Wake Forest Traditions

Charlene Curtis Q & A

Charlene Curtis' second year as head women's basketball coach showed Deacon fans a little more about why she was hired in the first place. The team improved from four to eight wins, but more than that, it began to show a confidence and a winning plan that had not truly taken hold before now. The team won three ACC regular-season games after winning none the year before and was playing its best basketball at the end, winning two of its final five games and coming close in two others. Gold Rush's Jay Reddick talked with Curtis a few days after their season-ending loss to Virginia in the ACC Tournament in Charlotte. The following is their conversation:

Gold Rush: The way the team finished the year, with a big win over Maryland then a tight loss to Virginia in the ACC Tournament, must have been gratifying.

Curtis: We had a great finish. Really, our last week of the regular season, we won the game against Florida State, which was a must-win for us because we wanted to stay out of last place. Even though there was still a long shot that could happen, winning that game was important. We really stepped it up and played well at home. Then we had Clemson here, and most other teams in the league struggled as bad as we did to score against Clemson.

Then we played very well at N.C. State. You could see the confidence starting to rise. And the only changes we made were putting Janae Whiteside in the starting lineup and limiting Olivia Dardy to the five spot. She had played mostly three, and we put her back inside because we felt we were not getting enough rebounding from her. She led us in rebounding, but she got those rebounds when she was in the post. She scored more inside, too. When we went back to that, it made a big difference. Janae (Whiteside) started shooting the ball well, and she played with a lot of confidence, and that just rubbed off on everyone.

Heidi (Coleman) fed right into it right away. It took some of the pressure off of Heidi. Teams always played somebody on Heidi. She was trying to run our team as the quarterback and also look for her shots, and yet she always had somebody in her face. Our offense wasn't really designed to run her off of screens, because she isn't really that kind of player. She's more of a spot-up shooter, taking a pass from inside, and we've been trying to get that for two years.

Our inside game developed, and that's something I thought would happen. Emon McMillian played well down the stretch. If she had not gotten an injured ankle, she would have done even more. LaChina (Robinson) was solid all year long. The fact that we got our offense going where we could get the ball in the post and make cuts off of it meant teams had to play better defense on us, pay more attention. It created more opportunities for us.

Even Alisha Mosley started putting the ball on the floor, and teams started to realize they had to help more defensively. And we started to realize we could find our shooters from that spot, and that's what we've been looking for. And it wasn't too late, because we can still build on it for next year.

Gold Rush: You look at the stats, and the balance offensively is obvious. You set all kinds of 3-point records but still had the inside strength.

Curtis: We still ended the season without anybody averaging double figures. But one of the teams in the tournament has nobody averaging more than 10 points a game, a bunch of people at nine, and they score a whole lot of points, because they have lots of people who can get things done for them.

I still think we need one or two players who are go-to players when we need a bucket. Virginia did that to us with DeMya Walker. They went to her the last couple of possessions. We have to find somebody earlier next year who can be that for us. Maybe it will be Janae, I don't know. But it could very well be someone else.

You can look at Kristen Shaffer. We started to play her more when we moved Olivia inside, and she had some good offensive games and has continued to work on her defense.

I was really pleased with the fact that, people kept asking me all year, how do you keep them motivated when you've lost so many games? I think after a while, you stop looking at the record. I know we won eight games, but I don't know how many we lost. What you start looking at is, how do you get better? Are we getting better? We had some goals, finishing in the top three in some defensive categories. We made inroads in rebounding, holding other teams down on defense, just small goals. We wanted to outrebound an opponent, hold a player to a certain amount. We constantly attained those goals, and the confidence kept building.

We treated the ACC Tournament as a second season for us. First of all, it was our only shot at the NCAA tournament. We didn't go in thinking we had no shot. We felt comfortable playing Virginia. We had great looks at the basket the first two times we played them, and if we knocked them down, we could beat that team. Then, if you win that, you've got Carolina or Georgia Tech, and we had confidence against both of those teams. Then, you're in the final, and you see what happens. We really had that kind of confidence going in.

