Iowa women's basketball 11-15-23
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00:00 All right, well it's good to be back at home again after two road games. Two
00:08 really big games for us obviously this week, hosting Kansas State and hosting
00:13 in-state rival Drake who just beat Iowa State this week. But Kansas State, you
00:18 know, kind of gives us some bad memories from last year. We had the one-point loss
00:21 at their place. It was a situation where, you know, we had a lead and we kind of
00:29 let it escape us and they got to the free throw line a lot with that. So we're
00:33 anxious to play them again, but it is a very good team obviously. And you know,
00:39 last year, Ayoka Lee was out with an injury, a knee injury, and so she's back
00:45 and that makes a big difference for this team. I mean, she's almost 6'7". She's a,
00:50 you know, probably the one of the tallest posts that we'll go against all year
00:54 long and we have to be ready for her. And they also have some decent three-pointer
00:59 point shooters that, you know, open things up for her. So Kansas State, good team,
01:03 receiving votes in both polls and we know we'll have a battle on our hands.
01:08 Sydney, what's with you rebounding right now? You're leading the team in
01:11 rebounding, you had 14 against Virginia Tech. What's, you know, have you been such a
01:17 monster on the boards? Yeah, I mean I think that was really an emphasis this
01:21 year and with McKenna and Monica leaving, I knew that was gonna be really
01:26 important within my role. So I just want to take advantage of that whenever I'm
01:30 on the floor and I just think rebounding is just a lot about hustle. Just get in,
01:36 get after it. You have a player like Kaitlyn and even if you didn't, how important is it
01:43 extending those possessions with offensive rebounds and getting her the
01:46 ball back and being able to, you know, operate that way? Yeah, I think we always
01:51 talk about extra possessions and getting offensive rebounds is the way to do that
01:57 and Kaitlyn's gonna take a lot of shots and I think we all know a lot of them go
02:02 in, but the off chance that it doesn't, I want to be there to get the rebound and
02:08 have an extra chance to get another two or three point shot. What do you guys
02:13 remember about the Kansas State game? Kyle, obviously you didn't get to play last year, but what do you guys
02:16 remember about last year's Kansas State game? I remember they had some good,
02:21 really good guards. Gabby Gregory, she's really phenomenal, so I think that'll be
02:27 really important for us to shut her down this year. She drew a lot of fouls on us
02:32 last year, so I think make sure we get after it defensively and be careful
02:40 fouling-wise, but I think like coach said, Ioko Lee, she's a great post and
02:46 guarding her and getting box outs, rebounds, is really important for this
02:50 game. Kylie, how much comfortable do you feel even, you know, three games ago just
02:56 coming back and getting in the flow of things? Yeah, I think going back into it, I
03:00 mean, it's like a work in progress. You kind of have to get in the flow of
03:04 things and get comfortable again, but I'd say even just within the past three
03:07 games, I've just felt more and more comfortable and just kind of knowing
03:11 what I need to do in whatever game. I mean, it feels good to be back on the
03:16 floor, but obviously, like I said, it's a work in progress. How did that feel there at
03:21 Virginia Tech that one quarter where you just sort of took over? Yeah, I think I
03:27 kind of blacked out. I'm in the zone, kind of, so I don't remember it
03:31 too much, but it felt really good. I think looking back at it, it was nice to know
03:36 that I kind of was able to come back from where I kind of left, but yeah, it
03:42 was just a really exciting game and I was happy to do whatever I needed to
03:47 with our team and we had some people in foul trouble, so just being able to kind
03:51 of maximize on whatever they're, when they were able to be on the floor. Did you have a sense of
03:55 confidence, like, I am back? Yeah, I think when Coach Wooter called one of
04:00 our plays and then when she called it again, that was
04:04 kind of like when I got like that momentum and after that kind of, and one
04:08 foul, that was kind of when I started to feel really into the flow of things.
