VERMILLION, S.D.–South Dakota women's basketball head coach Dawn Plitzuweit responded to a number of questions during The Summit League's annual media day teleconference Wednesday. A brief synopsis of the teleconference is included below.
 
Opening statements acknowledged excitement for the season to start, the return of several familiar faces and the success of the Summit League last season.
 
Plitzuweit: We are looking forward to getting the season started and are thankful for the coverage we have gotten as a program here within the Summit League and beyond from a media standpoint. Our student-athletes certainly deserve it. They have done a tremendous job of working hard and representing our program. I am also proud of where the Summit League was last year as a conference from a women's basketball standpoint. With the Summit League ranking 11th in the nation in RPI, that's something to be proud of. We sell that to our players moving forward and getting ready for the upcoming season. We are looking forward to having a few familiar faces return this year from last year's team. We return six of our top eight scorers, but we are also looking forward to returning Jasmine Trimboli for a fifth year, who missed last year, and Caitlin Duffy, who is coming back for her sixth year. There's a lot of wisdom behind those 24 years, she just celebrated her 24th birthday this past weekend. And certainly with the addition of the new players coming in. We are looking forward to getting the season started.
 
On her second year with the program, the impact of the new arena and expectations entering year two…
 
Plitzuweit: From an arena standpoint, I don't have the luxury of comparing the Sanford Coyote Sports Center to what it was like the DakotaDome. However, I can tell you what it was like in terms of being here now and having access for our players to first-class facilities from a training standpoint on a daily basis. Our athletic training room, our weight room… if our weight room is not the best in the nation for our level, I would like to see what is. I have been incredibly impressed. It has been a great tool to help our players develop outside of practice. In terms of our facility, our arena, if you look at our record for women's basketball, men's basketball and volleyball, there's certainly a home-court advantage. A great thought process went into building the facility and it's a great atmosphere and facility for our games. From that end of it, we could not be more excited. From a year two standpoint, I think you asked about expectations, certainly over the course of my career I think year two a lot of times can be your most challenging year. Why? Because your expectations are higher than maybe you are ready for at that point in time yet. For us, we have cranked up our nonconference schedule and the strength of that makes it a little more of a challenge. With that said, our women are certainly very hungry to prove that theory wrong. We are looking forward to getting on the court and starting to compete against someone in a different jersey. Between the length of the postseason, the summer, the preseason conditioning and with practice number nine in front of us today, it seems like we have been at it a long time already.
 
On the importance of the Summit's jump in RPI last season and its effect...
 
Plitzuweit: If you look at the trajectory of the last three seasons, three seasons ago being a 24 in the RPI, then jumping to 16 two years ago and then jumping to 11 last year shows that coaches are being really conscientious about scheduling appropriately. Scheduling challenging teams and winning those games are important in both of those. What does that do from a conference standpoint? It prepares us to put teams in the postseason and to be successful. As things start to align, I was surprised last year that South Dakota State did not receive an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. I thought they had earned one. I thought our conference had supported the right to do that. Now there could be different reasons for that and that is up to the selection committee, but I think we are getting closer to that alignment down the road. From our standpoint, we look at what does that mean for us growing as a program and how do we get better. Certainly looking at our nonconference schedule, how do we prepare to be the best we can be when it comes to Summit League regular season, but certainly right now from a Summit League Tournament standpoint, how do we prepare to be ready for that appropriately? Our goal as a staff was to continue to increase the strength of our nonconference schedule. We had the chance to affect some of that this year, while some of our schedule is still finishing out home-and-home contracts. Moving forward, we look to continue to schedule more aggressively.
 
On Allison Arens' progression as a player…
 
Plitzuweit: I have been impressed with Allison and her ability to become a better defender. That is something that she has grown at in the course of this preseason and headed into the year. I think the second part of that is slowing the game down for her. I was watching film last night of yesterday's practice and in it she was coming off of a screen and started to attack the rim and started to see who was open in the lane. Last year, she would have thrown it because that player would appear to be open, but then yesterday saw where the secondary helper was coming from and was ready to make the next read. For her, becoming better defensively is important and then offensively starting to see the whole floor is where her game is improving right now.