Five Minutes With Sharon Baldwin
April 25, 2002 | Women's Basketball
GREENVILLE, N.C. - East Carolina head women's basketball coach Sharon Baldwin took a few minutes out of her busy schedule to answer some of our questions about the coming basketball season. Here's what she had to say. On what style of basketball she plans to bring to East Carolina...
"I plan to incorporate an up-tempo pressing style of game. It may take a while to get the players to buy into it and exactly understand what we are trying to do, but I like to play an up tempo game. It's a little bit more exciting to watch, and definitely more exciting to play. So, that's what we plan to do."
On her evaluation of the current women's basketball players...
"I have only been able to watch about half of one video (from last season), and so I still don't know much about the players we have. Today we are going to have some individual workouts and I hope to know a little bit more about where we stand after today."
On her primary goal for the 2002-03 season...
"Our first goal for next season is to be competitive and to put ourselves in a position to be competitive. "
On what brought her to East Carolina...
"I heard a lot of good things about East Carolina and athletics, and I've also heard a lot of good things about (ECU Athletic Director) Mike Hamrick. He's done a great job and he's done a lot in his time here. Conference USA is a strong conference in women's basketball, and it is definitely a big challenge to become competitive."
On Conference USA...
"I'm not one to say what our record will be next year, but I definitely hope to improve from this past season. I know Conference USA is a tough conference night in and night out, and we just hope to be in a position to win some games."
On her success in turning around basketball programs...
"Both of the situations I was in prior to coming here were a little bit different. At Life, I started the program from scratch, and I was able to recruit all the players I wanted. When I went to Mercer, all the players were already there, similar to this situation. One thing is to work hard, and if you work hard, good things can happen. After that you have to have good team chemistry, everybody has to get along on the floor, and has to be working towards the same goal. And on top of that, you have to play basketball a little bit, and hopefully we can accomplish all of those things."
On recruiting...
"Obviously, you look for good players who can come in and help your program, but also you want to look for good people. You want people who will work hard and want to be better, but also who are already good players at that point in their careers. You want players who will make you better right when they come in. Depending on the year, you may be looking for different things. There will be some years when you are looking for a point guard or a post or a shooter; so, the basketball qualities will depend on what you need to help your team. I'm not sure what it is that we have right now. So, I'm not sure what it is we need to look for."
On her plans to announce a staff...
"I don't have any plans at this point in time, but I really plan on concentrating on that in the next couple of weeks. I plan on getting some people in here in plenty of time before we go out on the road in July."
