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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN VOLLEYBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 15, 2012Pete WaiteTHE MODERATOR: The volleyball team is coming off a split on the road this weekend. And will face Minnesota in Minneapolis and then Indiana at home on Friday at the field house. Head coach Pete Waite is here. We'll have some opening comments and then take questions. COACH WAITE: First thing I want to talk about is that hockey arena, to be honest with you. I got a tour of that last week, and if you guys haven't been there, it's phenomenal. They've done a great job over there. For the hockey teams, the swimming teams, it is‑‑ you walk in, and it's wow. It is fantastic. I hope you can all get over there. It's great. So we did split over the weekend. Lost to Nebraska, won at Iowa. Saw some good things coming back off the loss and rebounded with a win at Iowa. I thought that was good. Ellen Chapman is doing great things for us on the outside. Courtney Thomas had a great day on Sunday. Mary Ording in the middle who we put there just this fall really came on this weekend with her offense. So that was really good. We turn around really quickly and go to Minnesota. We play there Wednesday and then host Indiana on Friday. So Minnesota is top eight team right now, very, very strong. So it's going to be a tough environment up there, but we'll be ready to go. And then hosting Indiana on Friday, we'll be happy to get back in our own facility here and get the win there. They've got Jordan Haverly is a very good player. She's led their team in offense the last three years‑‑ last two years actually, so we're going to have to slow her down a little bit. I was going too say that too, Jay. Thanks. Q. Is a Wednesday road trip a little more difficult? COACH WAITE: It's not bad this time. At least we didn't play on Sunday and have to go Wednesday again. We played on Saturday night. So we had Sunday the kids could take a break. So we'll get a day of practice in, two days of practice, and head up tomorrow night. It's fast. You don't have a lot of time in the gym, and you can't go that hard because they're going to be pretty tired if you do the day before the game. So it will be all right. It gives us more of a time spread in between Wednesday then Friday again, we come back and practice Thursday, Friday, and go again. So we'll watch tape on both of them. The team knows both of the programs pretty well. I think we'll be good to go. Q. And then Friday the breast cancer awareness match. Just talk a little bit of the importance of that. COACH WAITE: It's something that is big for our players every year. They actually talk about it well ahead of time. And we often have a guest in that sits behind our bench for that match. It's just so important to raise awareness for all‑‑ everyone. It's such an important topic for women everywhere. It's a big night for us, for the match and for the breast cancer awareness. Q. Usually with Minnesota talking about the rivalry, it's talked a lot about the ax for football or for hockey. What sort of rivalry is there for volleyball, Wisconsin and Minnesota? COACH WAITE: We don't have an ax. We don't do that. But for overall points for the border battle, it's something that we talk about for our team, and they know it's a team that we compete against, obviously, all the time, and they're very, very strong. For us going in there, they actually have a new coach, Hugh McCutcheon, who was the women's Olympic coach, just came straight off of that from the Olympics straight to Minnesota. He's doing a good job already. The program is very well‑established. Minneapolis has very, very good players up there that they draw from, and we're beginning to draw from now too. Q. You're about halfway through the Big Ten season. Are you happy with the way the team is playing or where you want to see improvement? COACH WAITE: Yeah, from where we were in preseason and where we wanted to be, I think the preconference play went really well. Big Ten conference play is tough. Obviously youÂ’re meeting a lot of ranked teams every weekend. I think for progression of people like Mary Ording, Ellen Chapman, we're getting Crystal Graff back as far as her knee injury last year, so she's getting stronger. We do have to watch out her reps during the week so she's fresh on the weekend. That's where for players like Crystal, the day in between, or a Wednesday, Friday, is actually better for her than a Friday, Saturday. So she benefits from that. But Alexis Mitchell is doing great. Anne Hickey doing great in conference stats. Overall, we're very high in blocking and defense in the conference. For us in blocking the last few years, we've not been up there in the top half of the conference, and now weÂ’re leading the conference. So I think that's really good progress. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for Coach? Great. Thanks, Pete. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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