that feeling. Return to Top of Page Michael Cooper Los Angeles Sparks Audio Opening Statement: This is going to be one heck of a season for the WNBA. With the new talent coming into the league I compare them to what Magic and Bird did for the NBA. These talented players are going to make their teams a lot better. Detroit, Houston and Los Angeles as past champions have their work cut out for them. Q: Do you think having an East team win a championship help the league at all? Cooper: I think it was great for the league, especially how the Detroit team came about. Not having a successful year the previous season then coming out and playing the way they did and winning a championship was great. I rather have it not happen against my team, but those things happen. Q: You got into the free agent market and added some depth to your bench, how have those players been working out? Cooper: They are working out really well. We are so happy to get T-Spoon. One of the reasons we liked her was her leadership and defense. She will help Nikki Teasley become the point guard she is supposed to be. I look for a solid 15-20 minutes a night from her. Tamika Whitmore has been a great surprise for us. With DeLisha Milton’s injury and not being at 100 percent, Whitmore is a veteran who can plug that hole and knows how to play down low. Also Christi Thomas has been great. These players have really shown there value in our preseason games. Q: Are coaches with Olympians on their teams concerned about their players’ energy level with the Olympics in the middle of the season? Cooper: I think with the depth we have we won’t have to regulate our minutes differently. They are going to do our country a service by playing in the Olympics. That is another reason we went out and got some legitimate big people, so we wouldn’t have to burn Lisa out. She doesn’t play overseas in the offseason so she has rested up. Q: With DeLisha’s injury situation and the treatment she got for it, are you keeping an extra close eye on her? Cooper: We are monitoring her minutes and keeping in good communication with our trainer. I feel comfortable with her out there. I think that is even more of a reason why Whitmore and Thomas are important to us. We can use her down the stretch more as her knee gets stronger. Q: Your hiring a few years ago raised eyebrows, coming from the NBA and not having a women’s basketball background, has the women’s basketball community welcomed you since then? Cooper: Val Ackerman, when I was named head coach called me and was elated that I was participating. Yes, it’s women’s basketball, but I see it like they are good athletes, just like the NBA. They are women and they play below the rim, but they play a good. sound game. I am just happy and proud that I am able to be part of something with women’s professional sports. Q: Do you feel like the average male sports fans will focus on the WNBA because of people like you, Bill Laimbeer and Michael Adams? Cooper: The one reason I was hired was because I have a knowledge of the game and can give something back to the game. It’s about winning basketball games. You could be Magic Johnson or Larry Bird, if your team isn’t winning, that’s not going to be a selling point. It’s about playing winning basketball. We have some great women coaches with Pat Summit, Anne Donovan and Suzy McConnell Serio. Q: Is the Western Conference as balanced as you’ve seen it? Cooper: The West is going to be very tough to play. With Taurasi down in Phoenix, with her knowledge and will to win, she will definitely take that team to another level. Teams like Seattle, Sacramento and Minnesota have all gotten better with the addition of players. Houston and Los Angeles are going to have to come out and play. San Antonio has some great pieces. It’s going to be a tough fight to win this. Q: With talk about Tamecka Dixon leaving in the offseason do you see her role as the same? Cooper: It’s part of the pro game. Teams call all the time wanting our players, that’s just the nature of the game. You are going to listen to what people have to say, but I don’t think she is going anywhere. Q: How do you see the West shaking out? Cooper: I’m not going to put the teams in order, but I think Seattle has gotten better, they made a good run last year. Any team, including Phoenix, can be at the top of the standing in three weeks. Getting off to a good start is going to be important this year. I’m no crystal ball reader, but I feel that we will be in contention when all is said and done. Return to Top of Page Anne Donovan Seattle Storm Audio Opening Statement: We’re ready to get started here tomorrow and I think we’re feeling pretty good about that. Like all coaches, I’m sure we could use a little bit more time. I honestly feel at this point that our growth and our development will come with some game experience. We’ve made some significant roster changes. We have two new starters in our lineup, the first post off the bench is a new player as well. So, we’ve got some chemistry issues in terms of jelling. I think there’s been a lot written about our chemistry issues. I want to make it clear that the chemistry issues we’re talking about in Seattle is really just basketball related, playing together, making reads off each other, learning each other’s strengths and weaknesses, how to play to them, how to cover up weaknesses. Other than that, chemistry’s been great. The new players are eager to be here. They have totally bought into the