Q. You mentioned the newness. What do you see as a coach that they maybe can’t see yet, but what do you see the identity of this team becoming?
JAN JENSEN: That’s a really good question. We’re going to play — we like to play fast, and continue to play fast. But we can kind of get into a situation where they’re passing that baton easily and quickly, and we’re not having a lot of drop-offs in any way, shape, or form when we’re doing that subbing.
Not that there ever is, but it would be great if we could really get to where you could have a really big lineup and then you could have a smaller lineup and then you could kind of go hybrid lineup. But we’re a ways from that.
I think on paper, it all looks really exciting and it looks, wow, this is really a deep team and we’ve got all this versatility, and we do, but I think anybody who actually coaches or teaches, there is a learning curve that you cannot skip the steps.
Some kids come in with a really high IQ and you’ve known that. Some kids you’re not sure; you get surprised. It’s not quite where you thought that was.
But they’re coming, and so that’s where I’m trying to just continue to settle.
But what I think we can get into is a team that can morph into not just what the other team has and we can counter, but maybe we can do something where the opponents will have to counter.
We haven’t really had that luxury, right? We’ve kind of been true to who we are because we haven’t had the size.
I have a little bit more size than I’ve ever had. We have 6’5” in Layla Hays, a freshman. We have 6’4” in Ava Heiden. 6’5” traditional post which I love, Ava, I love her type of post. It’s a little bit hybrid. She can run. Both of them can run. And then you add Hannah at 6’2” in that mix.
We have some big guards, Emely Rodriguez from the Dominican Republic; big guard. Teagan Mallegni had a nice summer; big guard.
There’s different ways that you can look at it. If we can develop that, I think it can be exciting.
But we are young, and all is not lost if we don’t see that as quickly as maybe we would all love to. But this whole thing when you’re looking at a young career, there’s steps every year, and so I think, again, patience rules the days.
I think the patience of the individuals themselves, I think patience of people in their camps, I think patience of what we see. Everybody will tell you every day is just a step towards who you’re going to be, and our job as coaches is to get us as successful as we can be as quickly as we can be, but you just can’t skip the steps.