Gold Rush: And you were just a couple of points away from making that happen.

Curtis: Yeah, a rebound, a loose ball, a free throw, or whatever. We didn't rebound as well as we needed to against Virginia. As we look to next year, what we didn't do was win nonconference games this year. We can look at our conference schedule next year and say it would be great to go 8-8. That's a little bit of a stretch, though it's not impossible. But where we have to win games first is outside the conference. We have to win eight to 10 games outside the league in order to even have a winning record.

Gold Rush: The quality depth you had was a standard for most of the year.

Curtis: I believe that we have, on the team, replacements for our seniors. At the guard spot, Janae has stepped up, and we have Val Klopfer and Adell Harris. With them, I have no concerns about our ballhandling abilities for next year.

Jenn Miklic's position as a defensive role player, that specific role, I'm not sure if we can fill -- maybe with a freshman. We did it a little bit this year with Adell, Janae, or Kristen, so that's an option.

With the 3 spot in itself, Kristen Shaffer and Liz Rogers both showed some potential there, and Olivia Dardy still could move back out there.

With Emon McMillian's spot down low, we have LaTisha Pearson, and Elizabeth Biedrycki, and you throw Brenda Mock (Kirkpatrick) in the mix, and you still have Olivia.

Somebody will emerge into those spots. Our seniors left us in a position where they taught the younger players well enough to carry on after they leave.

Everybody has good experience. None of them have been the one, but some, I think, have just been waiting in the wings for an opportunity.

Gold Rush: Talk a little bit about the seniors, and what they have meant during your time here.

Curtis: I have a lot of respect for them in how they were able to stay with it. They've been through a lot. Emon and Heidi, having been here for five years, have suffered through injuries, and with Jenn, they went through a coaching change, and all the games that we lost. But this year, they were able to keep their intensity, lead by example in practice and share with the freshmen what it means to be in the ACC. I think this class did a lot to share that. We will see the fruits of their labor next year and the year after. You saw some of it in that last week.

I wanted to have a winning season their last year here. After a while, it got pretty obvious that wasn't going to happen, and it would have been easy for them to roll over, say, "OK, we didn't get it done, I'm tired of this. Freshmen, take over." And at one point, I thought they almost did that. But then, they were like, "you know what? For us to really help them, we have to do our part."

You can't look at any of them and say they didn't work hard, show love for the game, respect for the coaching staff, and I think they showed that to the younger players. Were they perfect? No, they were not perfect. But they have a respect and a leadership, and they passed that along. They also were able to mend some broken bridges on the team and show that we may not agree all the time, but we're in this for the same reason. We learned more to count on each other and learned what each of us does affects the whole.

Gold Rush: It sounds like your philosophy is starting to get through to them.

Curtis: I hope so. Our staff re-evaluates things all the time. I believe change is good. Next year's team is not going to be the same as this year's. The personalities will be different, and it's important that we all grow. What I expect of our players, I also expect of our staff and of me. So we all have to continue to evolve and change. My philosophy, though its base remains the same, is different now from when I started coaching, because the student-athletes are different, and I'm different. So I can't coach the same way I did in 1984. But I always expect a good work ethic, honesty, commitment, and the integrity that we can count on each other.

Gold Rush: What are the biggest things that you've asked your players to work on in the offseason?

Curtis: We haven't really gotten to that point yet. We met after the Tournament, and we will meet as a staff and then meet with each individual player.

In general, we have to keep working on our conditioning. We have to get stronger, we have to keep working on our agility to become a more athletic team.

I want us to be a better defensive team next year, expand our defense a little more. I don't know that we'll be a full-court pressing team, but I want to see a little more pressure.

It's important that our post players develop moves, and our strength inside has to improve. We need to continue to work on our ballhandling, though we've made tremendous strides in that area.

Everybody will work on shooting, that's a given, and we have to become a better overall shooting team. Our shooting percentage last year was too low. Our 3-pointers made up for some of that, but we have to become better shooters.

But we also have to become a better passing team.

Wake Forest Athletics

Charlene Curtis Q & A