04:12 Sydney, we've talked about, you know, the November stretch that you guys have and
04:17 how it's tough and you guys have really jumped right into it. How much does that
04:22 help to keep everybody locked in on top of, you know, what you guys already have
04:27 as expectations, just the fact that, you know, it seems like it's one good team
04:31 after another here to start? Yeah, I think we have a long stretch coming up, a lot
04:37 of tough games with Kansas State Thursday and Drake Sunday. They're both
04:41 really great teams and I just think we always talk about taking it one game at
04:46 a time. We're not looking at like the end destination, we're working on the journey
04:50 and the process and I think that's really important for us. After one game
04:55 we move on, win or lose, we got to move on to the next game.
05:00 Syd, what do you think about when there's, you guys are on offense and
05:06 you're sort of roaming around and everything and all of a sudden the shot goes up.
05:10 What's your first instinct? Rebound. Go get it, yeah. I think that I'm gonna be the
05:18 first one to the ball every single time and I think having that mentality helps
05:21 a lot with rebounding. I don't think anyone else is gonna get it but me.
05:26 Are you noted as a rebounder in high school? Yeah, yeah.
05:30 Yeah, definitely. Obviously you aren't thinking about your rebounds during the
05:35 game, like how many do I have, but did you know you were in double digits or was
05:38 it after the game, like oh wow I had 14 rebounds? It was after the game, I'm just
05:42 trying to focus on getting the ball and get possessions, especially with like
05:47 Kittlie on Virginia Tech, she's big center so I knew getting rebounds against
05:53 her was really important. You've gone against Kittlie, you'll go against Holmes later, you've got
05:58 Lee, how does she rank, you know, how does she fit among the best posts
06:04 you're gonna see all year? Well I haven't gotten to play against her yet but just
06:08 watching film, she's a 6'6" post, she's really big and she's, I think she was,
06:13 might have been an All-American the year before, but I think they're all really
06:18 great posts and with that sometimes we play a little bit smaller with Hannah at
06:23 the five and it's really important for all of us to focus on rebounding because
06:27 we don't have that height sometimes. Does she remind you of anybody, Lee?
06:33 She's kind of a big, strong...
06:38 How do you put that in writing?
06:43 I don't have to transcribe.
06:48 No one particularly has in mind.
06:53 I don't know, maybe she's a little bored.
06:55 I don't know.
06:57 I don't know.
06:59 So it'll be different.
07:01 I'm excited to play against her. She wasn't there last year with an ACL injury so it'll be fun.
07:07 Kittlie is a guard for you guys as an entire group. I know you're not gonna be down in the post with her,
07:11 but what can you guys do to kind of help out throughout the game on Lee?
07:15 I think with our game plan our coaches do a great job at kind of scouting and
07:19 knowing when we need to do things. So I mean kind of getting into the
07:23 post whenever we need to, like helping on her. I mean like we said they have great
07:28 guards though so kind of being strategic about all of that, but being able to help
07:32 in is gonna be crucial whenever we can.
07:35 Do you look at their guards as being sort of interchangeable?
07:39 I mean they've got a number of kids that can do a lot of things,
07:43 but Gabby Gregory I know was mentioned.
07:47 Anybody in particular that you really gotta kind of kick off the three-point line?
07:53 Yeah, their point guard is a really quick driver.
07:57 She can shoot as well. She's really athletic and they also play a ton of people.
08:01 So that just shows kind of their depth in their guard area specifically.
08:06 And yeah, I think they all can do a little bit of everything.
08:09 Gregory is, like you said, a great player. She's gonna do a lot for them,
08:14 but they definitely have a lot of weapons.
08:19 Thanks, Kyle.
08:21 Thanks, you guys.
08:22 Thank you.
08:28 There's been obviously Molly and Sharon have started in that last spot.
08:33 Is that something you see kind of continuing through this year that fifth starters
08:38 gonna maybe be matchup or just opponent-based,
08:41 or are you looking to find somebody to kind of lock down that spot?
08:46 You know, usually I've been somebody that really locks down a spot,
08:49 but I don't think this is a team that will need to do that or has to do that.
