UNC WBB ACC Tipoff Breakout Interviews: Courtney Banghart

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Basketball season is here in Chapel Hill. And if Saturday at the Smith Center wasn’t enough of an indicator, the annual ACC Tipoff got underway in Charlotte on Monday. North Carolina women’s basketball head coach Courtney Banghart spoke with reporters in a breakout session following her press conference Monday afternoon.

Hear and watch what she had to say below, and read some noteworthy excerpts…

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“We just have way more guys that can create offense for other people. Last year, it was Reniya (Kelly), and then you had people that could score, but they couldn’t necessarily create offense for other people. Now, we have multiple people on the floor at one time, so the ball moves more. There’s more weapons, you’re playing out of closeouts, and so that was where we lacked offense last year. We just didn’t have enough. If you could stifle Reniya, we couldn’t really make offense happen, and now we’re going to be much harder to do that to this year…

“The fact that the NCAA lets you host if you’re a top 16 seed is an incredible reward for the fan bases that have invested in your program. Because that place (Carmichael Arena), you couldn’t get a ticket, it was literally jammed full for all the games, and there’s something different about a win-or-go-home game, and that’s so rare to have at home. And our fans just showed up, and I felt like we were giving back to a group that had really lifted us into this light…”

“Our best two players last year consistently were our two posts (Alyssa Ustby and Maria Gakdeng), and neither one of them had 3-point range. So we had to make sure that they were always involved in the action, otherwise their defender would just sit. And so now actually our best players are actually at the perimeter spot, and our post can actually shoot it, and they can really stretch it. So you’ll have a little bit more space. There will be more space for guards to attack in transition, where obviously there was more rim runner in the past.”

“If you’re an athletic director at Duke or North Carolina, the brand value of having your women’s game played on ABC is is really valuable. So it certainly validates the work you’re putting in, both in terms of for your sport and for your school. ABC is a window everybody’s fighting for. Obviously the rivalry is really special nationally, but to be able to be a part of it at this time in women’s basketball is really special.”