THE MODERATOR: We welcome from the University of Georgia Katie Abrahamson-Henderson.
KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: Good morning, everybody. I want to make sure I get everybody's name, say all the correct things, so I'll read. Obviously on it up to questions afterwards.
It's so great to be here with you today. I've been a head coach for 21 years. This is my fourth season overall at the University of Georgia, which I'm very proud to be a part of in terms of Andy Landers, I played for Andy Landers, so I have much pride in the University of Georgia.
I'm really, really excited about our team this year. We brought back our core from last year, and added the number five-ranked transfer portal, the number 18th-ranked freshmen class.
We are the only team in the conference to have two SEC All-Freshmen team selections in Mia Woolfolk and Trinity Turner. Both of those players return with Savannah Henderson and Miyah Verse.
During this area of revenue sharing, it is vital we invest in women's basketball, not only at the University of Georgia, but in the SEC. We need to keep the SEC very, very strong in women's basketball.
When you look at what we did this off-season with our transfer portal and our freshmen, retainment of our players that are coming back, it's clear that the University of Georgia invested in women's basketball. I want to thank President Morehead, Josh Brooks, Darrice Griffin for all of their support and great outlook on women's basketball this year.
We signed the ACC Sixth Woman of the Year in Dani Carnegie, along with Rylie Theuerkauf and Enjulina Gonzalez, who both led their teams in scoring last year. We have signed three really prolific scorers, which we really needed.
We added two outstanding post players in Vera Ojenuwa and Aicha Ndour, which I call her Ice.
When you talk about our three freshmen -- Aubrey Beckham, Jocelyn Faison and Zhen Craft -- they are talented, competitive and fit our culture very well.
Most of all our entire team is together, and we have really, really phenomenal chemistry right now. That really fits Coach Abe's culture with my phenomenal staff, who has been with me for over 43 years. I'm only 23, guys, not 43 (smiling). We're really excited about that.
These players have really been a joy to coach this year. They make it a lot of fun. I love going into practice every day and seeing 'em. Obviously you'll meet three of them, which have the best personalities on our team.
I'm really excited to be the head coach at Georgia and coach this year.
If there's any questions...
Q. How do you coach your daughter?
KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: What do you mean, how do I coach her?
Q. There's many ways to coach players. Give her the bad news, give her the good news or vice versa?
KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: There's two different concepts there.
I think, once again, my staff has been with me for a long time, so they've known her since she was six. Tahnee Balerio was there when I was pregnant with her when I coached her at Missouri State.
It's not like every day I have to yell at her and push her because she already knows the culture and expectations. Sometimes I have to yell at her more than everybody else. Sometimes the coaches do that for me.
We never have to really turn up her intensity. She gets that. My philosophy is be a great teammate, work hard, obviously talk. She has a really good basketball IQ, so she already knows how to do that.
Nykesha Sales is her position coach. Probably Kesh yells at her the most, and maybe Isoken Uzamere.
It's great to have her on the team. She's actually been voted one of the leaders on our team, so that tells you a lot.
Q. You talk about the transfer class, the high school class you brought in. What was the message that you were selling about Georgia basketball that resonated?
KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: I think family. My coaches, the players. But also the tradition at Georgia. I mean, obviously I played there. Georgia has been to five Final Fours, won SEC Championships. I actually won one of 'em when I was at Georgia.
We have probably 24, 25 WNBA players. We have a lot of significant alumni. I think a lot of these players that did sign at Georgia, they want to be a part of something special, not one of them, they want to be maybe the reason why also.
I think that really helped us getting Dani Carnegie.
Q. Which players do you see stepping into bigger roles this year based off of off-season development?
KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: Bigger roles? Dani Carnegie, for sure. She's probably going to have one of the biggest roles.
Obviously Trinity Turner and Mia will continue to have a huge role. And Rylie Theuerkauf, for sure. She was a leading scorer at Wake Forest. We've brought a lot of scoring in the portal.
Obviously our freshmen are going to do a lot of tangibles. I think Miyah Verse is going to be like Angel Reese. She was one of the best rebounders in our league. Obviously Savannah brings -- I call her a sniper. She's a shooter. What that does for us is space the floor for somebody like Mia.
Vera that we brought from Arkansas, she's special. She was at Arkansas with Mike. He did a great job with her coaching her and teaching her. She's one of our best post defenders. She can really guard. I'm going to give all that credit to Mike.
Q. You say your chemistry is phenomenal right now.
KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: Yep.
Q. Give us some examples of that.
KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: When I walk in the office, they're laying on my couches, having fun. I walk into my administrative's office, they're all sitting on the couch, laughing, having a good time. After practice they stay at practice.
You know you have a good culture when after practice, really intense, we got on 'em, we're intense, they're all hanging out and laughing at each other. That has a lot to do with my staff, too. But they stay and they want to be present, have conversations with us.
I think the last thing is I sit in my office and I have a big window that kind of goes to the parking garage. They literally all walk together. It's a big group. I'll call one of 'em. Can you look both ways before you get hit by a car, number one? Number two is, where are you going? We're going out to eat. Going to that favorite restaurant or that favorite restaurant.
Before, we had to build that, do a lot of team-bonding stuff. I've done that at every program that I've rebuilt or reloaded. Now we don't have to do that anymore. That's what I mean by the team chemistry.
If you have that on your team, that's 50% of our success. Really, it is.
Q. Talk a little bit more about Dani, how she's come in.
KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: Yeah, I only knew Dani really from recruiting. By the time I got to Georgia, she had already committed to Georgia Tech. I watched her AAU. I closed my eyes, Dang, it would have been nice to get Dani.
When she decided to transfer, one of the biggest things I thought was really impressive with her was her family. They really wanted her to stay in the state of Georgia. I'm a big believer in if you're from the state of Georgia, you should play for your school, right?
I knew she was a great scorer. What I've seen about Dani is I did not know she had that huge basketball IQ, huge, and the way she passes. At Georgia Tech, she was more of a scorer, off guard. We've kind of put her with the ball in her hands, along with Trinity and Angelina.
When Dani is coming down the floor, her passing ability, her vision is amazing. I've had to tell our post players, Please, get your hands ready. Dani is not going to look at you when she passes.
It's a lot of fun to play with her because she can see a lot of different things, she can get into the paint, kick to the shooters on the perimeter. She reads offensively so well.
Obviously defensively we're trying to turn her up so she can be a next-level player. She's super coachable. You can yell at her, get on her, push her. She really steps up. She doesn't drop her head, get frustrated.
Dani is super competitive. She hates to lose. She wants to be great.
Q. You mentioned Vera earlier. What has she been like to coach. Where have you seen the most development from her?
KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: Yeah, I mean, I love Vera so much. Arkansas, Mike and us recruited her really hard. I think it came down to both of us.
We recruited her for such a long time, knew her already. When she came back, she's playing for us. I think one of the things that really stands out about her is her work ethic. She's a Nigerian kid, her work ethic is huge. She's like a sponge. She really wants to learn.
Like say we teach her something in practice, after practice she'll stay, ask me a bunch of questions. What did you mean by this? How do you want me to do that? All those good things.
When we watch film, she's really a sponge. We go out to practice, you don't have to remind her what we just said in film. She actually tries to do it. That leads to a great player eventually, right?
She's one of the hardest workers on our team. She pushes herself. She's a phenomenal athlete. Her athletic ability is insane. She played for her Nigerian national team. It helped her grow, play with a lot of WNBA players. She got to play with some really high-level players. I think that really grew her a lot, too.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you.
KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: Have a good day. Have fun all day long (laughter).
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports