Exclusive: Gary Blair opines on his program reloading

Blair breaks down Aggie women's season outlook

Logan Lee: Before we get into this season at hand and practices, let’s rewind to your trip to Italy this summer. How did that go?

Gary Blair: “I bought too many gifts over there, first. I bought my wife and my daughter purses that cost me a bunch. Then we went to one of the wineries and I had a lot of wine shipped back here as well, so other than that I felt like the trip was great for our basketball team, but bad for my pocketbook because my family was not able to go because of school.

“The bonding was had with the six new freshmen … when we went in 2006 to France and Switzerland, freshman were not allowed to go. But here, I was able to take fifteen kids. Fourteen of them were healthy and got a whole lot of playing time. (Alexia) Standish was the only one who could not play over there. We went 3-1, probably should have went 4-0. I was hard headed enough not to realize you can’t play fourteen kids every half against every team, but I sure the heck tried and it cost us the game.”

Blair: “Kristi Bellock, playing at the four spot looked like she had been a two-year starter. She really played well. (Kelsey) Bone had a good trip over there. The freshmen were up and down, as to be expected. Peyton Little, the first two days, looked like she was still back at Abilene Wylie, but in the last two games she might have been the best player on the court.

“Then when you look at the two Courtneys, Walker from Oklahoma and Williams from Houston, they both played very well at times. All they need is playing time playing at the speed at which you have to have at division one. (Adrienne) Pratcher and Jordan Jones at the point guard position did a very good job.”

LL: You mentioned Alexia not being able to play because of her injury. She is really your only guard who has a lot of experience. Adrianne has experience as well. How did that help with your freshmen being able to lead the team at the guard spot?

Blair: “I think they had to learn, but remember last year Pratcher played 19 minutes a game and Alexia played 20.5 minutes a game. 21 starts versus 13 starts, so she has been in our system long enough that she knows that role very well. We are always looking for that new kid to give us that spark and Pratcher is pretty solid on what she does.

“Jordan Jones is just fun. She is Sydney Colson all over again. She has got that smile and eyes that light up and she darts in and out of traffic, and she is just fun. She doesn’t shoot it as well as Colson did but she creates even more because of her speed. She loves to be the facilitator out there instead of the scoring option.”

LL: Practice just started; you have a couple of them under your belt now. Has it gone as planned or are you seeing some things that you didn’t realize may have happened?

Blair: “The teaching aspect, by going to Italy, we’re further along on the offensive end. On the defensive end, we are further behind because we are going with a new defensive coordinator in Coach (Bob) Starkey, who was at LSU for years. He has put in a little bit different philosophy than what Coach (Vic) Schaeffer had, but it is still all about pressure. We just do it a different way and we protect the basket.

“The one thing we have got to improve on is sometimes our defensive stats. We allowed teams to shoot over 40% on us last year. They shot 36% from the three point line and almost 70% from the line. You can only force so many turnovers, and you can only have so many steals to balance that ledger out. What we want to do is have a little bit better of a half-court defense, particularly with our size. When I can roll in Karla Gilbert and Rachel Mitchell who are 6-5 or 6-7 coming off the bench we should block more shots and contest better.

“That is what has made Baylor so good over the years, (Brittany) Griner is their defense. Griner protects the landing zone where those airplanes are coming in and teams usually do not shoot over 33% on her. We want to get back into the thirties this year and make teams take shots that they do not want to, make them a little uncomfortable with the basketball out there by putting the pressure on them. With the two freshmen, Courtney Walker will play the two for us and when we put Jordan Jones in there I think we can really put a lot of ball pressure on people.”

LL: You mentioned Coach Starkey as the new defensive coordinator, and you also have Amy Wright. How do those two new coaches compliment this program so far?

Blair: “Coach Starkey is a wealth of knowledge. I will never know as much basketball as he knows. He does his blog, puts all these articles out and in fact my thought for the day was one of John Wooden’s articles that came up on the blog today, ‘Don’t whine, don’t complain, don’t make excuses’. You want to be able to teach your athletes to be in control of their emotions, and he does a good job of motivation and breaking down the game. He is a great teacher.

“Amy Wright, on the other hand, is your energizer bunny. When you first graduate someone, you do not want to bring them right onto your staff. You want to be able to enjoy them as a player then let them go get their feet wet. It has been ten years since I’ve coached Amy and she called every play for me for four years at Arkansas. I loved her to death, but she has been to Cleveland State, Western Kentucky, Arizona State last year and South Florida, so she understands the teaching aspect of the game and she is doing an excellent job in recruiting.”

LL: How are Kelsey Bone, Karla Gilbert, and Rachel Mitchell, your big girls, going to be able to keep up with the new six energizer bunnies down there with the guards? Are they going to be able to keep up? Is it going to be a fast paced game, are you guys going to slow it down or are you going mix and match?

