Gold Rush: Coach Mike Petersen Talks About The New Season
12/13/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 13, 2004
Mike Petersen isn't taking over a last-place team as far as he's concerned. The new women's basketball coach at Wake Forest isn't worried about what has come before, and even if he has heard the critics, he still likes what he sees on the court.
"This is my fourth head coaching job," Petersen said. "In all four of them, I've taken over a program that needed some rebuilding. At all four of them, when I got there, I thought we had better players than people thought we did. That's certainly true here, and I have confidence in this group." Petersen talked to Gold Rush's Jay Reddick a week before the team's season opener.
Gold Rush: How have the first few weeks of practice been? Petersen: I've been really happy with our progress. We've made really good strides as a team, first of all, understanding expectations. They've learned how we want to play, how we want to practice and what the quality of our effort needs to be. That's been really good. This group has grasped the concepts, offensively and defensively, of how we want to play really well. Especially on offense, they've done a good job of not just understanding the basics, but how to counter, how to adjust.
Gold Rush: How did you prepare as a coach? Did you want to watch as much film as possible, or let your first impression be on the court? Petersen: I watched all of last year's games, but that's my personality. I'm an over-preparer, an over-analyzer, a big fan of straight lines and right angles, and I'm also kind of a film junkie. I re-evaluate every practice every day on film. So that's just me. But what I didn't do is use those tapes to make any decisions on players. What I found watching the films was there were some skill sets that were a little underutilized or underappreciated. That's no knock on what's gone on before; it's just a different way of doing things.
Gold Rush: What have you been able to harness from those underappreciated skills? Petersen: We're trying to get Liz (Strunk) to play a little farther from the basket. We wanted to get Liz into situations that created matchups a little more beneficial. Keila Evans and Melissa Washington, based on last year's films, are two who can play a pretty big role. Melissa's hurt her knee and will redshirt, but Keila will play. I really liked Porsche Jones. She has really good straight-line speed, she shares the ball well, she thinks pass first, and those all fit in to how we want to play.
Gold Rush: So the things you have learned in the first month of practice have supported that? Petersen: Yeah, I haven't had that many surprises. Nobody really surprised me, because I have a pretty high opinion of these kids. It's just a matter of getting them to play up to that skill set.
Gold Rush: You said the offense has performed well, but the defense put up some good numbers in the exhibition game. Petersen: We were good on defense, we forced something like 33 turnovers and committed four. Comparing numbers in exhibition games is relatively meaningless, but that's a team that played Big East, Big Ten and ACC teams on their tour, and their average scoring margin for the tour was minus-9. We beat them by 51. A lot of that was driven by our defense. We're going to be primarily a zone team, but having said that, it's not the stand-around-and-protect-the-basket zone. It's very aggressive, we want to pressure, stop reversals, force the ball to the side and get a lot of deflections. We got 18 steals the other night and did what we wanted. Two things we chart are uncontested shots and layups, and we gave up zero, because offensively, we took care of the ball. The best thing is that we played really, really hard. If that's your bedrock, in any organization, the rest will work itself out.
Gold Rush: What are your impressions of the roster? Petersen: At the guards, I really like Porsche Jones' progress since last April. Her skill set fits what we want to do, she's a tenacious defender. Tara Tate is a freshman and her backup right now. She shares a similar skill set with Porsche, good speed, not afraid to pass, good shooter, good defender. She's just trying to adjust to the speed of the college game.
At the off-guard, Cotelia Bond-Young is going to have a great year, she's very skilled. Our biggest concern at the guards is our lack of size. Against bigger teams, we're really going to have to make sure our pressure offsets our lack of size. Meredith Bell is a senior at the off, she's working very hard and shoots well. Tiara Good, who redshirted last year as a freshman, is trying to make that college transition now.
Jennifer Johnson plays some 2 and some 3, and she has been the rock-solid everyday, hard-working kid in the program. She's someone to rely on every day. Right now, she's our first sub off the bench, because she brings so much energy.
At the forwards, Liz Strunk, very skilled offensively, presents some matchup problems because she can play with her back to the basket but also can shoot the 3, so she needs to have a good year for us. Erin Ferrell is playing very hard. We're trying to get her farther from the basket, and she has a good medium-range game. Keila Evans has had a very good fall. A lot of her improvement will just come from confidence. She's going to be a very good player, but she needs to believe in herself. It's paying off. She can score inside and is a very good rebounder. Maya Bennett, very good athlete who is developing her skills. Christen Brown, our other freshman, plays some 4 and some 5, and is very skilled, a good post-up player and a good passer. She'll need to adjust, but she's adjusting well.
Gold Rush: With Melissa Washington's injury, you're left with no one taller than 6-foot-3. Is that going to hurt you down the road? Petersen: It does, and it doesn't. I'm a big half-full guy. There's no question it puts us in a position we're undersized, but suddenly, we have a team with quickness at all five spots that can change ends really quickly. At those 3-4-5 positions, I don't care who defends the post, so we can do some things defensively to bother some people. The downside is, we have to really block out well, and we have to defend the post by committee, but if we do those things, we can turn a supposed disadvantage to our favor.
Gold Rush: Playing the zone, you're obviously not looking at funneling the ball down into a shot-blocker. Petersen: We have to have ball pressure all the time. We did in our exhibition. As long as we have that, we'll be fine. We can keep it out of the middle. If we get good pressure on the ball, take their vision, and front down low, it's going to be hard to get the ball over the top. If we don't have good ball pressure, we have issues.
Gold Rush: In other interviews, you have been taken to task for saying your goal is to win the ACC. But doesn't it have to be? Petersen: I'm not Joe Namath. I'm not promising we'll win the league. But at the same time, I don't know why you set a goal that doesn't involve achieving at the highest level. People think it's meaningless: "You don't really mean that." Well, yeah, I do. To me, that speaks to, we're going to prepare like we're going to win the league, and go into every game focused like we're going to win the league. We're going to work hard and have the real confidence that comes from hard work, and then we're going to go out and attack the thing. This is a great league, and there are 10 other teams trying for this same goal. Ninety percent of the teams aren't going to reach that goal, and I understand that, but all I'm saying is, that has to be our goal. We can't go in saying, "Let's come in fourth," because we'll never be better than that. A lot of people have said to me that fourth would be a school record, but I can't do anything about the past, I can just impact the present.
Gold Rush: Your recruiting class for next season has gotten a lot of good notice. Petersen: We signed three by Nov. 10, and we're really happy with those three. The class has been ranked top 20 or top 10 in various publications. That's nice for our program and those kids, but more than that, these are kids that really fit in with what we're trying to do.
Dierdre Naughton, from Chicago, is a great player, 5-9, 5-10 wing who can really score the ball. Yolanda Lavender might be the best high school point guard in the country. She's outstanding, with NBA-like feel for the game. Corinne Groves is the best post player in the state, and she has great presence.
My assistants have done a great job. I've got as good a staff as there is in the country, and they deserve credit for this group.
Gold Rush: What is your recruiting philosophy? Petersen: I think one of the great things about Wake Forest is that, because of the national reputation academically, this is a great university, and we'll be able to recruit the right kinds of students nationally. The right person anywhere in the country who is being recruited by the Stanfords, the Dukes, the Vanderbilts, the great institutions with great women's basketball programs -- why wouldn't they be interested in Wake Forest? Those are the kinds of kids with the academic motivation to compete here, and we need to be in that group. Over in admissions, they're competing with the Ivy Leagues, and we need to compete with like-minded schools who are competitive in women's basketball. The great thing is, there are so many good players in this part of the country.
