The Daily Bruin’s Sam Allen sat down with women’s water polo coach Adam Krikorian to talk about the team and the upcoming NCAA Championships.
Daily Bruin: What is your feeling entering the NCAAs?
Adam Krikorian: We’re pretty focused. It’s a couple of weeks of game planning and getting this team ready for three games. Ultimately, we’re putting time in preparing for two teams and that’s Stanford and USC. It’s an exciting time because we know NCAAs are a week away. The most important thing that we do at this point is honor the process, and prepare ourselves as best we can and not really think about Friday through Sunday.
DB: Are there specific aspects of the game that you are working on especially?
AK: No, not at this point. We have everything in place. A lot of it is just fine-tuning things and just being as sharp as possible on all the little details that we have talked about at some point over the course of this year. These games that we play are going to come down to one goal. It’s going to come down to the minor things and the little details.
DB: How has the season prepared you guys?
AK: We have come a long way. I think this team has got a lot better over the course of the year. I know we won our first tournament, but I didn’t think we played the way we were capable of playing. This past weekend (in the MPSF Tournament) we showed what we were capable of. The last month of April has been great preparation for us, because we had to play some tough games. It’s prepared us well for NCAAs.
DB: What was the significance of the conference tournament?
AK: To be honest, it wasn’t all that significant. Whether we showed other people that we can play, that we can beat Stanford ““ we don’t care about that. This team is confident in our ability. Whether we would have won or lost, I don’t think it would have changed our mind-set going into NCAAs.
DB: How was the tournament play different from the regular season?
AK: There is a little bit of a physical (element) to it, but when it comes to NCAAs you’re playing for a championship so (fatigue) isn’t going to be a factor. The most difficult thing is that you are trying to prepare for more than one opponent. It’s easier when you’re just playing Stanford on a weekend and you can put all your energy into one team. The challenging thing over (our preparation) is going to be going back and forth between preparing for Stanford and preparing for USC because they are two very different teams.
DB: How different is the expectation going into the tournament this year from last year?
AK: Last year it was a little bit more of us being a 3 seed; not too many people felt that we had a chance, so we were more of an underdog. This year I think any one of the three teams (UCLA, USC, Stanford) has an equal chance of winning it. Our approach and our preparation is the same.
DB: Is there added pressure because this would be your third straight title and the school’s 100th?
AK: I think that’s two different questions. When you come to UCLA to play water polo there is immediately pressure on you to perform at a high level. If anything, what these girls have done (winning two championships) ““ if they end their careers right now, they have had amazing careers. I think that alleviates some pressure to be honest. Obviously we’re going in this to try to win a third straight and we have a sense of urgency, but there’s not that nervousness like we haven’t won one and we need to win one.
In regard to the 100th, I coach the sport and these girls play the sport not to get our name in the paper or to show up on TV or to get a professional contact. The 100th would bring all of those things. We’re not going to get an extra bonus; it’s going to be in the paper for a week or a month, or maybe people will talk about it for a year. In this athletic department we’re going to be trying to reach 150 pretty soon. One hundred will be long gone. The things that you will remember will be the relationships that were formed, the lessons that were learned and the success of the team, whether it’s No. 100 or No. 99.
DB: What are the chances that the champion is not UCLA, USC or Stanford?
AK: (Laughs) I don’t think the chances are very good. There could be an upset, but you need to put together three games in a row. San Diego State has had an excellent year and so has LMU. Both those teams have the chance to win a game, but to win three games ““ that’s a tough task, nearly impossible.