Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
And we continue with hok Talk Tonight Live and signed
the five zero six pop Hugo's Pure Markets a few
moments left him. Please to welcome in our next guest,
students we were discussing during the break more or less
welcome back to Grand Forks. Get a chance to stick
around for a couple days at Dennis Hunter at Women's
basketball coach and to join us coach. Thanks for making
(00:23):
us a part of your.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Tuesday, appreciate it. Thanks for the invite. Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Back from the Virgin Islands, which nobody in here can
react unrationally, but they're all from the Midwest, so they'll
be nice about it. But good trip for the group.
A couple of tough games down there. Those who take
us through take us through your time down to the
Paradise Jam.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
It's a good opportunity obviously for the kids to kind
of do something special, something a little different, travel to them,
maybe a part of the country they might not normally
get to go to.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Sure, so it's great.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
That University of North Dakota and the Athletic department allows
them to kind of take a trip that not everybody
might get a chance to do.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
So it was a lot of fun. I'd never been
to the Virgin Islands before. So first of all, it's a.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Good opportunity for us to just kind of grow as
a team, and that's something that we're building here, is
just kind of that culture in understanding that family comes first,
and when you can do things like this and you
can spend time together doing different things that are not
basketball related, it certainly helps a lot. While it's a
business trip and the fact that you're playing two games,
it's also an opportunity to grow a little bit off
the floor as well, and so we were able to
(01:22):
do that. They're able to do some fun activities together
as a group, some things that they did without the coaches,
some things they did with the coaches. And then obviously
we had a couple of games who were down there
as well.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
And so.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah, the first time we played Boise State, obviously a
little bit of a tougher matchup for us, a little
bit bigger, stronger. I thought we competed. It's kind of
been the same situation we've dealt with kind of all
year long a little bit. And the fact that we
can guard, I mean, we really truly can guard. I
think this team can really get down and dig in
and defend at a pretty high level. And another team
that we held about twelve points below their average. But
we're just really really struggling offensively to take care of
(01:55):
the ball and stick the ball in the basket. And
that third quarter bugaboo has kind of been an issue
for us year long, coming out of the locker room.
Going over five behind the arc to start the third
quarter and getting down at a ten ole run obviously
makes it really tough. So just some things that we
have to work on. I do think our kids are
competing and playing hard. You know, the next day, same
sort of thing. You're playing an Elon team that is
pretty athletic, and you know, again it was the second.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Quarter in that quarter that kind of did us in
a little bit there.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
So I do believe that that the kids are competing.
One of the nice things is I feel like they're
staying together, understanding that through through adversity obviously comes a
will to grow and get better. And so I've been
proud of the fact that they are staying together. They
are staying connected at our locker room has not gone awry,
which is great to see. And you know, with that,
I think is the ability for them to grow. So
(02:41):
there's two games that I felt like we could have
competed and had a chance to win, and we came
up a little bit short.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
And so we'll come back tomorrow so we can do
against Montana. And he mentioned that now you get to
be home. I'm sure the girls are excited to be home,
get back into the ben eats tomorrow night and a
big one with Montana.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
What do you know about the Grins, Uh, they shoot
the three at a high rate. I mean, they're the
third highest three point rate shooting team in the country.
So they really get out and shoot the three really well.
And one of the things that we do really well
defensively is we kind of take the three away. So
it's going to be a game of they shoot about
thirty five three is a game they really get out.
Their rate is extremely high. It's one of the tops
in the country. So we're gonna have to get out.
We're gonna have to guard, you know, real physical. It's
(03:17):
definitely on the ball, play outside the ark quite.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
A bit, meet and great early is what we call it.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Really get down, dig in and defend, and obviously you're
gonna have to score. I mean We're gonna have to
find a way to definitely take care of the ball
and make sure that we're getting high quality shots, you know,
shots that are good for us, and that we can
start knocking some shots down a little bit higher clip
than we are right now.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
So outside of that, then you get back on the
road with about six to go here in the first
half into Christmas, but then you get to spend some
time at home. What are you hoping to see you
now in the last half dozen seven games here before
the break.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, definitely growth. I mean, we need to see ourselves
starting to grow. We're playing a lot of young kids,
and like we've talked about, you know, with young kids,
obviously you want to have that ability to grow. So
every time they step on the floor, we want to
see a little bit more improvement, a little bit more
jumping their confidence, a little bit more in kind of
a step up in their ability to play a little bit,
especially offensively. I think defensively, we've done a fine job
(04:06):
of competing at a high level defensively, offensively, taking care
of the.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Ball, being able to knock shots down.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Just seeing that natural growth as they continue to play
a little bit more as a team and a little
bit more individually. So that's definitely something that that's high
on our radar here as we kind of get down
the home stretch here. But it's nice to be at home.
