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Question: Victoria was sometimes was your only frontcourt player last year. Now you’ve brought in size with Sarah Beth Barnette and Samantha Drake. Do you want Vic to play more on the perimeter this year?Matthew Mitchell: How we are going to play offensively this year is that we are going to have someone running to the rim and have somebody trailing there at the high post, so it really won’t matter to me which one she ends up doing. It will just depend on who gets the rebound and who is the last one down the court. She is shooting the ball very effectively from 17 feet and in. She still is not quite as proficient from 19 feet as I’d like her to be, but it is better. I still wouldn’t say that is going to be a bread and butter part of her game the way it will be with Sarah Beth. Vic is not that kind of shooter, but she is getting better. I think that clearly if Vic can hit the 17-footer and she can make people honor that, she really opens the floor up for her perimeter game to go by people and finish at the rim. I would love to see her develop and expand her perimeter game more.

Question: Have you worked on Vic’s dunking? Is this the year she’s going to do it?Mitchell: We haven’t got around to that yet. We will just have to see. You never know. I don’t think that she has worked very hard on dunking this summer, but maybe she has. I know that she has been working very hard in the weight room and done all that stuff. That is something that is very low down on my list on things to do.

Question: What are your goals this season and do you want to win an SEC title? Are those reasonable?Mitchell: Oh, yes. I don’t know how reasonable they are, but what we want to do in our program is we want our kids to strive for excellence at all times and in all parts of their life. We want them to be great people. A huge part of their life here is what they do on the basketball court, and I want them to be excellent. I think it’s important that they believe, so you will have to ask them. I definitely believe that they can do something special. I definitely believe they can challenge for an SEC crown and they can challenge for an SEC Tournament title. They can be an NCAA Tournament team and that gives you a chance to go to the Final Four if you can squeeze into that field somehow. I think that they can do all of those things. I have told them so many times that they are still not at a point where we can just show up and walk on the court and things are going to happen for us. There is a lot of work that has to go into that happening. I definitely think that it is a possibility, and more importantly, their belief has to be there. I get the sense that they aren’t just talking when they say that they want to do those things. It is our job to make sure that they have an environment where they are pushed to have a chance to realize it.

Question: One of the things that made last year such a good team was chemistry and their togetherness on and off the court. Are you seeing that develop already for this team?Mitchell: I will have to be around them a little more on a daily basis as a team. I am only around them in groups of four at a time right now, or like today it is only once a week. That is something that I am talking to them about all the time. To me, that is our No. 1 goal. If we’ll do that, then all these other things that we are talking about will fall into place if they will become a team. We had some very selfless players last year that were happy to do whatever it took to win. I think that we have a little more talent this year but I am not sure how much that is worth if they don’t become a team. I am anxious as anybody to see how it turns out. That to me is the most important thing for this group is to become a team, and I keep referring to them as a group because I don’t know if they are a team or not. That will show itself off at some point, whether we are or not. No matter what we have, we have to continue to work towards that. I did think that we arrived at a point last season where I was not concerned about them playing for each other. I have talked to them about that extensively, and everything that I am trying to do with the way I construct practice to any conversations I have with them as a team or individually is all geared to them doing that.

Question: Anything that you have done to create team-building exercises. I know the dribbling on campus last year was one of the methods. Any other things this year?Mitchell: What we are trying to do while we are developing our culture, is everything that I try to do at practice, I need to be thinking of as a team-building exercise. We have had some team-building exercises where you have to engage each other and talk to each other, so there are some off-the-court things that we have done. The traditional approach was to bring in a consultant and have like a workshop or something. What I have found out is that is really a dynamic on-going process all the time and you better be thinking about it every single day if you want it to happen at the level that we need it to happen. We need to be the tightest and closest team in the country if we want to do any of these things that people (think we can do). I saw something the other day that has us ninth in the country in one poll. We better really love each other, care for each other and fight for each other if we are going to be anywhere close to something like that. That is something that we will have to do. Team building for us won’t be able to be a weekend seminar. It better be a daily process. I am in charge of that, going back to the environment that we need to create for them.

Question: You didn’t lose a bunch of players last year but the ones you did lose were those selfless players you were talking about in Amani Franklin and Lydia Watkins. Are you concerned with who can fill those roles?Mitchell: Very, very concerned about that, and not concerned like worried, but just interested to see. You are asking a sophomore that played some (Brittany Henderson), who didn’t play as many minutes as some of those other kids, to expand her role. You are asking two freshmen to come in and replace seniors. I don’t know if concerned sounds like I’m doubting their ability because I don’t, but it is a difficult situation to put them in. I am keenly aware that those players have to develop if we are going off the theory of trying to gage ourselves on last year that they would have to replace seniors. I think that is where it is important for us to stay focused on doing what the group is going to be good at doing. Maybe Samantha and Sarah can’t do exactly what Amani and Lydia could do but maybe they have other strengths and we have to tweak things. As it relates to your question, those are big shoes to fill in my book.