North Carolina State University Athletics
@PackWomensBball Meets Regional and National Media in Greensboro
10/22/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
PHOTO GALLERY
GREENSBORO, N.C. – The NC State women’s basketball team met with the media for the second time in the span of a week on Wednesday afternoon, taking part in the Atlantic Coast Conference’s annual media day.
For photos from the event, click here. See below for a transcript of quotes from the press conference portion of the event.
Head Coach Wes Moore
On his first season as head coach of the Wolfpack (2013-14):
I was very blessed and very fortunate to come in and inherit a group of girls that were not only talented but also great people and it made for an incredible journey. Obviously we had five seniors that had significant playing time and that contributed heavily to our success.
We also had Keisha Gatling, who is a special talent. She ended up first team All-ACC and getting drafted 10th in the WNBA draft. We’re going to definitely miss that presence along with Kody Burke; those two together really made a big impact on my first year and the success we had. We also had Len’Nique (Brown-Hoskin) running the show at point guard as an extension of the coaching staff: she went out and got people where they needed to be and did a great job of managing and being the quarterback.
We had a special year. It was a lot of fun and we know we have our work cut out for us again this year as it’s a new season.
On three-pointers and inside shots:
We will see a lot of threes. Last year we pretty much shattered the NC State record for made threes. So we definitely like the three-point shot but the challenge is going to be inside. We lost our three top post players to graduation and if we started right now I’m not sure who our starting power forward and our starting center would be. It’s scary to be in October and still have those questions that need to be answered, but we’re fortunate we have some veterans on the perimeter that are going to take a little bit of pressure off the inside game. Hopefully those kids can grow and get better in a hurry so that we’re ready to compete when we open up the ACC schedule.
On how this season’s defense can help the offense:
Keisha Gatling was not only a presence on the offensive end but the defensive end that we’ll sorely miss. I do think we’re going to have try and create more offense off our defense this year. Hopefully we can put a little bit more pressure on the ball and get in the passing lanes a little bit more and create some opportunities to get in some transition and get some easy points. It’s a tough league; there are a lot of great players in it, so it’s not always easy to hold people to 50 points.
I think, again, our perimeter is experienced and hopefully they can get us in the right positions and we can stop people enough. Rebounding is probably the most critical area in my opinion. We’re going to have to limit people to one shot and we’re going to have to create some second and third opportunities for ourselves.
Len’Nique Brown-Hoskin
On learning from playing for three different head coaches (one at USC, two at NC State):
Personally I had to adjust three different times and I guess I’m just used to adjusting on the fly. I can pick up names easier, running different sets and trying to fit into different offenses.
#GoPack
