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On Women's Basketball

Media Day notes

Posted by: Tony Bleill

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 6:23 PM

News and notes from Illinois women's basketball's Media Day at the Bielfeldt Administration Building ...

-- The most newsworthy piece of information concerns Jolette Law's staff. Former assistant Tamika Louis was hired last week at St. John's after being placed on administrative leave at Illinois, creating an opening on the staff. Law seemed inclined to take a pass on filling the opening until the season is complete.

"My staff has been excellent in this process. Everyone has been picking up the pieces, even down to my secretaries. I don't know if I'll go into the season with another assistant or not. We're still moving forward."

Asked if she didn't want to raid another coach's staff so close to the season, Law said, "At this point, I wouldn't want that to happen to me. But I've been getting a lot of calls. Right now I have to figure out, 'Do I want to disrupt what we're doing right now?' My kids, my staff, we're all focused on moving forward. Do I want to bring someone in? There are lot of thoughts going through my head. If I don't hire anyone, we'll be fine. There's a lot of people calling about the job. Everyone knows what we're about to do here."

--On whether she expected it to take this long to turn around the program: "I knew it was going to be a process. I've always been taught that Rome wasn't built overnight. I didn't come in here to do a quick fix. I've been trying to sell (the program). This past year, these six individuals bought into it, and we're getting a lot of feedback from other people around the country. I knew it would take three or four years to get it going."

--On the nonconference schedule, markedly softer than last year's: "Last year everyone wanted to play us. ‘Oh, yeah, we'll play you.' We get a (highly touted) class, and these kids haven't played a second, but when we call these same coaches now I say, ‘Can we schedule a game?' And they say, ‘Ah, well, let's wait until next year.'

"Being the young coach I was, I was always brought up thinking that in order to be the best, you play the best. And I took the same approach this year. Didn't have the same results."

--On the development of the sophomore class: "Wow. The growth of Fabiola Josil and Lydia McCully as leaders ... Their confidence level is sky high right now. The most (surprising) person to me has been Lana Rukavina. The last year has helped her a lot. She's pulling some of the younger kids in and demonstrating. Last year Jenna and Lacey were the main demonstrators. But Lana, she's going to see a lot of minutes.

"The growth of my team, and that experience is going to pay off this year."

--On the expectations for this season: "I feel confident we can get to the NCAA tournament. With the leadership of the senior class and their returning unit ... they played the fourth-toughest schedule in the country. I can say they got better at the end, and they're prepared. My freshmen don't have a lot of pressure, but they do have some pressure. If they come in and do their part and help, I think we can definitely make it to the NCAA tournament."