HELENA — With Carroll College looking ahead to the start of the Frontier Conference basketball tournament on Sunday, MTN Sports' Jonny Walker sat down with Fighting Saints head women's basketball coach Rachelle Sayers.
A full transcript from the video interview is available below:
MTN Sports: Thank you for joining me. And hard to believe, but it's already time for playoff, postseason basketball. How are you feeling?
Rachelle Sayers: I feel good. You know, this is a long season. You get through the preseason, you get through conference, and you kind of get, you know, rejuvenated because now it's postseason and everybody starts 0-0, and everybody has the same opportunities going into the conference tournament. So, we're excited.
MTN Sports: Looking at the makeup of this year's team. You have those really three veterans on the perimeter (in) Kyndall Keller, Addi Ekstrom (and) Willa Albrecht. Do those three get even better at this time of year?
Rachelle Sayers: Well, I think as the season progresses, your experience kind of shines. They've been down this road before. I think some of your younger players ... the season gets a little long. The monotony of the season gets a little long. And these guys are accustomed to this, so they just understand what it takes to win. And that's really, really critical.
We're not teaching them that part. It's more so just keeping those three fresh and ready -- and let them do what they do.
MTN Sports: Every coach will tell you that come this time of the season, we want to be playing our best basketball. How much of that is coachspeak? How much of that is really true, and especially for this team?
Rachelle Sayers: Well, I think it's always true early in the year, as every year, we've taken our lumps. We’ve gotten ran out of the gym a few times. We've lost some close ones. So, you hope that those games have really taught you what you need to know when you get into conference play. And as you see, we've got four teams that are in the top 30 of all of the NAIA.
So, every game we play has the intensity of a national tournament game. And so, especially on the women's side, it's not just playing a team three or four times. You're playing those teams that have the same rosters for the last three and four years. You're seeing those players and those coaches year after year. And so, there's not many secrets when it comes down to what teams are going to do or what individuals are able to do.