We've been on the road quite a bit obviously, so
it really isn't have to be at home. But I
just want to see them continue to stay together as
a group, continue to understand what it means to be
a part of something bigger than themselves, which is something
(04:34):
that we preach in our program every day. And I
do believe the success will come if they're able to
stay the course, if they're able to just kind of
trust the process and not bail on it. I think
there are brighter days ahead for them. And that's just
the thing right now that they're holding their hands on,
hanging their hat on, is their ability to understand that
hopefully they are brighter days ahead.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
And is that what it's going to take just a
good result, or is there one other thing that if
you just get your hands on it, you're really going
to start to see that snowball start rolling down.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I think you will.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I think they're we need to be a game where
we just kind of where everything clicks offensively. You know,
we just like I said, we've been very solid defensively, rebounding,
all of our numbers metric wise are very very high
above average and everything defensively, it's really been offensively for
us and our inability to kind of take.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Care of the ball.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
And so combination of them probably playing a little bit better,
I'm not going to lie to you, probably combination of
me coaching them a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I mean, I think it goes both ways.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
And so it's something where I'm hoping that we can
find that one game where everybody's able to crack through
and then everybody can just take a deep breath and
just kind of relax a little bit as obviously the
game starts to come back a little bit. So we
do talk to them a lot about, you know, don't
go searching for the game. You know, let the game
find you. Sometimes when things like this happen, one player
wants to try to take over and do everything themselves
and try to take over, and you go searching for
(05:45):
the game, And we kind of talk a lot about
let the game come to you instead of going and
searching for the game a little bit, so staying within ourselves,
playing together obviously something that we that we preach in
our program, and I think if we can continue to
do that, I think obviously then these X three or
four games might be really good for us.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Got a question in from long time listener, first time
caller Paul Rolston asking me to ask you to describe
a game day when you are in the US Virgin
Islands versus a non game day while you're there, A
game day in the Virgin Islands versus the Virgin Islands
game day, non game Well, what you can share on
a public form of mass communication.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Well, it's it's for us. We talk a lot about
this on the road trip. There's time to turn it on.
There's time to turn it off. When you're going on
a five day road trip. Obviously, you can't turn it
on the entire five days, so there's gonna be times
when it's going to be off. When it was on,
it was a typical game day. It's a shoot around
in the morning, it's it's breakfast, it's it's film, it's
go to the shoot around, it's come back, it's film again, okay,
(06:41):
and then obviously they're getting ready and we're heading to the.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Gym, and then we're doing our warm up and then
we're playing the game. After the first night.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
When they come back after that game, it's film again
because we play the next day, so we do the
next scout, we have film again. They wake up the
next morning, they have film again, and then we go
to shoot around, and believe it or not, they have
one more session of film. So our kids are learning
really hard or quick to understand to be a student
of the game. And then obviously we play, we play
that second game. And so with the fact that we
(07:07):
were playing basically in the early afternoon both times, it
did lend itself some evening time where I did feel
like it was important. We made a lot of family
down there. We were very, very lucky to have a
lot of parents and a lot of family down there,
and so it was important to me that for a
couple of hours on that second night they were able
to spend some time with their family, because that's really important.
Family is really important to me. It's just should be
really important to our players. And so that second evening
(07:28):
we gave them a chance to have a few hours
with their families. They were able to do some things.
We are the ones that didn't have family. We stayed together,
we did some things. A lot of us went over
to watch LSU play and just kind of get a
feel for, you know, what that caliber of basketball is
like as well.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
So that was kind of.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
How it went. And they did snorkel one day. They
did get on Academoran and we're able to do some
snorkeling a little bit. I did not go with them
on that trip. That was them doing that alone, but
it sounded like they had a really good time.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And how big can that mental break be. Like you mentioned,
they're they're grinding, they're working, they're trying to.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Grow, but sometimes you need that just kind of pause,
right without complete stepping away too.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah, And obviously it gets to be a rough time
for every athlete this time of your finals week is
coming around the corner. People get stressed out a little bit,
obviously academically, obviously athletically as well. So it's a tough
time for any student athlete at this time of the year.
If you're lucky enough to still be playing, if you're
a fall sport, or if you're in a winter sport
and you're in a kind of getting into the middle
of your season's it's a tough stretch. So we talk
(08:21):
a lot about handling stress. And I do believe that
there are what we would just call mini vacations. We
can call them, take a mini vacation, Take take an evening,
Make sure you're giving time for yourself, make sure that
you're stepping away. I will say that our kids spend
a lot of time in the gym.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
They really do. I mean, it sounds kind of funny.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
It doesn't seem like they shoot a lot on their
own outside when you come, but they do. They do
put in a lot of time. And sometimes I tell
them stepping away from the game and taking a break
is not always a bad thing, and then coming back
and hammering it home the next day. It's kind of
like when you're looking at a problem, you keep staring
at it. You're staring at it, you can't figure it out,
you step away, you come back, and all of a sudden, boom,
the answer.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Hits you in the face.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
So sometimes sometimes working less is a little bit better,
and so working smart red than harder, or something that
we talk a lot about.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
And I do think the mental break might help them.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Yeah, obviously, as we kind of get ready to get
to the end of noun conference play and come.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Back right after Christmas and crank up the conference season.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Well, it's great to have you back. Obviously, best to
luck tomorrow night and then from there, like you said,
just to sprint to the finish to ramp up non
conference and keep building a good thing. Thanks again, and
I appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Thanks for having me. Appreciate it, you bet.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Dennis Hutter, head women's basketball coach at und They are
in action with Montana tomorrow night live in aside the
Benning back from the Virgin Islands and looking to continue
to build as they put on their final push before
the holiday breaks. Or I thanks to Dennis Hutter for
joining us here tonight on Hawk Talk Live inside the
five oh six Pup Hugoes Pure Market. We'll take a
(09:41):
quick time out, come back and get ready to close
things out and we continue on hawk Talk again live
inside the five oh six Pup Hugoes Pure Market and
all along the Fighting Hawks Radio Network