 |
|||||||
CUNNINGHAM SITS DOWN FOR A Q & A TO PREVIEW THE '09-'10 SEASON RICHMOND, Va.. – Coming off the first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance in its program history, Head Coach Beth Cunningham sat down with VCUathletics.com to preview this upcoming 2009-10 campaign just 24 hours before her Rams take on the Hokies of Virginia Tech on Monday night at the Verizon Wireless Arena at the Stuart C. Siegel Center at 7 p.m. VCUAthletics.com: Two straight postseason appearances including VCU’s first ever NCAA Tournament appearance this past season, sent players to the WNBA in back to back drafts. How do you maintain that pace? Coach Cunningham: We look at every season as a new season. I think there’s certainly a lot of excitement heading into this season, especially off of the success we had last year and the success we built off the previous year. I think our kids are hungry. They’ve had a taste of success, they’ve learned how to win, and we want to continue building that tradition. Every season that approaches is a new team. It’s a new identity trying to learn, grow, and develop as a team as best you can and this team is no different. I’ve been really pleased by the progress of our team so far and we’re just excited to have a game here to play Monday night. VCUAthletics.com: You just recruited six new student athletes. Is that getting any easier because of your recent success and having sent players to the pros in back to back years? Coach Cunningham: Certainly there’s a lot of things that we have to sell here at VCU. From the academics, to the success we’ve had recently, to putting kids in the pros, just the quality of kids we’ve had go through our program. But at the same time I don’t think recruiting ever gets easier, it’s all relative. We’re trying to get kids that maybe schools that are a little more established or have had a longer winning tradition, schools consistently in the top 15 or 25, we’re trying to get those kids to continue moving our program forward. I don’t think recruiting ever gets easier but I do really believe in what we have here in our program, what we have in the school as a whole. So I think when you believe in what you have, I think that makes it easier to go out and recruit. I don’t think it makes getting kids any easier but I think it’s easy to go out and be able to sell what VCU has, what our program has to offer, what our academics have to offer, just the whole student-athlete experience. VCUAthletics.com: Who on this team do you think might surprise a lot of people this year? Coach Cunningham: I hope we have a handful of them. I think at this point it’s difficult to say, I’ve really been pleased with the progress a couple kids have made that maybe a lot of Ram fans haven’t gotten a chance to see play a whole lot of games for us. But I think they’re going to see them playing a lot of minutes. One of those is Stephanie Solomon. We’re gonna be starting her at the 5 tomorrow. She hardly played for us last year, not a lot of minutes, but again she was playing behind one of the best post players in the country and it was her first year here. I think she really needed that year to learn grow and develop. Now being a senior for us, having a year in our program after transferring here, I think she learned a lot and I think that she’s really ready to take big steps forward for us. I’ve also been really happy with the progress of Ebony Patterson. Ebony’s been our program the last two years as a freshman and sophomore but really hasn’t played a whole lot of minutes for us. I think the light bulb has really started to come on for her, really learned a lot those first two years and I think the experiences she’s been through in our program the first two years has really helped her get to the point where she’s really somebody that hopefully we’re really going to be able to count on, that’s going to be an integral part of what we’re doing this year. I think every year when you have a team with the kids that have graduated, there’s new opportunity, new opportunity for new kids to step up and I hope that we have a handful of kids that are ready to step up into a new role for us. VCUAthletics.com: You haven’t lost in this building in lord knows how long. What is it about this place that’s been so effective for your team? Coach Cunningham: We’ve had a lot of success here recently, especially last year. I think that we’ve continued to grow the program not only from our immediate basketball family, but from a fan base as well. I think last year we had record attendance for a number of games so we’ve certainly started to make this more of a home court advantage. I know our kids love playing here. You always love playing at home. Our focus has been outstanding. We certainly want to keep the tradition of continuing to win here and make this as difficult of a place to play as possible. I think last year we can thank our fans in large part for the growing attendance we had, and really how this became a big home court advantage for us. VCUAthletics.com: A little reverse word association of sorts…I’ll give you a word and you tell me the player that pops into your head. Coach Cunningham: Kita Waller Coach Cunningham: Jennifer Lane Coach Cunningham: D’Andra Moss Coach Cunnigham: (laughs) I could give you a few of them but I don’t think it’s good for them to see it because at time I don’t want them to be hilarious (laughs)…so we’ll skip that one. Coach Cunningham: (laughs) Daphne Adebayo VCUAthletics.com: What are your expectations for this season? Coach Cunningham: Well I think certainly heading into the new season we want to continue building the winning tradition we’ve had, continue to get better on a practice by practice basis, day by day basis, game by game basis. Certainly we have goals that are out there but I think initially for us it’s trying to grow and develop our team and continue to develop as a group so that we can reach our goals by the end of the year.
|
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
All rights reserved.