system and accepted different roles here in Seattle, which of course is important when you add new starters to the mix. And, we have the MVP back, with Lauren Jackson, who sat out a week with a groin injury, came back the day after getting active again and scored 29. So she’s back to MVP status, and if you can believe, better than MVP status of last year. A healthy Sue Bird added to the mix. A healthy Kamila Vodichkova and I think we’re looking for a very good season here. Q: You traded out of this so-called deep draft? Was it just that there wasn’t as much as people thought in this draft or was there an advantage situation that people would be willing to trade? Donovan: You know, for us, it became getting two for one. We could’ve drafted a great rookie. I’m a firm believer that it’s a great rookie class; it’s made a lot of teams better. I felt like we were looking at Nicole Ohlde more than likely, the way we predicted the draft to go. We thought that would be our draft pick. She’s going to be a great player in this league. We just felt like we have enough young players to still develop in Lauren and Sue and felt like what I needed more than anything was some experience and some maturity to add to our mix. Two for one, with two of our top six players probably at this point coming out of that sixth pick. Still I feel it was the best case for Seattle to go ahead and make that trade. Q: What do you refer to when you talk about the on-court adjustments? Are Betty Lennox and Sheri Sam going to be in your starting lineup? Donovan: That’s right, yeah. Two for one there. How Sheri and Betty can make adjustments to getting fewer shots, and if that’s going to cause chemistry problems? Not at all. We’ve talked to everybody before we brought them here. This is Sue and Lauren’s team and everybody knows that. But we’ve got to have more than Sue and Lauren to win a championship. And that’s where Sheri and Betty can really come in to play. Our chemistry really is more about seeing where shots are coming from, not who’s getting them, but making reads off of people’s strengths. Because we’re so athletic now, where last year we struggled with (Sandy) Brondello and Adia (Barnes) in the wing spots. We were not as athletic and we had difficulty matching up with several teams in the Western Conference. And so that’s helped us out. We’re better defensively, but offensively we’ve still got to just see the strengths we have and play to them. I’m excited about that process. I’m eager to get the season started because I’m excited to see this team grow and evolve. It’s pretty good right now, but we should get a whole lot better as we go. Q: A lot of people talk about this rookie class, and you’ve had to deal with two terrific young players. How much growing will this class have to do to get adjusted to this league? Donovan: I think that there are players that are just going to change their teams, and Taurasi’s one of them. She’s changing Phoenix already. It’s an attitude already in Phoenix that’s different than what they’ve had before. Alana’s going to make the same impact in Washington. I haven’t heard much from back east with Nicole Powell, but I’ve been watching tape on Nicole Ohlde from Minnesota and that kid is starting for them and doing a tremendous job. So, I do think that these kids will go through some growing pains. I think in particular, it’s the physical-ness of the league and the impact of going right from their college season to this first season in the WNBA summer. I think it’s very demanding on their bodies physically. So, I think that will affect all of them, including Taurasi. But, I think each player, each of those top six or seven players will make an impact on their teams. Q: What do you think will be the key to winning the tough Western Conference? Donovan: I think being consistent from start to finish. Although I keep talking about how much we’re going to grow and develop during the season, I’m well aware that we can’t afford to get into any kind of hole. I think that top to bottom in the West, you’re not looking at anybody that’s not a playoff team. In the past you could say, “This team’s not going to be in the playoff hunt.” This year, I don’t think you can say that about one team in the West. All of us are competitive and could get there in the end. But I think how consistent you play from start until August 1 and then how prepared you are when you come back from the Olympic break. Q: Having the Olympic break this year, is there concern with it disrupting the rhythm of the season? Donovan: I’m not sure. I’m choosing to look at it as a positive thing. For us, it is going to be difficult. I’m not sure of every team’s schedule, but we have nine games in 18 days when we return. Lauren will have played quite a number of minutes in Athens and Sue will play some time. And of course, I’m out of pocket. So we lose an entire month as a Storm team, and that is a concern. So, for me, I don’t want to be stuck September 1 when we take the floor again trying to scratch and claw and fight to get a playoff spot. That’s why I say consistent play from the beginning is really going to be important. Q: Michelle Greco has made your team? How did she do it? Donovan: Don’t sound so surprised. She’s a total dark horse. She’s one of those kids, her agent did a great job hounding us to make sure we didn’t forget about her. We kept putting pressure on Michelle to get back as soon as she could. So, coming in late, she really was behind