bleedCrimson.net will be conducting weekly interviews with Aggie women's basketball head coach Darin Spence throughout the 2007/2008 season as the Aggies aim for the WAC Championship and Beyond. In this week's interview Coach Spence talks about last week's games against Idaho and Boise State, their adventurous trip to Boise State after the Idaho game and this week's game against Louisiana Tech.
bleedCrimson.net: Can you talk about the Idaho game this past Thursday?
Darin Spence: Idaho, obviously it's a good road win for us. Idaho is one of those teams that, they've made a shift and they're starting to play different players, they've taken some that they played a year ago and they're not getting as many minutes and so he's went to a core group and they've gotten a lot better. They played really well against us that night. We played well in spurts. We didn't play a real consistent game throughout, we played in spurts and we just gutted it out and found a way to win.
bc.net: Sherell, Anikia and Madison had 39 of the team's 54 points, what was Idaho able to do to keep the rest of the team in check?
DS: I just think, those are our three top scorers and I think we just kept trying to play through them and the others did a really good job of filling their roles and we needed everybody to step in and play good solid defense because for a while there we were missing shots and we got down a little bit. We just got out of sync on the offensive end and primarily because we weren't as aggressive, we weren't driving the ball as much, we were just passing it around and holding it. Our defensive effort kept us in the game and we started getting some better offensive looks and turned the game in our favor.
bc.net: How much did the arena itself have to do with the low scoring, is it a visually difficult place to play? [Note: Idaho plays in the Kibbie Dome/Cowan Spectrum that also hosts the Idaho football team]
DS: It is but it isn't. It's in a huge dome but they do a pretty good job of using curtains behind the baskets so it's black, it's not like Syracuse being in The Carrier Dome, so you don't have that backdrop. But at the same time it is different than any backdrop we play against in the other arenas. I really think the biggest effect on the game is that there's nobody in the arena. It's just a big building with a makeshift court in there and there's zero atmosphere in there whatsoever. There's not a lot of fans, for us it's a long hard trip to get there, that plays into it as well.
bc.net: With Idaho playing a little bit better, are they a team that you can't sleep on if you get them in the early rounds of the WAC tournament?
DS: No question. I really think that if you don't get after it, if you play them and you just walk in and think that you're going to beat them, they have enough players, especially their inside game, is pretty effective. If you walk into a game with them and think you're just going to roll over them, it could be a long day for you.
bc.net: Can you talk about the obstacles you had in getting out of Moscow and just getting to Boise for the game on Saturday?
DS: I'll tell you the difference. Here we are, we're busing two hours from Spokane airport to Moscow Idaho, the UCLA men were at the same hotel with us because they played Washington State the same night [Note: Idaho and Washington State are roughly ten miles apart] as soon as their game was over they jumped on their charter plane and they were gone. We wait until the next morning, get on a bus at 6:00 a.m., head for the airport, well the normal roads were closed because of the weather. We went a northern route and there were a couple semi trucks flipped over blocking the highway so we sat for the longest time. I got out, walked and went and found a cafe in this little town, I had the bus pull up. Everybody jumped out, we spent a couple hours in this cafe and everybody ate and then the bus driver heard from another driver that there was another route open. So we got back in the bus, turned around, went back about 30 minutes and then around the lake and headed over through Couer D'Alene, Idaho and went that way. So we were eight hours on that trip when it should've taken an hour and forty five minutes.
Then when we got to the airport, we had missed two flights going to Boise, they could only fit eight of us on the flight that night. So myself and seven of our players took that flight out. My first thought was, well let's all be together, let's wait and fly the next morning we'll stay in Spokane but then I talked with a couple of the seniors and they thought it would be a better idea to take the five starters and then two reserve players and myself and go that night so we were there. So we did that, the rest of the group stayed behind in Spokane in a hotel and took a flight the next day. So we didn't practice Friday. We had no preparations as far as going through tape watching. Saturday we went to the gym with me and seven players. Niki Holt didn't have her shoes because her bag didn't arrive so she was wearing my shoes and mine are a size too big for her, she was wearing my basketball shoes that I had. So we did shoot around with seven players, the rest of the crew showed up at 1:30 p.m., we had our pregame meal at 2:00 and then hung out and went to the game. It was obviously an adventure.
bc.net: Can you talk about the game?
DS: We started the game up, Niki hit a three. I told Niki if they don't guard you on the perimeter, shoot the ball. First time she got it, they didn't guard her, she hit a three pointer, we're up three nothing. Boise is a darn good team, defending champion, they've got real aggressive guards. They raised their level and kind of got after us a bit and we were pretty sluggish. We played like we had a trip like we had. There was no way of getting around that. We missed some shots early, got down 14 and then at halftime we had a little talk about what we needed to do, came out in the second half, it took a while but we turned it on and really made a run at them. We had a late lead in the game, had a chance in regulation and then had a chance in overtime, we had a legitimate chance to win the game. All in all in the big picture of it, we beat the defending champion in our place by 14 and then lose at their place by 1 in overtime so, we hate to lose but we feel good about how we came back and gave ourselves a chance.
bc.net: You were down by 14 points with 10 minutes left to play and over the course of the next 6 minutes you were able to tie the game up. What were you able to do, what was the biggest factor in being able to get back into the game?
