Q & A with Head Coach Thibault
 Thibault |
Q Can you look back on the highs and lows of the season?
A �I think we have to be pleased with the way the season ended, but it was kind of a rollercoaster ride for a good portion of the season. At times, we were as good as anybody in the league. And on some nights, you would think this team never played together. But I think one of the marks of a team that is improving is that you keep getting better as the season goes along and that when it counted down the stretch, we were playing our best basketball. That�s probably the most pleasing part to me.
�We had players like Taj (McWilliams-Franklin) who came back from a pregnancy, and by midseason, was playing like an All Star. We had some young players improve their game from a year ago, most notably Katie Douglas and Brooke Wyckoff. We had two players make the All Star team. So we had a lot of good things.
�Maybe best of all, as we got better our fan base grew. Over the second half of the season, our attendance was up to a very good number, and they were loud and enthusiastic. So we had a homecourt advantage by the end of the year. I think it was a novelty at first, kind of wait and see, who is this team? They�re spoiled by UConn basketball. But we developed our own identity and we developed our own fanbase who felt it was OK to be just as loyal about us as about UConn or anybody else. It took awhile to grow it. I don�t know if it came fast enough for me, just because you like to have that from Day 1, but nothing good ever happens overnight, and we made huge inroads this year. Probably , the other pleasing part is we did it in a short amount of time. We didn�t have a lot of time to get ready both from a basketball standpoint and a marketing standpoint. Now we look forward to an offseason where we can capitalize on what we did at the end of this year.
Q What did you learn in your first year as a WNBA coach?
A �One of the things I learned is, I can�t assume things about players and teams. I need to be more specific about everything I do. The players in this league like structure. We tried to give them some freedom early in the season on the court, and the results were mixed. So I thought the more structured we became the better we became as a team. I would like to get away from that, but I don�t know if we can with the current team we have.
You learn all the little things about opponents and what you can do and not do offensively and defensively, but I think you have that as a learning curve wherever you go. If you go from college to the pros, or high school to college, there�s always adjustments to be made.�
Q What did you learn about the particulars of coaching women as opposed to men?
A �I was pleased, and I didn�t know it for sure, with the attention span the players had as far as sticking with something. I thought that was good. The one thing you learn quickly going from men to women is men can be less fundamental but bail themselves out with athleticism. The women in our league need to execute offensively and defensively more precisely to be successful. I think that�s something we had to be better at as the season went along. I sensed it, but I didn�t really understand it, the total scope of it. The more structure we gave them on the court, especially on the offensive end, the better we played. I tried to let them play with some freedom early on and our decision making wasn�t necessarily good. We weren�t getting the ball to the right person at the right time. It�s nice to have a democratic offense, but there are times when you need to have it be more of a dictatorship.�
Q What was your impression of the playoffs?
A �I think the playoffs did a world of good for the WNBA. Every series was competitive. You had higher attendance than they�ve had in the past. You look at the final game between LA and Detroit. They had 22,000 people. TV ratings were up. Our series with Detroit was competitive and exciting. Sacramento and LA was the same way. I think that what the fans saw of our league on TV this year can only enhance the image of the league.�
Q How will the next draft class impact the league?
A �Because this is going to be such a visible college draft class coming out this next year, there will be heightened interest in the college seniors this year. Who will get drafted where. I think it�s going to do a lot to grow the image of the league. We just have one of those classes that�s special.�
Q Is this a deep draft class?
A �Absolutely. You�re going to get a good player in the second round of this draft. You might even luck into a player who can make your roster in the third round. You obviously have some high profile names with (Diana) Taurasi, and (Duke�s) Alana Beard and (Stanford�s) Nicole Powell, and others. But there are a lot of other good players in the draft who people will start to find out about as the year goes along.�
Q How do you approach the draft? Do you take the best player on the board, or the one who best fits a particular need?
A �My theory about the draft usually is to take the best player who is there when you�re drafting. As of today, we have the ninth pick. We obviously would like to move up, depending upon what it takes to move up. We have some needs. We�d like to find an athletic post player. But if we moved up in the draft, that would change because there are some pretty special players at the top of the draft, so I think you would have to take whoever you think is the best player.