Bowling Green State University Athletics
Q & A With Curt Miller: Part Two
October 20, 2006 | Women's Basketball
Oct. 20, 2006
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University women's basketball team is coming off one of the most successful seasons in school and Mid-American Conference history. In 2005-06, the Falcons went 28-3 overall, setting school and league records for victories, and posted a perfect 16-0 MAC ledger en route to conference regular-season and tournament titles. Just prior to the beginning of official practices for the 2006-07 campaign, Falcon head coach Curt Miller sat down for a question-and-answer session about this year's edition of the Brown and Orange. Part one of the conversation appeared on BGSUFalcons.com yesterday ... here is part two ...
Obviously, you have great strength in the post game. You have two veteran point guards back as well.
"Yes. The point-guard position is anchored by Kate Achter. Kate is coming off two tremendous seasons, has won multiple accolades already early in her career and certainly, is the engine that makes us run. She is the first line of defense with ball pressure, but perhaps her greatest strength is in our high pick-and-roll offense. Her aggressiveness and quickness give her the ability to attack off the dribble each and every time down the floor. She has an uncanny ability to get in the lane, make her teammates better and make things happen.
"Kate is a great finisher around the basket, as good a penetrating guard as there is in our league, and what helps that also is her ability to get to the foul line. Being a career high-percentage foul shooter, she gets a lot of points each and every night at the foul line. Kate's biggest improvement in the offseason is the continuation of improving her range and being able to extend defenses. As she continues to gain confidence in that part of her game, she is going to become even more multi-dimensional and can truly be a great player. When you watch Kate, you can see right away that her competitiveness is infectious. She gets the whole team pumped up with her energy, drive and enthusiasm on the floor.
"Jasmine McCall is coming off a solid freshman year as Kate's backup. Jazz is the quickest player on our team. She is an explosive penetrator, an underrated outside shooter and, with confidence and consistency, I think we will see her numbers increase from the perimeter.
"Jazz is, without question, our best on-ball defender right now, and can make a lot of things happen at both ends of the floor with her speed and quickness. She gives us versatility, and allows us to move kate to the 2 more than we have in the past, giving us the option of playing with two very good penetrating guards, and two incredibly quick defenders. I look for a solid sophomore year out of Jazz."
You talked about three key seniors at the post position in Ali Mann, Liz Honegger and Amber Flynn. You've got another solid senior at the 2-guard position in Megan Thorburn.
"Megan Thorburn had a very good junior year for us. She shot over 40 percent from the arc and made a lot of her open threes. When you have the amount of scorers that we have in the lineup, for her to be able to shoot a high percentage and make open threes really allows our system to work. Megan has great size; at nearly 6-foot-1 at the off-guard position, she can create matchup problems at the offensive end. And, her length defensively can give small off-guards trouble at that end of the floor.
"I look for Megan to have a very steady senior year, playing with more confidence than she ever has. She is in the best shape and the best physical condition that she has been in her time here, and I expect her to pick up up right where she left off.
"Whitney Taylor is an explosive offensive player. Without question, she is the 'microwave' of our team off the bench. She can just dominate practices with her offensive ability and can put up numbers in a hurry. I think that is going to translate to games. Whitney is playing at the proper speed and playing with confidence now, and that I think our fans are going to see how explosive and how talented Whitney Taylor can be at the 2-guard position.
"She is an energizer bunny. She plays with 100 percent all-out effort all the time, and she will have the most floor burns of anybody on our team. She brings great energy and great emotion to our program when she's on the floor, but also when she's on the bench. I think we're all looking for Whitney to have the breakthrough year that we've been waiting for her to have."
"Lindsey Goldsberry is coming off of a fantastic freshman year, considering the veterans that we had and have within our program. Every time she takes the floor, she is a very productive player. She gets more deflections defensively than any player in our program. Lindsey is your typical coach's daughter; she is in the right place at the right time, is a very fundamental player and rarely makes mistakes. She is a smart basketball player, plays within herself and helps our system work by spreading the floor.
"Lindsey makes open threes and has a knack for the timely big play when the team needs it. There was a stretch last season during non-conference play that it seemed like, every time we needed a big play, Lindsey Goldsberry was making that play off the bench."
Another very talented senior starter returns for you at the 3 position in Carin Horne.
"Carin Horne doesn't receive the accolades and the honors that some people in the program do, but clearly, she is a tremendous player. She will be considered upon graduation as one of the best wings ever to play here. Carin is an unbelievably talented offensive player who has incredibly deep three-point range. She is a very talented and confident three-point shooter, has the best pull-up game in our program and is explosive enough and strong enough to be a blow-by guard and get to the basket consistently.
