Coale, Jackson & Rush Big 12 Quotes

KANSAS CITY -- Oklahoma head coach Sherri Coale, senior guard Dionnah Jackson and sophomore forward Leah Rush met with the press corps Thursday at the annual Big 12 Conference Basketball Media Day in Kansas City.

The following is a transcript provided by the Big 12 Conference from the media day...

MODERATOR: We would like to welcome the Sooners from the University of Oklahoma. We will start off, Coach, would you introduce your players, please.

COACH COALE: Yes, I have Leah Rush, a sophomore at the University of Oklahoma and Dionnah Jackson, a senior co-captain at the University of Oklahoma.

Sooner Express Friday | 2004-05 Women's Basketball Media Guide

MODERATOR: Okay, you want to make an opening comment?

COACH COALE: Yes. First of all, this is not church and you guys can move to the front if you want to. I feel very scared that you are all the way in the back. You are very far away from me.

I like my team. I like them a lot. We have had 10 workouts, they have been incredibly competitive. We appear to be able to have great depth, and I like our leadership. We have that very rare combination, youth and experience. We are very young. We only have two seniors. We have two freshmen. The rest of our guys are right in the middle.

That means that they have played some basketball games. They have competed in the Big 12 conference. They have been on the floor in a Big 12 tournament championship. They have experience under their belt. That makes it fun.

That's why the first 10 days of practice have been competitive. There is a confidence they have, an energy they bring to the floor, and I think there was a hunger that was born in Tempe, Ariz., when we didn't do what we wanted to do in the NCAA tournament.

That is an incentive to get back in the gym and start again, play for a better ending the second time around.

Q. What was that specifically that you took from the end of last year with the NCAA tournament?

COACH COALE: We played, obviously, extremely well in Dallas. That creates, within your kids, a swagger. That doesn't get handed down to you. Just because your team was good the previous season doesn't mean that you walk out on the floor and think you are capable of winning automatically. There is a little bit of that that's passed down.

You have to do it yourself to have that real sense of confidence and swagger. The way these guys performed for four straight games in Texas was special. They walked out of that gym with their shoulders held back and a different cadence to their step. We went into the NCAA tournament and didn't play very well in either game. We played at Tempe and lost to Stanford. I am not sure the way Stanford played anybody in America could have beat them.

That's the taste you have in your mouth at the end of the year. The year we played Connecticut and lost in the championship, it was the championship game, and you feel good about that, and nobody else was playing but the two of you, and all the things associated with that. We left the floor saying, hey, we played pretty well. I am not sure we could have played a whole lot better. There is a sense about that that has some satisfaction to it. We did not play as well as we were capable last year in Tempe, and we want to right that.

Q. For the players, are you a little disappointed with maybe a lack of respect in the preseason polls or do you pay attention to those kinds of things?

DIONNAH JACKSON: We really don't pay attention to those kinds of things. We are just taking care of our business and going hard every day in practice. We just are going to worry about how we finish.

LEAH RUSH: I agree wholeheartedly on that. I care about what happens during the season and afterwards. Preseason is just for the fans, I guess. It doesn't make a big difference to the players.

Q. When you look at the players who are no longer in the conference, there are six that were drafted out of the Big 12 into the NBA, is it reasonable to assume that maybe the overall talent level in the Big 12 might slip a notch this year?

COACH COALE: No, I don't think so. I don't think so at all. I think we did lose some marquee players, some guys who were very, very talented and already have gone on to the WNBA and made a difference, but I think we still have a collection of very, very talented teams. You might not have the names, however, when I look at first team preseason

Big 12 picks and honorable mention Big 12 picks, there is some glitz and glamour in those names as well. I think you have really solid teams that remain, maybe even teams that are even more competitive. There is more parity maybe than there was even last year. I don't see a very big drop, Olin.

Q. Can you just talk a little bit how you regain the swagger after losing it at Stanford, what you do to build it back up?

COACH COALE: I don't really think that our stubbing our toe in Tempe was necessarily a cause for us to lose our swagger. I don't think if it's real, you have real confidence, that it dissipates because you have a poor performance. I think those four days in Dallas showed us how good we could be, and it was tough for us because losing in Tempe meant that's the end, you don't get to play anymore. These guys weren't ready.

We were just figuring it out. About February we started figuring it out. That happens when you have five freshmen and a huge sophomore class. It was almost as if, why stop us now, we just got this thing going. Fortunately for us we had an opportunity to go to Europe and compete and 10 days of practice before you go overseas. That was a good continuation for us to build on the confidence that we had established through our performance in Dallas.

I think that has continued through the summer and it certainly has been evident in the preseason and the early practices.

Q. Sherri, given Caton's presence in the program, the last several years, are you worried about a void in leadership with her absence, besides what she did on the board?