DS: We made some substitutions, I put in Brittany Palmer, DaDa [Danisha Corbett] two of the freshmen, I put Irma in, had Hannah play one of the post spots and then had Madison and Monique rotating in and then rotated Anikia for Sherell. We went a little smaller, we went faster and kind of made it crazy. We pressed some, we picked up, we defended better. I told DaDa and Brittany, whenver you get it, drive it to the basket as hard as you can and we were able to hit some short shots in the lane, we were able to make passes out and we hit a few three point shots and then what few free throws we had we did a fairly good job of making free throws that game. So we raised the intensity of the game.
bc.net: In overtime you were able to take a quick 5-0 lead, how much effect did battling back from the 14 point deficit affect the team? In addition to the effects of the trip and just playing an extra five minutes of basketball?
DS: I think it had a big effect on us just because you spend all that energy coming back and that small group that turned it around for and got you going and got you the lead, all of the sudden they're fatigued. They're tired and you want to keep them in because you've got a good rhythm going but you've gotta sub them so that kind of breaks that rhythm as well. But then I think fatigue set in mentally more than it did the legs. We had a couple turnovers and just couldn't hang onto it.
bc.net: Going back to the end of regulation Hannah Spanich hit that big three with a little under 10 seconds left. Can you talk about the confidence factor in going from basically struggling up through the game at UTEP to the point where she's taking potentially game winning shots?
DS: Give her a lot of credit for, one having the maturity to grow as the year has gone by and then having the confidence. It's funny, afterwards she said, "Would you have been mad at me if I would have missed that?" I said no, because what have we always tried to teach? Let players make plays and that was a great open court situation where they didn't pick her up. They had been playing her to be a driver and she's a scorer and she stepped up and knocked that shot down. That was a big time play.
bc.net: In your coaching experience and all the kids that have come through your programs, have you ever seen such a huge progression during the course of a season as Hannah's had?
DS: I'd have to say no. She's quickly turning into that player that we really thought she could be when we recruited her. She's shown a lot of maturity, she's played a couple different positions for us and she's just got a world of confidence going. We've always had confidence in her as a player as a coaching staff. Each player hits that point in their career where they "get it" and they go to another level. Good thing we have her for the rest of this season and we've got her for two more years.
bc.net: Psychologically how do you put Saturday's game behind you, coming up a little bit short but knowing that if maybe a couple things outside of the game with the trip to Boise had gone differently you might have won the game?
DS: The player have to have it in their minds that they're going to take our game to another level. Every year I've been here we've started playing our best basketball at the end of the year and we're getting toward that point. The difference this year is we've had a much better season and we've won a lot of the closer games and so now we've got to find a whole other rhythm and a whole other sense of urgency to go knock this thing out and play for that championship. I would be really disappointed if we didn't, if that game affected us in a negative way I'd be disappointed. I really believe that this team will learn from that and move forward and will be really excited and eager to play La. Tech.
The one thing that has always concerned me about this team is the fact that we have yet to go into a game with the mindset that we are just going to kick your tail. We don't have that inner fire and that drive and we've done well but it's something that as coaches we've been talking to this group about. We need to show that raw meat, we're just going to tear you apart mentality and maybe that will get us to take that next step.
bc.net: This week you have a home game against La. Tech (5-5, 11-12), in the last game against La. Tech, the week leading up to it you felt your team had what one of their worst weeks preparation wise. How much has the team learned from that experience?
DS: I think we've learned quite a bit we've reached a whole other level. We've won a couple road games and we've lost a couple road games in overtime and I think that speaks to that right there that they're trying to work the kinks out and becoming a little more hungry. They know that we didn't play all that well at La. Tech so I really think our kids are going to be excited, our coaches are going to make them excited. It's at the point of the season, no more right now do I wait and see how we're going to be, we go into practice and really set the tone and try to get some fire to us and really crank it up. We need to prepare, we need to work and we need to put ourselves in position to take it to La. Tech.
bc.net: You held them to 29% shooting in their gym in the last game, has much changed since then with their team or do you expect to be able to pressure them defensively and force them into another poor shooting night?
DS: We concentrate on what we do and we set out to defend first, be as active as we can be. We're gonna set out to make them have to guard us and play great defense. La. Tech is a good basketball team. They have good players, they have experienced players and we can't just expect to walk into the game and win, they have gotten a lot better, they just put up 80-something points at Idaho. They forced Boise into a tough game. They're an athletic team, they're a quick team, they play off their post players a lot like how we like to play. They're pretty similar to us, it's going to be a matter of who wants it more. It's our home game, they had to go from Idaho all the way back to La. Tech and then gotta come back here so we need to take advantage of that. We just experienced how hard it is to make a road trip like that. If we don't come ready to get after it, they'll beat us. They're a good basketball team. Everybody talk about how they're down, they're not too far down, they're still La. Tech. We need to show a little bit more sense of urgency and come out and play for 40 minutes.
bc.net: In the last game you mentioned that you didn't play your best game but that being said you were still only down one possession with under a minute left in the game. What needs to happen differently for your team to come out with the win?
DS: As is the case in all of our games, Anikia Jawara and Sherell Neal need to step up and set the tone for us defensively, offensively and just in the work, in the effort. Because we play how those guys play and we go where they take us. There's no secret to that. They need to really crank it up and show that senior leadership and get their averages. We don't ever ask them to have a monster night but just get their averages and do their part. As is the case with Madison, she's proved she can play and does some good things at this level and she's got to be ready to step in and hit shots and handle the ball. Our senior guards, Monique, Irma, they need to step up and play better. It was no one players' fault why we got beat at La. Tech, it was our whole crew. A lot of that is dictated by what your seniors do. This is the time of the year that seniors step up and set the tone and lead the group. We've been talking for five years how nice it is to have seniors, well here we are at the nitty gritty time of the year, championship time so they're the ones that have to carry us there.