the eight ball. She had a struggle the first couple of days. I talked to her about not having time to wait. If she was an offensive player, she needed to show it or else she was going to be gone. That very night we played China in an exhibition game and she showed us what she had. It came down to a couple things really. The kid is so energy efficient, just tons of energy offensively and defensively. She can play the defense that we want. She has to grow up, there’s no doubt. She doesn’t have a lot of game experience yet, but she’s one that seems to me to get better every day. And then, lastly, let’s talk about the salary cap. That certainly came into play. Return to Top of Page Suzie McConnell Serio Minnesota Lynx Audio Opening Statement: First, we just finished our last practice of training camp this morning. I thought we had a great training camp. A good exhibition season, finishing 3-0 and we feel good about where we are right now. The team is very excited to get the season started. This team this year is very special. They have developed great chemistry on and off the court. We have great leadership in our veterans who are back, which aren’t many. We have four returning players on our rosters from last year’s team and a lot of rookies and newcomers, but they’ve really made an impact from the beginning of training camp. With a lot of new faces, it’s amazing how well this team has come together in a short amount of time. So we’re excited to get started and see how far we’ve come. Q: What is Vanessa Hayden’s physical progress and when do you think she’ll be able to perform in the way you envisioned? McConnell Serio: We’re very excited to have the opportunity to draft Vanessa Hayden and have the luxury to draft another post player right before her and be able to wait for the injury to heal. Vanessa is doing extremely well. I’ve been very impressed with her motivation, with her work ethic to get healthy. She actually started practicing with the team on Monday. She will start the season on IR because she isn’t 100 percent. We’ve talked about getting her healthy for the long-term and not just trying to get her healthy enough to play some minutes in the first game. She is doing well and the team is very excited about her presence in practice. Q: Where do you envision Nicole Ohlde playing in your system? McConnell Serio: In our system our post players are interchangeable. We expect them to be effective at the high post, we expect them to be effective in the low post and they complement each other very well. Nicole Ohlde has come in and has been an impact player right from the beginning of training camp. She has earned the starting center position for us and the players have really enjoyed playing with her. T has made her one of her favorite targets and really looks for her in transition because she runs the floor so well. She has been able to finish consistently. In training camp against our team, against guys and has done very well in our three exhibition games so far. Q: Are women becoming an endanger species in the WNBA when it comes to head coaches? McConnell Serio: That topic has come up a number of times and obviously last year a lot of female coaches lost their jobs. Unfortunately, they were replaced by coaches that had NBA experience and in particular, men. I believe we as female need to be successful for us to continue to keep our jobs and change that trend. I don’t know if certain GM’s have preferences, maybe it’s a comfort level, but there are a lot of female coaches out there that can be successful in this league. Q: Is there anything that the league should do, maybe a training program to help this along? McConnell Serio: I would like to see people hire the right person for the job, whether it’s male or female. I believe it comes down to hiring the right person for the job and I’m in a good situation. I love my job and I know there are a lot of females out there. I don’t know if they can do anything to create more opportunities for women, but I would to see more females in the game. Q: Talk about how Nicole Ohlde has used her mobility as an advantage and how that fits into your system. Talk about Amanda Lassiter and how she has developed in the preseason. McConnell Serio: Nicole Ohlde has come in and the one thing we love about her is her versatility. She runs the floor extremely well and has great hands and can finish. She’s very effective around the basket, can shoot over people, can take them off the dribble and one-on-one she’s been very effective. We had double-teams thrown at her, we had guys throwing double-teams at her and she’s been very effective of being able to throw out of them and find open players. She has been a tremendous player for us and someone we’re very excited about and feel that she will have an impact this season for us. Amanda Lassiter we did get through a trade with Seattle. Amanda has come in and has done a lot of good things for us. She’s a great defender, a great rebounder on both ends of the floor. She’s a player who can not only hit the three for us but also take players off the dribble. She has really been a complementary player with Katie Smith and will help take some of the pressure off of Katie being another threat on the floor with her. So we’re very excited about what she brings to our team. She’s playing with a lot of confidence right now. Q: During the draft and possibly trading for Lindsay Whalen, did you have two different teams in mind or was this the team