08:53 I think they're mature enough that we can move that around depending on the matchup
08:57 that we're playing.
08:58 You mentioned that you guys are kind of anxious to play Kansas State again.
09:01 Are you the type of coach that brings up the loss last year as an extra motivating factor?
09:05 Or is that kind of just on the players to do that themselves?
09:08 You know, we'll bring it up. I don't dwell on it, though.
09:11 I don't hammer it, hammer it, hammer it, because I also want them--
09:13 I don't want them to remember a negative thing about Kansas State.
09:16 I want to use it as motivation but not to hurt their confidence.
09:20 So how do you defend Aokulee?
09:24 Well, I mean, I think that we're pretty quick,
09:26 and I think that is a strength of ours over her.
09:30 But, yeah, she's a tremendous player.
09:32 She has the NCAA record for most points scored in a game at 61.
09:36 That's amazing.
09:37 So we can't let her have 61 and carve her for sure.
09:39 Does she look like she's regained her mobility from two years ago?
09:43 Does she look like she did two years ago?
09:45 I would say not completely.
09:47 But, you know, Jeff will probably answer that a lot better than I could.
09:50 But I don't know that, in my opinion, she has.
09:55 Within this tough start to the season,
09:57 there's obviously been big post challenges for your group.
10:01 How much has that helped accelerate their growth even more,
10:04 getting these big tests right out of the gate?
10:07 Yeah, we have had good tests, and we're going to continue to have.
10:10 Like you mentioned, Holmes and in the Big Ten Conference,
10:13 there's several good post players that we have to go against.
10:17 So, you know, I think this is a great experience for us.
10:20 And obviously, you know, if you play against somebody like Aokulee
10:23 that's different than what you might see,
10:25 that helps prepare you for the NCAA tournament too,
10:28 because you're going to see a variety of different styles of play.
10:32 Is there anything you're emphasizing in practice this week
10:35 that maybe didn't go well in last year's matchup
10:37 that you feel like needs to go well tomorrow?
10:41 You know, I really feel like last year they drew so many fouls.
10:44 You know, Gregory drew 13 fouls on us, and that was a huge difference.
10:48 She had 24 points against us.
10:51 You know, and not letting her, you know, have that opportunity to draw fouls
10:56 against the people on the bench, to me that was, you know, that's critical.
11:02 And to keep pushing on them.
11:04 I think we slowed it down a little bit too early last year, and that's my fault.
11:07 Through three games, Kaitlin's got 27 assists and four turnovers.
11:11 How tickled are you with that?
11:14 That's remarkable.
11:15 I did not know that, Jeff.
11:17 That is a remarkable statistic.
11:21 Wow.
11:23 She's showing.
11:24 Has she gone to another level with that as far as her, you know,
11:31 where she's going with the ball, just judgment, anything like that?
11:35 Yeah, I hope so.
11:36 It's something that we talked about in the last season is that that's an area--
11:39 you know, you're always trying to find areas you can improve,
11:41 even if you're the National Player of the Year.
11:43 You want to find areas to improve, and that was one of the areas that we thought
11:46 she could make a little bit of improvement on.
11:48 And, you know, it's early, so you never know.
11:51 Sometimes turnovers comes in bunches.
11:53 But certainly, you know, against some pretty good competition
11:57 and in good hostile environments, she's been able to, you know, handle it.
12:01 That's a remarkable statistic.
12:03 I know this team has obviously plenty of experience handling success
12:07 and when it comes during the season and all that.
12:09 But after an eventful first week for a lot of good reasons,
12:14 how strong is this team's ability to take things in stride and enjoy them
12:20 but know that there's bigger things up ahead?
12:23 I think really good.
12:25 I think our team does a really good job of enjoying a win and not dwelling on it.
12:31 And, you know, fortunately we haven't had to go the other way yet this year,
12:35 but, you know, I'm hoping that they'll bounce back when we have a loss too.