"Carin is a big physical wing who can intimidate at the defensive end, and rebound at both ends of the floor. She is just a tremendous, tremendous player. I have acknowledged in the past that we run fewer plays for her than other players in our program, yet she is still consistently a double-figure scorer, and will likely graduate with over 1,000 points. We are going to look for more opportunities for her to score within our system this year, because I truly believe that Carin Horne could easily be the leading scorer for the Falcons.
"Sarah Clapper brings us great size and length at the wing position. We believe Sarah will start her BGSU career at the 3, but we're already giving her some minutes as a face-up 4 player. She has a pretty three-point shot, and is as good a fundamental shooter as there is in the program. Sarah has a very quick release in the mode of past players such as Stefanie Wenzel and Kim Griech, and she is going to make a lot of threes in her career.
"It will be great for Sarah to be able to go against veteran wings Megan Thorburn and Carin Horne day in and day out at practice. She has the opportunity to make a big impact as a freshman within our program."
Once again, looking around the MAC, it is hard to find a team that hasn't improved, and every game will once again be a battle. Can you talk about the league, and how your non-conference schedule will hopefully prepare you for the rigors of the MAC schedule?
"I think the MAC is a wide-open race. Recently, as a coaching staff, we sat down and tried to predict the order of finish in each division. All four of us had different predictions, which I think is a testament to how balanced and how competitive the MAC has become. Every team has legitimate reasons to believe that they can win the conference. The tough challenge for us is to take it game by game and not to overlook anyone.
"In my first few years here, we always looked forward to playing the conference's top teams, and hoped to have a chance to knock those teams off. Certainly, we have the big bull's-eye on our backs right now, and we have to realize that each and every night out, those other 11 teams in the conference really want to beat us."
That kind of goes back to the expectations that we were talking about earlier, doesn't it?
"Well, the expectations from ourselves, from the community, and from the league are certainly at an all-time high. The way we handle those expectations as players and coaches will be a huge key to our success. We need to take it game by game, work as hard as possible and remain coachable. Within those expectations also, is how the coaching staff handles it. I said that same thing last year, that we will look back at the end of the year and see how the coaching staff handled it.
"We will be tested the same way this year. Will we be able to handle the pressure? Can the coaching staff handle the fact that we may have more losses during non-conference than we had during all of last year? The bull's-eye, the expectations, the anticipation for this year -- how it is handled within our core family -- is a big storyline for this season. If we prepare, if we give great effort and we have the right attitude, then I think we will have the proper diagram to give us the chance to win another MAC title.
"Those three words -- preparation, attitude, effort -- are three key words within our program that we need to remember every day."
You have talked about those three words in the past, saying that Bowling Green may not always be the most talented team on the floor, but that you want Bowling Green to be the hardest-working team on the floor every time out, and to have that 'blue-collar' mentality.
"We live by a couple models within our family, and those three words stand out within our program. Preparation, attitude and effort. Those are the core basics of our program. We are going to be prepared; we are going to work really hard with our scouting reports, we are going to work hard in our practice preparation to be ready to encounter any type of atmosphere, any type of strategic game plan against us. Within that, we have to give great effort. And, within that, we have to have a great attitude. Those three things are the staples of our program, and will allow us to stay focused, take it game by game and keep from getting ahead of ourselves.
"Whatever anyone writes about us, and whatever anyone's preseason predictions may be, the expectations that we have of ourselves as players and coaches are the highest that anyone can put on us. Another thing we have stressed is that we win from the lockerroom out. We have said that, in the last two years, we have won because we have had a championship lockerroom. It all starts from there.
"We lost some key ingredients to that championship lockerroom. Jill Lause and Casey McDowell were special players. They were great in terms of leadership, and were instrumental in helping to keep the team together. People may look at the statistics and think that we don't lose much from last year's team. But, we did lose people who were key to that championship lockerroom.
"Dynamics change every year, so a challenge for this year's team again will be to replicate the same dynamics and try to build the same championship lockerroom that we have had the last two years. I don't care how much talent you have; if you are not on the same page and are not together as a family, you can find yourself in trouble in a hurry."
Any final thoughts?
"As the season went on last year, and as the program has had some success, the fan support has really picked up. I'm very excited about our schedule and about our expectations, and I hope that all of Bowling Green and all of the student body will jump in and support this team.
"It's been a magical era and certainly, this senior class wants to end their legacy on top. This has a chance to be a fun year at Anderson Arena, and I hope the community continues to come out and support this championship program."
The Falcons host Findlay in an exhibition game at Anderson Arena on Wednesday, Nov. 1. The regular season begins on Friday, Nov. 10, with a game at Detroit, and the home opener is two weeks later, Nov. 24, vs. Temple.
