BIG TEN BASKETBALL MEDIA DAYS

October 8, 2021

Carolyn Kieger

Penn State Nittany Lions

Women's Head Coach

CAROLYN KIEGER: Good morning. I hope everyone is having a great start to their day.

I realize Coach Shrewsberry is a rookie and a true freshman. I feel like a redshirt freshman today because this is my first Media Day in person. I'd like to thank Commissioner Warren and the Big Ten office for making this day possible.

Thank you to the media. Thank you for covering our amazing conference, coaches and young women.

I want to take a minute to reflect on last year. Obviously it was an incredibly difficult year for all of us. The level of appreciation that we have for everyone who made the season a reality can't really be put into words. The sacrifices and efforts to be able to have our young ladies and young men have a season was incredible. Not only for last year, but for this year.

I feel blessed to work in a conference with so many amazing coaches and players, to be part of a league that believes that diversity, equity and inclusion matter.

To coach at a university and have an athletic department that strives to make the world a better place is inspiring.

We're not where we need to be yet, but the momentum that the Big Ten is bringing towards our coalition, that Penn State is having, is encouraging. I'm excited about the areas we're making improvements in.

I've been at Penn State now for two years. We've been laying the foundation brick by brick, building a culture, creating habits and a lion mentality that we are hoping lasts for a long time.

I'm very thrilled where our program is and where we're headed. We've made huge strides. We've increased our offense's areas in almost every category. We were the youngest team in the Big Ten last year. With a majority of the league returning, I don't know if that's going to continue.

But in all seriousness, I love our team. I love our staff. They love each other. They're buying into our missions, our visions and core principles that it's going to take to be able to compete at the top of this league.

We have Makenna Marisa returning to us, an All-Conference performer. Maddie Burke, who was the consensus Big Ten Sixth Woman of the Year. Kelly Jekot, who was our leading scorer before she went down to injury.

In addition we have two phenomenal leaders in Anna Camden and Shay Hagans who had a great off-season. I'm excited for you to see their improvements.

Overall I'm really thrilled with the momentum we have, excited to be part of the best conference in America, and excited to take questions.

Q. You've made improvement from your first year to your second year already. Last year you won five or six more games than the first year. How do you think that's going to relate to this year with the Big Ten women being as loaded as it is?

CAROLYN KIEGER: Great question.

I think for us, we judge our success every day by how much better we're getting as individuals and as a program. I'm very proud of the levels that we've improved at. But obviously as coaches and as a program that strives to compete not only for Big Ten championships but national championships, we want to win. We want to win at a high level.

For us, our players are buying into that. I'm hoping that the lessons that we learned in year one and two are going to translate over. The Big Ten is better than it ever has been with amazing coaches and players. We're going to do our best every night to come out there and improve and put a product out there that can compete.

Q. What kind of habits are you trying to build?

CAROLYN KIEGER: I think we start with a championship mindset and a lion mentality where we're trying to attack everything we do at 100%. That's in the classroom, in the community, as teammates, as young women, finally players.

We spent a lot of time the last two years talking about work ethic, what it means to compete against Maryland, against Iowa, against Michigan in order to put ourselves in a position to make the NCAA tournament.

Obviously we knew coming in we weren't going to snap our fingers and have success overnight. We wanted to do it the right way. As a coach, your job is to create habits that last for a lifetime, not just four years.

I'm really proud of our young women. They're holding each other accountable at a different level. Our goal is to take it from coach-led to player-led, coach fed and player led, and I think we've made incredible strides in that area.

Q. Getting Kelly back and healthy this season, how much will having both a player and a presence like that on the court do for your team this year?

CAROLYN KIEGER: I think first and foremost our team is inspired by her coming back. With the notion that she has won this thing, to leave the jersey in a better place. She focuses on her teammates, she came back for them, she came back for the name on the front of the jersey. I think that's rare to have a leader that inspires not only by what they say, by their actions.

Kelly has a phenomenal IQ. She does a great job helping the underclassmen. I think it's going to give us a level of experience. She's played in the NCAA tournament. She knows what it takes to get there. She can be a great leader for us.