12:39 You have to approach it the same way every time,
12:41 and I think that they're mature enough and they do that.
12:45 What makes Sid a good rebounder for her size?
12:49 Who, Sid?
12:50 Yeah.
12:51 She's got a tenacity.
12:52 It's kind of like Kashine Alexander.
12:53 I don't know if you remember Kashine.
12:54 She was, I think, the best rebounding guard in the country, you know,
12:58 when she played for us.
13:00 But Sid's kind of the same way.
13:01 She just has that tenacity that I'm going to go get the ball.
13:05 And it sounds so easy, but it really is a mindset,
13:11 an aggressive mindset to go get it.
13:14 Did you see that when you were recruiting her?
13:18 I really like that about Sid.
13:19 I mean, Sid was just somebody that she's not afraid to be physical.
13:23 She'll do the dirty work when it needs to be done, you know,
13:27 but she's also obviously a skilled basketball player.
13:30 Kansas State liked to shoot a lot of three-pointers last year.
13:33 Not necessarily the highest percentage of makes, but last year they had, I think,
13:37 that one girl that made six of ten.
13:38 She hadn't been shooting well.
13:39 They're ten to 40 to start this season.
13:41 It's the same kind of, you know, message that, hey, like,
13:44 they weren't shooting it well last year, but they had someone do the same thing.
13:47 So, you know, defended anyway.
13:49 Yeah, I mean, they had -- and I can't remember her name right now --
13:51 the center that came in and made six threes,
13:54 and it was her best game of the entire year as far as outside shooting.
13:58 And so, you know, sometimes those things happen to you.
14:02 But, yeah, I mean, you always have to be ready for that,
14:06 make game adjustments when it's happening to you.
14:09 But she certainly hurt us last year with her threes.
14:12 I know there's no way to predict this,
14:14 but given how much of a target is on your guys' back,
14:17 do you expect to have more situations like that this year where somebody, you know,
14:22 isn't necessarily playing well, but then they come in against you guys
14:25 and put on a show or something like that?
14:28 I think that can happen any time with any team, regardless of what your ranking is.
14:32 I just -- you know, especially early in the season, right?
14:35 Nobody knows what they've done over the summer.
14:37 Nobody knows the work that they've put in and how they've changed their game.
14:40 And so I think, you know,
14:41 the non-conference season really has a lot of those kind of surprises
14:44 because, you know, nobody really knows what to expect.
14:48 How excited are you to get back into Carver after an away stretch?
14:52 Yeah, it's just fun to play in Carver.
14:54 I mean, first of all, you don't have to travel, which is really nice.
14:57 We got home at 2:30 in the morning after the Virginia Tech game.
15:00 And so, you know, that can be draining on you.
15:03 And so I'm glad, you know, to play in Carver,
15:05 especially having to play Drake again the following, you know, the Sunday.
15:10 But, you know, just to play in front of our fans.
15:13 It's so fun to come out into Carver
15:16 and to see the excitement and the joy that we're bringing to this group of fans.
15:21 So that's pretty special.
15:23 Do you think there will be a pretty good atmosphere,
15:25 especially for the Drake game, considering it's in-state?
15:28 I think both of these games will have good atmosphere.
15:30 I think, you know, everybody has respect for Kansas State, again,
15:33 receiving votes in both polls from the Big 12 Conference.
15:36 We lost to them last year.
15:38 And then Drake, of course, in-state rival, just beat Iowa State.
15:42 Very experienced basketball team.
15:44 So I think we're going to have good atmosphere for both of these games.
15:47 Hannah Stolke's leading the team in points per minute,
15:50 if that's something that sounds important, I guess.
15:53 But she hasn't really been on the floor a lot the last two games,
15:55 I think 8,000 the last two games.
15:57 How important is it for her to kind of clean that up?
15:59 Because when she's on, I mean, she had 16 points in like 11 minutes on Sunday.
16:02 Yeah. Oops, somebody's got a call coming in.
16:05 [Laughter]
16:08 It's like in class when that happens to you, right?
