Yori Meets Media to Tip-Off 2008-09 Season

Nebraska Coach Connie Yori
Press Conference
Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008

Opening Statement
"Like men's basketball, we will be getting started on Friday as well with our full practices. We've been going at it too with conditioning. I think our kids are chomping at the bit to get started and just run for a little bit with a ball in their hands, as opposed to just run. We are wrapping up our conditioning sessions today, and then giving them a couple days off before we get started on Friday.

We are coming off a pretty good year - an NCAA Tournament year. We won a first round game and only three times in the history of men's and women's basketball has a team wearing a Nebraska uniform won an NCAA Tournament game in basketball.

We return four starters. We've got a great player returning in Kelsey Griffin - one of the best players in the Big 12. Unfortunately, she's been out for the last eight weeks with an injury. Hopefully we can get her back. But we are really excited about who we have returning. We return nine players that essentially played double-digit minutes for us last year.

I kind of chuckled. I don't know if anybody has seen the (Big 12) preseason poll for women's basketball. But we were picked eighth in the preseason poll. We return four starters from a team that had a great year last year, and was a couple eyelashes away from being in the Sweet 16. I think that just says so much about how good our league is.

I've been quizzing people. I quizzed our team yesterday. If there's a team that returns four starters from a conference championship team from a year ago, and the team I'm talking about is K-State in our league - they won the league last year and return four starters from a year ago - and most people would say that they would probably be picked first or second. In fact, they were picked seventh, even though they returned four starters - largely because our league is so good. Women's basketball in the Big 12 - this will be the best league in the country again. It was the best league last year.

Our schedule, if you haven't picked it up, we play 15 teams that were in the NCAA Tournament last year. We play 21 games against teams that were in the postseason last year - either the NIT or NCAA Tournament - and 18 of those teams won first-round games in one of those two tournaments. So our schedule is really difficult. We are really excited about who we have returning, but the schedule itself is really going to be difficult for us."

On building off last year's energy
"I think you have to keep working. Our players have bought into that. If you pat yourself on the back too much you're not going to make any strides. Our league - the No. 1 ranked league in the country last year - there were only 12 starters lost out of our league from 12 teams. The combination of that and how tough our schedule is, I think our players understand how much they have to work. It is great to have energy, but you have to take care of your daily tasks, and I think we have really done a pretty good job of that. I like what our team has done. I think we've got some tough kids. I think we're a hard-working team and I think we showed that last year and hopefully that will carry over."

On a year of experience for a young team last year
"We're a step ahead. There's no doubt. We're a little bit ahead of where we were last year. We haven't had Kelsey do anything for us, and when we get her back, hopefully we'll get her back healthy, obviously that will make a big difference for us. Last year, we were a bunch of young pups. Every single drill we were introducing in practice was new to most of our kids. There was not a lot of continuity because we were so young. We had five freshmen on our team last year, five sophomores and a first-year junior college player and a vast majority of those players played for us. In losing just one senior, we do have better continuity now than we did last year at this time."

On Kelsey Griffin's injury
"She's been out eight weeks with a bone bruise on her ankle. It is a really serious ankle injury and we don't know the time frame."

On the affect of Griffin's absense on the team
"Significant. Every time I look at our schedule I get this big lump in my stomach, especially when I think about playing that schedule without her. She is in my opinion one of the top three players in our league. It would signicantly change our season. We would have to have a number of other kids do a lot more than they have, just to be somewhat competitive. We need to get her back and that is obviously going to be a key for us."

On Nebraska's depth and replacing Danielle Page
"If you look at what she played for us last year, we played 10 players in every game last year. We were very deep, so I think we have some players who are ready to take on a little bit bigger role for us. Cory Montgomery is natural to step into the staring lineup for us. She was our third-leading scorer last year coming off the bench. She'll get more minutes. We hope we get Kelsey back and Kelsey for as productive as she was, really didn't play as many minutes as a lot of players in our league, so we hope we can get her back and play a few more minutes. Nikki Bober, Catheryn Redmon and Harleen Sidhu are going to be three keys for us and how they produce."

On Nebraska's exhibition game at the Heartland Events Center in Grand Island
"I think it is going to be a neat situation for us to play a game at the Heartland Events Center in Grand Island on Nov. 5, that's a Wednesday, the day after election day. It is going to be a good time to get out for those Central Nebraska people to get out and watch us play. We're playing Kearney and Kearney is coming off a great season. (UNK Head Coach) Carol Russell, who is a former Husker and played here, has done a great job with that program. It will be a nice opportunity to have the two teams competing out in that area and have those folks have an opportunity to watch us play."