COACH COALE: You know, I am already missing Caton at Media Day because she was highly entertaining in this venue. Caton is one of the neatest kids I have ever had an opportunity to coach. As a matter of fact, I had a text message before I walked in this morning from her. She's just a really neat kid who is in medical school at the University now, came to our scrimmage the other night, still very involved.

The thing I think we will miss from Caton is her edge. We will get that from another source, while I am not sure exactly if that will be one person or a combination of people, or maybe even it's a residue she left with our team.

But Caton provided an edge. Leadership?wise, DIONNAH JACKSON steps right in. I mentioned this earlier, that in 2002, Stacey Dales, as she breathed, so did we. This team will not be different. As she goes, we go. She has developed in the four years at the University of Oklahoma into a phenomenal leader. This is a kid who came in from St. Louis not really wanting to lead and not caring too much about that role, wasn't comfortable for her.

I would say it was not natural for her at that time. She was thrust into that position as a sophomore, the year we lost four kids to season?ending injuries. She was thrust into that position and grew in that position. Last year somewhere about the middle of January she called it her own. She has become one of the most special leaders I have ever coached, including the likes of Stacey Dales and Caton Hill. We are getting it.

Q. Dionnah, there is a rumor going around you are not as quiet as you used to be. Are you forcing that out of you or is it finally coming out of you? How did that come to be?

DIONNAH JACKSON: I think it just finally came out. I don't know.

Q. You sound quiet now.

COACH COALE: Because you are making her talk about her. If you ask her other questions, she will roll on for hours.

DIONNAH JACKSON: I think it finally needed to come out, so it did. I feel more comfortable talking and yelling and having fun.

Q. A similar question I asked earlier, but with all the seniors that did graduate last year, how do you see the makeup or nature of the conference this year? Are there any players you think are really going to step up from secondary roles to become those stars you talked about?

COACH COALE: I just think that depends upon whose perspective you are looking at. You could call Kendra Wecker a sub?plot player last year and Nicole Ohlde the highlight if you wanted to, but I guarantee you when we were playing Kansas State, we were talking about Kendra Wecker. It depends what your perspective is.

You look at Texas returning Heather Schreiber, Tiffany Jackson, now moving into a limelight role because Stacy Stevens is gone. There is a lot of young talent in our league. I think there are a lot of what media people might refer to as role players, they are a whole lot better than you might think they are.

Q. Coach, what are you expecting from Chelsi Welch this season, and how has she come back from her injury?

COACH COALE: I am expecting for her ball to go in the basket often. She can still shoot it, I promise you guys. What you remember from her as Rookie of the Year, Co-Rookie of the Year in the conference her freshman season hadn't changed a bit. She is running around using screens, guarding people, jumping up, shooting jumpers. The only way you would know she had sat out last season is because she wears a brace on her knee. That's it. She is not playing any differently.

As a matter of fact, she has fine?tuned some things. Chelsi is an unbelievable consciencous kid and spent very little time off the floor last year feeling sorry for herself or worrying about everything. Every set of leg raises that she did on the table, she had a ball in her hand, dribbling, shooting, laying on her back, whatever. Chelsi is your old?school gym rat. That didn't change because she got injured. She used that time.

She is the perfect model for any young kid who gets injured, what can you do to make sure that you still keep getting better even when you can't play? She could write a book on that because she was just outstanding over the past year.

The way she is playing right now is proof of that, very natural, very confident, very fluid, very strong. She has taken care of her body. She just looks great.

Q. Sherri, in your opinion, is it important for the popularity or the growth of women's college basketball, is it important for some teams other than Tennessee and Connecticut to win a championship game, because it seems like just when you think of women's college basketball, that's really the two programs that we are consciously aware of?

COACH COALE: Sure it is, without hesitation. Sure it is. It's important. The same way it was important for our league in 2001 when we made a battle cry as a league that we are the top women's basketball conference in the country and everybody said, "Well, then go to the Final Four." Well, so we did. Then Texas did. Now there is something to substantiate that battle cry.

I think the same is true for all of our programs. Connecticut has owned the thing. We can say anything we want to in here. The truth is they have owned it the last three years. It seems like 43, I don't know, a while. It's time for some of us to step up and win it. It is one of those things that if you can crack that ceiling, the dam might just break, but somebody has to crack it.

MODERATOR: Thank you all very much. We would like to wish you the best for the season. If you step to the back and take the one-on-ones.

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Dionnah Jackson, Sr, G, 5-9, St. Louis, Mo.
Preseason Wade Trophy and Wooden Award candidate. 2004 Big 12 Tournament MVP and All-Big 12 second team as a sophomore and junior. Averaged 12.5 points and 6.0 rebounds last year with a team-best 5.0 assists per game.

Leah Rush, So, F, 6-1, Amarillo, Texas
Returning starter who played in all 33 games as a true freshman. Averaged 8.4 points and 4.4 rebounds while shooting 45.4 percent from the field and 82.2 percent from the free throw line. Averaged 13 points in NCAA Tournament play.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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