16:11 No, it's okay.
16:13 So, yeah, I mean, Hannah had a little bit of foul trouble.
16:17 And obviously she would have played more had we needed her to play more
16:20 in the UNI game.
16:22 But at that point, I just didn't feel like in the fourth quarter
16:24 we needed to use her.
16:26 Might as well save her and that sort of thing.
16:28 So, yeah, she needs to stay out of foul trouble.
16:31 I'm telling you, Virginia Tech, though, her last foul for sure
16:34 was -- I thought it was on Kaitlin for sure.
16:38 And maybe Kaitlin needed to stick her hand up in the air to claim it.
16:42 But I don't even know where that one came from.
16:45 Just preliminary scouting on Drake, what -- you probably haven't seen a lot
16:51 on him yet, but just from what you have seen, what do you see?
16:56 Yeah, I mean, you know, Grace Berg, she's been around, what, six years now.
17:02 Somebody we know pretty well, experienced post player, agile, athletic,
17:09 very different than Ioka Lee that we're playing this weekend or this week.
17:14 But, yeah, I know they had a really good shooting performance from one of their
17:18 players that typically hadn't.
17:20 So there's an example of that dargon, like where somebody steps up that you
17:23 kind of hadn't expected, they weren't doing that last year.
17:26 I haven't seen them play yet.
17:28 But, obviously, any time you beat Iowa State, it's going to really open up
17:33 everybody's eyes to how good this team is.
17:36 I think Kaitlin played 31 minutes against UNI, coming off of 40 against Virginia
17:41 Tech.
17:42 How important -- you know, obviously knowing if it's going to be a close game,
17:45 she's going to be on the floor.
17:47 But how important is it to kind of get those little breaks here and there for
17:50 her, knowing that, you know, she's going to be -- have a lot on her plate the
17:54 whole way?
17:55 Yeah, I mean, but that's why she wants it.
17:57 You know, that's the way she wants -- she wants to be on the floor.
18:00 I think she gets antsy when she's on the bench, even if she knows it's for a
18:03 well-deserved rest.
18:05 But we have to give her those times when we can.
18:09 Some games we're not going to be able to.
18:11 I mean, she's valuable, obviously, to have on the floor.
18:13 We need to have her on the floor.
18:15 She'll be there in every pressure moment that we have.
18:18 But when we can give her a rest, we're certainly going to try to do that.
18:21 You said she gets antsy on the bench.
18:23 Does she ever say, "Hey, get me in, get me in, I need to be in there"?
18:25 She probably does.
18:26 I don't listen to it.
18:28 I try to block her out sometimes.
18:29 It's like the horse with the, you know, what are those called on, blinders on.
18:34 She had her hand at some point in UNI, and she came out, and the trainer
18:39 looked at her, and she went back to the game.
18:41 And she banged it against something.
18:44 She told me just a stinger.
18:46 Is that a football term?
18:47 Her brother played football, so maybe that's where she gets that.
18:50 She played football, so, yeah, she had a stinger.
18:53 So such a big player on tomorrow night, I guess.
18:58 And Hannah's starting to stretch the floor a little bit.
19:01 Is that going to be important with her quicker first step,
19:03 driving to the rim, getting around a big player?
19:05 Absolutely, I think so.
19:08 What have you seen from Hannah?
19:09 I mean, obviously, I said she hasn't played a lot of minutes the last couple
19:12 of games, but when she has been putting a lot of points on the board
19:15 in a short span, is that just kind of what she does?
19:18 She goes out there and creates a spark offensively?
19:20 I just think Hannah is such a good player, and, you know,
19:26 she's different than Monica, but she reminds me of Noz Hillman a lot
19:31 from Michigan because she can rebound so well.
19:34 She's got great speed, probably quicker than Noz even.
19:38 I just love her game.
19:40 I love to watch her play, and I just think we're going to see an incredible
19:47 season from Hannah in every regard.
19:52 Thanks, Coach.
19:53 Thanks, guys.