Mondays with Bobby, featuring Mitchell Henry

The Western Kentucky volleyball team, ranked 21st in the nation, opens the 2013 season Friday at Purdue against Alabama A&M, No. 4 Southern California and the No. 16 Biolermakers. Thoughts from coach Travis Hudson, senior defensive specialist Ashley Potts and senior outside hitter Paige Wessel.

Travis Hudson

 Excitement level for 2013: “I’m really ready to get going. It’s been a long preseason camp, a longer one – depends on the way the calendar falls, some years our two-a-days are longer than they are in other years and this has been a long camp with an experienced team.

“Sometimes that’s pretty rough. It gets a little bit old and stale going against each other everyday. But we’ve got a lot of exciting things going on and we’re definitely looking forward to getting started.”

    Battling complacency: “We’ll we’re gonna try and make sure that it’s not (an issue). It’s certainly something that I fight every day, it’s on my mind every night when I got to sleep because we do have a talented group. A lot of nights we’re going to be favored going in.

“We did a great job of managing that last year and it’s going to be one of the real challenges for this team as the year goes along, although it shouldn’t be much of an issue the first three or four weeks with the scheduled we have in front of us.”

    Going in already ranked: “Being preseason top 25 for the first time has been great for the past two or three weeks. It’s been great publicity for our program, it’s been great in terms of recruiting and hopefully drawing attention from the community.

“It’s like I talked to our team about: Our ultimate goal is to be back there at the end. Being ranked early really doesn’t serve a lot of benefit other than the media hype that goes along with it.

“Yeah, we’re ranked 21st in the country, but the first 10 days of the season, we’re playing four teams ranked above us. We could play awfully, awfully well for the first couple weeks and be sitting at .500 overall.

“That ranking will fluctuate and as I told our team, I’m not worried about whether we stay ranked in the first three, four weeks of the season, I’m worried about where we are at the end.”

    Nonconference: “We’re looking to find out where we can get better. Last year we beat Dayton here on our home court when they were No. 10 in the country. We beat a Michigan team that ended up in the Final Four last year. Our kids know that we can play in matches of those caliber, but at the same time, I don’t think they’ll define us. I don’t think these first few weeks will define us. I don’t think these first few weeks will define us either way.

“I think if they go really well, we’ve still got a lot of work to do and we gotta find ways to get better. If we struggle, I think sometimes from those struggles you get a lot better. I guess I’m a little calmer than I normally am because I really feel like either way it goes, we will benefit in the long run from having played those. That’s all you can really ask from your pre-conference schedule.”

    Ashely Potts: “I talk about not being real nervous going into the season, Ashley Potts is a kid that’ll calm those nerves in a coach. She is a terrifically talented kid, there’s no question. Two-time defensive player of the year and she’s a supremely talented player on the court, but what you love about her as a coach more than anything else is you know what you’re getting every night.

“You know she’s going to be there emotionally, she’s going to be there in terms of competitiveness and obviously the skill is there and she knows what she needs to do as a player.

“But she’s a counter. I talk to our players all the time about being a counter and Ashley Potts is a counter. She’s a kid you know is gonna show up and be a factor in a match night in and night out.”

    Sun Belt Conference: “Realistically, if you look over the past four or five years, if you have to pick the top four teams in the Sun Belt Conference the last five years – Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, North Texas and FIU. North Texas, FIU and Middle Tennessee are not in the league this year. I think it widens that gap a little bit in terms of the top half of the conference, but I think there are a couple teams that are capable of winning a championship this year in the Sun Belt Conference.

“It does put , I think, a tremendous amount more pressure because last year we didn’t get a lot of help when we got into league play in terms of RPI as it was. To be honest, I think that’s only going to widen this year. That’s why we’re playing what looks insane on paper, the schedule we’re playing and the first four weeks – that’s why we had to do it. We had to do it to give ourselves a chance RPI-wise.

“You always hear people talk about, ‘Who did they play?’ at the end. We can’t give them that argument against us come tournament time if we’re looking at an at-large situation. You can’t argue the schedule we’re putting in front of our kids and we have to do it.

“Even if things didn’t go great and we’re sitting at .500, it’s still the right thing to have done after four weeks to give ourselves a chance.”

Ashley Potts

 Character of this team: “The character of this team is awesome. The word I would describe it as is intense, competitive, excited. We’re just really excited to get started and play someone other than ourselves. We get after it each day, and it’s really fun, actually. I love having the competition behind me because our ball-control players are really good this year. I just love the competition that we have each day in the gym.”

    Preseason DPOTY: “I guess it’s more of an honor than anything, just to be recognized for what I do. Now I just have to go prove myself and show that I am a competitor for that and we’ll just see how it goes at the end of the year.”

Paige Wessel

    Senior class: “We’ve been together for four years, so obviously we’re really close. A lot of us live together off campus and we hang out. Even off the court we’re always at each others’ apartment or going to the movies or out to eat with each other, so I think we’re pretty close.”

    Preseason top 25: “I think it’s a honor, first of all, to be ranked preseason top 25. But like coach Hudson said before, it’s where you end up at the end of the season, honestly. So we’re looking forward to the end and not so much the beginning.”

 Ashley Potts: “On the court, she’s the most intense person I’ve ever played with my entire life. She’s always talking and I can always count on her to be behind me. If I’m setting up a block, I can always count on her to be right behind me. When I go up to swing at a ball she’s always right there covering me, so I have a lot of trust and faith in her always.”

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