Everything Kim Barnes Arico said after Michigan's win over Delaware State

On Wednesday night, the Michigan women's basketball team opened its season with an 83-30 drubbing of Delaware State. Here's everything that head coach Kim Barnes Arico had to say after the game.

I thought it was a great opportunity to gain experience for everyone on our team, and I love some preseason games where you get an opportunity to get everyone in the game and everyone gains valuable experience, so it was great for people that normally don't get to play to get some great minutes and really perform. Really happy with that. I thought our post play, also, was exceptional. Cameron Williams started the game doing a great job and then Emily Kiser kind of picked up where she left off, but I thought Elise Stuck and Alyssa Crockett came in and gave us great minutes in that spot as well.

I mean when you lose Naz Hillmon, an All-American, one of the best players in the country, you always think of like 'what are you going to do now,' or 'how are you going to replace that.' I think one of the things that made Cameron want to come to the University of Michigan and I think the same could be true for Naz when she came to the University of Michigan, was to learn from the player that came before her. And that was how we filmed for Naz, and for Cameron, it was Naz Hillmon, and she wanted to be able to compete against her every single day in practice, knowing that that was going to prepare her for moments like this.

Last year she had spurts where she was unbelievable for us and helped us win a bunch of games, but we knew it was going to need to be more consistent and a bigger role this year, and she's just embraced that role and has been phenomenal.

Well, I think last year she was so phenomenal off the bounce, and that was something that our team needed last year, but she wants to be, Laila wants to be the best player in the world. So she is always, and when I tell you always, she'll probably be in the gym tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. She is always in the gym working on her game and she wants to be a three-dimensional scorer where she can score from all three levels and knocking down that three consistently is one of the things she really wanted to improve on, and she's worked incredibly hard.

She had a great shot last year, too. She was just a little bit more hesitant with it. She needs to feel confident shooting it and know that she has the green light to shoot it, as does everyone on our team, and I think that's an area we probably talked about with you guys in the preseason is you're going to see us take more threes and probably make more threes than we have in recent years, and we definitely did that tonight.

I think that's probably, I mean there are a few key things that, without Naz we have to emphasize every single day. But rebounding is probably the number one thing when you lose arguably the best rebounder in the nation, especially on the offensive end, like, holy cow, how are you going to make up for that? So, that's something we practice every single day, whether that's our defensive rebounding and blocking out, or whether that's our offensive rebounding and having a motor to the ball. And I think that's another area where Laila is absolutely incredible.

But, Cameron does a great job, too, and like I said, Alyssa Crockett rebounded, like, exceptionally well tonight. Elise Stuck gets in there and mixes it up and sometimes she gets called for fouls, but I just love the effort that she's having to pursue the ball, so that's definitely been a point of emphasis of ours and something that we know we really have to improve.

Jordan has back-to-back, well, and I know it was only an exhibition, but Jordan has had two outstanding rebounding games back-to-back. I'm just proud of, you know, she's a little banged up. She's banged up, actually, because she's been going so hard after rebounds in practice and getting knocked to the ground and getting back up and fighting for them again. So, Jordan has really bought into that and understands that our team really needs that, and, yeah, I'm proud of the effort that she's given over the course of the last few games to really rebound the ball.

I think that's been awesome. It reminds me of a team that we had a number of years ago when Nicole Munger was a freshman, because they had a really young class, but a really talented class, and we were able to go deep into our bench and we haven't necessarily done that in the last few years. We've played six and seven kids through some games last year. It's so nice to go deep in our bench and not lose anything. And I feel like that's, like, what's been exciting to me, and I know I'm including the exhibition in it as well, but those kids, the young ones, the inexperienced ones that are coming in, are just, like, having so much fun and sharing the basketball and making plays and it's so exciting to watch them and I think this time of year when they're gaining this experience and these minutes is really going to be valuable moving forward into the more difficult part of the schedule.

I use the example with football, but their [quarterback] clarity was a lot quicker than ours is. I kind of like the fact that a lot of different people are getting some significant minutes there and experience in that spot. Ari [Wiggins] has gotten a lot of time in the last couple of games there, and she brings a different dynamic with her speed, and her athleticism, and her ability to change the game, just with how fast she is with the ball in her hands.

Greta [Kampschroeder] got some time there tonight and did a fabulous job in the minutes that she had. Michelle [Sidor] probably, on Friday, will get, she's good, she's going to get some time there, so I think this is a perfect time of year to be in a position to kind of figure it out. But maybe it won't be figured out, I don't know, if they're all playing well at that spot, maybe it will continue to be a rotation. I think it's a good position to be in, like oh my gosh, thank goodness, like someone isn't out and you're like 'okay, now we're toast.' It's like okay, someone's out, now we could try somebody else in that spot, and the people that we have been putting in that spot have been doing a great job, which is awesome.

I think, like I said, that's something that we really challenge them. I thought the second quarter we had a little lull and we started to take some possessions off, and I challenged them at halftime, and I thought we did a much better job in the second half. The kids sit down at the beginning of the year and we talk about our goals and our aspiration and this group really wants to be a great defensive team. That's something that they've said to me that that was one of their goals. That's not easy to do, and it's something that we work on every single day, so I challenged them at halftime, if that's something that we're going to make our goal, and pride ourselves on, we've got to lock in and stay focused, and not worry about the team we're playing, and about us and improving on our end. So, I was really happy with our ability to do that in the second half, for sure.

I just think, as much as everybody else in the gym probably looks at the score, I look at how we're competing in every possession. And I try to instill that in our players. It's about competing. One of our core values is 'Competitive Greatness,' so it's not really looking at the opponent, or looking at the score. It's trying to be the best player that you can be in that moment and the best team that we can be in that moment, so there's always things that we can take from this and always areas where we can continue to learn and develop. There will be plenty from tonight, for sure. It's a coaches thing. We're never satisfied.

I thought, specifically, the other night, I loved our second group that came in. I thought they came in and we went on a 19-0 run. They just brought great energy, and they really shared the basketball exceptionally well. I thought tonight when we had some of those great rotations and it wasn't a complete second group, because I think we, I think it's important for a non-starter to get minutes with the starting group as well, and not just a five-sub and a five-sub. Because, they might have to play with that group and work on their chemistry with that group.

So, I thought tonight I tried to do that a little bit more, and I thought there were really some great lineups, like I know we talked a lot about Alyssa, but I know we've talked about Jordan, I know we've talked about Ari, each person that came in, I thought, gave us something different and really positive moving forward.

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