Blair: “Bone is in a whole lot better shape. I think she got frustrated with herself last year because she was having to come in and out so much because of some mistakes, not because of conditioning. She looked at a lot of film this summer and she saw that the problems were in the mirror. She went to get herself in the best possible condition that she could this summer. Her weight is good, she is running the floor well and she is attacking the board. She had 21 on Saturday in our scrimmage, and I think she is playing with a lot of passion.

“We have got to get Karla in the same situation. Karla scored on the half court, but we want her to be more of a factor as we go up and down with the speed of our freshmen. We want her to be able to play with them, not just turn it into a half-court game. The wild card is 6-7 Rachel Mitchell. At times out there you think this is a reincarnation of Brittany Griner and it’s not, but I have four more years. She is getting better and better because she goes against Karla and Kelsey Bone.

“All of a sudden, about halfway through practice, somebody will drive the lane and she will slap the thing out looking like Ray Turner. I said ‘Bring it and keep bringing it,’ but she cannot bring it on a consistent basis. That is what we are working on, but I have four more years with that young lady and she is going to be good eventually.”

LL: You mentioned Kristi Bellock in Italy. How has she continued to grow as a player and what do you see her role as this year?

Blair: “First, she is going to be our starting four spot as long as she stays healthy until we get to Louisville. Second, she has a smile on her face every day. She realizes she paid the price. A lot of kids would have transferred out of here, their lip would have been down, their parents would have been dialing me on the phone asking why their girl isn’t getting more playing time, but she realized that Adaora Elonu was better at the particular time.

“She got better every day in practice, and now she is doing a great job academically and is one of the leaders on our team. She is feeling good about herself, very similar to Skylar Collins in her senior year, and then Maryann Baker the year before. Those kids came off the bench and contributed. Now we are asking Bellock to start for us and average double figures.”

LL: There is obviously a lot of talk and questions about the newcomers, their experience and the strength of schedule, because you guys have a very tough schedule coming in to Reed Arena this year.

Blair: “When you say newcomers, you are talking about the freshmen class ... let’s talk about Johnny Manziel. He is a newcomer, but he had a redshirt year when he got acclimated and everything like that. All of a sudden these kids are coming in and they are ready to play. More than likely we will start one of them for sure, maybe two of them. We have a month to figure that out, so we will keep working every day in practice.

“I think all six of them are going to play. They all bring different strengths and have the ability to score. Walker has the ability to stop you on the defensive end and score. Jordan Jones is just a little gnat out there on defense, she is going to force turnovers and get our running game going. Something we have been really unhappy with the last couple of years, was that with as many steals as we have been getting and forced turnovers we haven’t scored enough in transition offense. I think Jordan Jones will be that catalyst for us there.”

LL: Every year you try to schedule a very good schedule by bringing in big name schools and going to big name schools. This year is no different. What are your expectations for preseason before the SEC starts?

Blair: “The one thing I think people around the country know, I am at Texas A&M for the rest of my career, so I’m not worried about my next job and playing a watered down schedule to get twenty wins and get to the NCAA tournament. I’m going to play the teams that are going to help you win when you get to the NCAA tournament. That is just something I have an advantage in.

“I have a great staff, great talent  and a great recruiting class, so I can play the risk-reward games. A lot of times you do not see that in football, men’s basketball or baseball because they cannot afford to play them, but we can. All of a sudden we are getting the television opportunities. We have got twelve national television games this year. We open up playing Penn State, who is picked to win the Big 10 and are ranked number eight in the country in a couple polls.

“We open up at Louisville and there will be 22,000 people waiting for us because they always sell out their first ball game. Then we get No. 2 Connecticut, coming in here. Folks, don’t wait until January because you are going to miss something that you have never seen before. Geno Auriemma has won seven national championships. I have one little one, but its big to me. Geno has won seven, he was an Olympic gold medal coach, they have more women in the WNBA than any other school. They are coming to our place.

“Last year when we went there they had 12,500 there at Hartford to see us and we got ran. We would like to be able to do the same thing to Connecticut, just win by half a point. We are going play them.

“I’m bringing TCU in here. Last year USC was in here and this year we are going to their place. We are going to a tournament in Vegas, where we will play Kansas State first and then we will play winner of Old Dominion and UNLV. If we win that one, we will play Notre Dame for sure in the finals and they have won a national championship and finished second the last two.

“Our RPI is going to be great. We need butts in the seats to make a difference. Do you know what it is going to be like when LSU comes in here for football? They are going to think they are at home in Death Valley, now all of a sudden we have the 90,000. I want the same thing to happen in men’s and women’s basketball. We need to start filling the place up in November and December, not wait for the big conference games in January.”