Wake Forest Athletics
Gold Rush Feature: Q&A With Mike Petersen
3/21/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 21, 2011
This article was originally published in the March 19 edition of Gold Rush.
After two consecutive postseason bids, expectations were high for the women's basketball team this year. With a deep, talented roster, many within the program expected a step forward, and possibly an NCAA tournament bid. Unfortunately, an early four-game nonconference losing streak set the tone for a step back, and despite a late three-game ACC winning streak, the year finished at 15-17, ninth in the ACC and out of the running for a postseason bid. Gold Rush's Jay Reddick talked to coach Mike Petersen as he began preparations for next season.
Gold Rush: Does this season feel like a disappointment?
Petersen: Absolutely, you've got it. We clearly had much higher goals for where we would finish, how we would play. We struggled in December and the first part of January with who we were, and how we played, and how hard we would play. When we got that straight, we started playing very well. We won three in a row, including an ACC tournament game, and avenged three earlier losses against Clemson, N.C. State and Virginia. We just didn't do a good enough job during the course of the season to live up to expectations.
Gold Rush: What was the cause of those early struggles?
Petersen: I wish I knew that. Our effort level and focus level, which are the things we can control, were never consistent until the end of the year. I didn't think we'd have issues with that, because we had a lot of returning players who had been through it. I didn't expect us to have the kinds of consistency issues that we had. There were some nights we gave games away that we should have won. That's on me, to make sure our focus and our energy are right, but we struggled. Now, the good news, or the most frustrating thing, depending how you look at it, is when we got it right, we were pretty good.
Gold Rush: Was there something that flipped the switch at the end of the year?
Petersen: I liked the way we played at the end, but I don't know if there's ever a switch that gets flipped. In most cases, you grow into it gradually. But we proved to one another and to ourselves that we could have done more and can still be very good in the future. It's not like we fell off into a great abyss this season -- we finished 6-10 against ACC teams (including the tournament), which is still the fourth-best record in school history. But just as clearly, that's not acceptable right now, and we need to hold ourselves accountable for that. We need to take several steps forward next year and learn serious lessons off what happened this year.
And let me be clear -- this isn't a players-only thing. It starts with me, and it's on everybody, coaches, trainers and on down, to make sure we do learn the lessons and take another step in the right direction.
Gold Rush: Most of this group can come back to try again next year.
Petersen: We lose one contributor, Brittany Waters, obviously an important loss. But we get back Camille Collier, who we lost at the beginning of the year to a knee injury. So in a way, we lose a starter and gain a starter who hopefully will help us with perimeter shooting.
The minutes that some of our younger players got this year will help us going forward, and we have three solid recruits coming in. To me, we're in a similar spot right now to where we were a year ago -- now it's up to us to make the most of our second chance.
Gold Rush: Individually, what were the bright spots this year?
Petersen: Obviously Brittany, the way she closed so strong -- 40 points against Clemson, then double-doubles in two more games down the stretch. I'm very happy for her and glad she has very positive memories of the way we closed.
When we did a good job of getting her the ball, Sandra Garcia was very good, so that was a positive.
And our play at the point was much improved. Brooke Thomas was better, assist-to-turnover ratio, orchestrating and leading us, and Chelsea Douglas stepped in well as a freshman and scored for us in some games.
Also, in a quiet way, Mykala Walker had a nice year. She started quite a bit for us and had a lot of really positive times. She played well against Virginia in the ACC tournament. She grew a lot as she had a much bigger role, and that was nice to see.