you knew you were going to have? McConnell Serio: No, we really did not know what our team would look like prior to the draft. We prepared for both. There was talk of trying to make trades and getting Lindsay Whalen to Minnesota. We worked very hard at that and tried to make that happen, but when we realized that wasn’t going to happen, then we went the route of taking two post players. Nicole Ohlde was someone we had watched. I had seen her play since back in November and throughout her college season. She’s someone we really liked as a post player to bring in and fill the need we had in the depth of the post position. With the second pick we knew, having Ohlde, we had the luxury of waiting for someone like Vanessa Hayden who had a great college season, but unfortunately ended up having surgery on a broken foot. We knew she wouldn’t be out an entire season and she has moved along very well. We will have her on the floor soon enough and they’ll play great together. Q: When Hayden comes back, how will that affect Ohlde’s role? McConnell Serio: I think it will complement her. I think they will work very well together. Obviously, Vanessa is a low post player and Ohlde can play both high and low, but we’ll expect Vanessa to be able to do things at the high post, whether it’s making passes into the post or being able to hit an open jumper when they play off of her. We’re going to try and go with her strengths, but we think it will be a nice situation for us having Vanessa Hayden and Nicole Ohlde. We have Tamika Williams and we also have Michele Van Gorp, another veteran, so that will be a nice post rotation for us. Q: What have you learned about your team during the training camp and who are your starters going to be? McConnell Serio: You’ll see the same team minus some of the players. We obviously had to make cuts getting down to our final roster. When we played Sacramento we played 14 players, so it was difficult to get into any regular game rotation trying to play that many players. Now that we are down to our final rosters, you will see our key players playing a lot more minutes. Going into this game with Sacramento, they didn’t have their full roster very long going into that game, so I would expect to see a different team from Sacramento, one that has been together longer and a more polished team and more prepared. They didn’t do a lot of their things because they didn’t have anyone for very long. Our starting lineup will be Teresa Edwards at the point, Katie Smith at the two, Amanda Lassiter at the other guard and Tamika Williams and Nicole Ohlde. Q: What major lesson did you take away from last season? McConnell Serio: I really learned how to deal with the players at the professional level. I always felt I needed to be a good communicator with them, just being very honest as to where they stand. What their roles are going to be so that they have an understanding what is expected of them and try to do a better job of that. Q: Any concerns of losing the month of August due to the Olympics and how that will affect the rhythm of the season? McConnell Serio: I’ve always believed that you don’t worry about things you can’t control. That is something out of our control and is something we have to do deal with. Each team has to deal with it and we’ll make the most of that month off. One adjustment it does make for us, having an Olympian such as Katie Smith, is making sure that she last an entire season. Because she plays a lot of minutes for us and she’ll be going right into the Olympic season and then she’ll come back and finish the season with us. That’s a concern with us more that anything, but we’ll take time off at the beginning of August, the first 10 days and then we’ll come back and do some scrimmaging. We’ll do some individual work, some guard work, some post work and make any adjustments that we need going into the last part of the season for our playoff run. Q: Is there a final decision on Svetlana Abrosimova and what she’ll be doing this season. McConnell Serio: With Svet, I’ve had many conversations with her and her goal is to be on the Russian Olympic Team. They have a training camp, which begins on May 29 that she has not been exempt from attending. It is our understanding that she will be attending that training camp. We are not expecting to have her this season. She is still on our roster and we could possibly have her back at the end of the season after the Olympics. If something would happen where she did not make their Olympic team, then we would have her back sooner. Return to Top of Page John Whisenant Ssacramento Monarchs Audio Opening Statement: We’ve had a good training camp, but I wish I had more time. We had a half dozen of our people late because of their play in Europe, but that’s to be expected by all teams. We have an excellent group of people who’ve given me their full attention and we think we’re improving every day. We’re looking forward to coming into Phoenix. It’s like our first test of the year and we have to go where we know will be a rough crowd with the enthusiasm that Tarausi and company have brought in here. We’re expecting it to be a tough battle, but we’re looking forward to it. Q: What is your comfort level coming into this season as far as you with the players and the players with you? Whisenant: I feel good about our players. We did not expect to come in as coach in the middle of the year, but the fact is we did. Our players have been very accepting of me and I think they have bought into our system of defense first. We’ll figure out a way to score if we can play defensively well enough. It took us the whole preseason to get that going and we felt that our last preseason game we show signs of defense. At least our women are responding positively. I couldn’t ask for more effort than they gave or a better response. Q: What was the thinking of selecting Rebekkah Brunson with your first round pick and is she meeting your expectations? Whisenant: The reality of what everyone thinks we need and we agree we need more consistent perimeter shooting, but if you look at the draft as Taurasi, Beard, Whalen, Powell and Christon, those were all shooters. By the time it got to me at 10, I either had to pick a shooter that I didn’t feel was athletic enough to play our defensive style or I had to pick the best athlete. We thought that Rebekkah Brunson was an outstanding athlete and we felt probably that she was left at 10 because she’s an obvious conversion project. She’s got to be moved from the post play, where she played in college, to the perimeter and that takes time. Most people had bypassed her because of that reason. That’s the reason we chose her. We’re happy with what we’ve got. We know she’s going to be a little rough outside for awhile. Whether it takes half the year, the whole year, two years, I don’t know, but she’s excellent athlete with great hands and she’ll be a great WNBA player. Q: What was the No. 1 lesson you learned last year in your half-season as coach? Whisenant: I tried not to make basketball the end all, that it’s always been with me when I coached, and just be happy and enjoy these ladies. Treat them like I would want somebody to treat my daughter or my sister. Try to convince them of my system. I took the approach that if they didn’t buy it, then there must have been something wrong with it. I had to prove to them that I was selling a good product, I was selling good basketball and I think they bought into that quickly. Some quicker than others, but by now most all of our players feel that way. They’re sold on what we’re doing and enjoying themselves, but understanding there is no easy way to be good. It’s just hard work. Q: A lot of other coaches in the league are picking Sacramento on top in the West along with L.A., does that put any added pressure on the team? Whisenant: No, I think that’s where they think they belong. We know we have work to do. We aren’t fluid in our offensive schemes yet and our defense is not there yet either. Offensively we have a new offense even though it doesn’t seem complicated on paper, but it’s complicated to get a five-man offense going. They know it’s not going to be easy and there is going to be bumps in the road. I believe they believe in themselves even though we have talked about perimeter shooting. I think we have people who are better perimeter shooters than maybe people think. If we get them good shots, uncontested shots, people like Edna Campbell, Kara Lawson and Ruthie Bolton, we’ll see if they can knock them down. I think the key is to get good shots and that means make the opposition defend our good inside play and then we’ll get the open looks and then we’ll have to see if we can make them. Q: Playing the first game versus Diana Taurasi, is there a feeling that you don’t want her to embarrass you or do you really want to test her first? Whisenant: We have discussed with our team that Diana Taurasi is wise beyond her years, she plays very much like some of the great NBA players of the past. She sees the floor, she doesn’t take the ball where it shouldn’t be taken, she doesn’t take it into crowds or where there is a lack of balance on her team. We’ve acknowledge that she’s an outstanding player and is even going to get better. But we don’t fear Diana Taurasi. We feel if we play real sound defense on her and her teammates and we rebound well, we’ll be in the game. If we can move along offensively, we’ll have a chance to win the game. Even with their enthusiastic first game crowd, it’s always harder when the home team is cheering every play of theirs and booing every play of yours. It’s easy to lose confidence and lose the positive thoughts on what you need to do to be successful. We’re talking about that, we’re working on that and I have a great deal of confidence in my people. They’re good, they’re good people. I’m not just talking about their athletic ability. They’re smart. I’ve got several who will be good coaches. It will give us an opportunity to compete with the crowd and Diana’s well-deserved hype. She’s a good player, she’s for real. I already know. Q: How has Edna Campbell looked so far this preseason? Whisenant: Edna was one of the first players to buy into and understood my somewhat different defensive techniques. She picked them up last year and was a key player for us having pressure on the ball or on the opposing point guard. She’s again doing a great job. Edna is very quick. Edna is not a great one-on-one scorer, but Edna will shoot it in if you don’t guard her. If people start dropping off of her, she does shoot a high percentage. She’s done well. Our defensive system requires so much energy. You can’t play 40 minutes in our system. Q: Does the cancer seem totally in remission? Whisenant: I can’t see any signs of it in any way. She has good strength and seems to have stamina. There are no signs from a coaching standpoint that she has any illness at all or has had one. Return to Top of Page