Colgate's second basketball season under head coach Nicci Hays Fort begins tonight when Cornell visits for a 6 p.m. tip. The Raiders also host Robert Morris on Sunday at 4.

Prior to this weekend's openers, Hays Fort sat down with GoColgateRaiders.com for a question-and-answer session to discuss her thoughts on the 2012-13 season.

What positives do you take away from your first season at Colgate?
“Whenever you have a new coaching staff, you're never sure how long it's going to take your student-athletes to buy into what you're trying to change. And the buy-in from the student-athletes was just phenomenal.

“Also there was the buy-in from the Colgate and Hamilton communities and the Colgate alums. It was a great feeling to walk into those last couple of Patriot League games and see how many fans were in the stands to watch Colgate women's basketball. To see that in a year where we won just eight games was incredible.

How has this off-season been different for you?
“I can walk into practice and say a drill and the returners know it. Last year we were still in the explaining phases on Nov. 1. Now I have 11 players who have a pretty good handle on our drills or what our philosophy is offensively or what we're trying to do in certain defenses.

“Last year, everything was the unknown. This year, there are now only three of them whose heads are spinning around whereas last year I had 15. That's been better.

“Just knowing the flows of Colgate and the Patriot League, knowing the expectations of being a Division I head coach at a great institution like Colgate. I know now that my time is everyone's time, and that's a tough thing for anyone to get used to when going from being an assistant to a head coach. That is an adjustment, so it's definitely been easier in Year 2.

“Our players didn't know what a Game Day looked like for Coach Nicci Hays Fort. They didn't know my expectations, and this year they do. The returners know, and we've had to have a 10-minute meeting about it instead of an hour-long meeting. They know what we want to do for timeouts, they know substitution patterns and they also trust me that I won't take them out for missing open shots.

“There's that buy-in, and they can relay that information to the young freshmen that this is how it is.”

Can you expand last year's home success into road victories this year?
“We haven't worked on that specifically, but it is something we talk about as a team. We don't shy away from facts and from directness. We have to be consistent, and we're working on that every day in practice. We just were not very consistent.

“This is Division I college basketball; there are no excuses. They are student-athletes – not just a student; not just an athlete – a student-athlete. They are playing Division I basketball and not a lot of people have the opportunity to do that. We have to figure out what we have to do to be ready to perform on a Wednesday at Army or a Saturday at American. We've got to figure out how to be consistent at home and on the road.

How was Patriot League competition different than you expected?
“Maybe I'm unique in that I didn't have a lot of expectations. They weren't low and they weren't high, but I had been part of coaching staffs that had gone against Patriot League teams and I knew those teams were always competitive and had a lot of fight in them.

“You have to come to play every night in the Patriot League, because anyone can beat anybody. That's what makes it fun. There's not that team that you know is going to beat everybody by 30. Anyone can compete with anyone, and the competition is very good.

“It's a really physical league. I don't know if that's because they let us play a little more but they let us beat up on each other, and that was a little surprising.

“There are some very good individual players in the Patriot League, and that gets overlooked sometimes in the grand scheme of college women's basketball. And there are some really fun teams and fun styles of play.

What are some of your goals for this season?
“As a team, our goal definitely is to host a Patriot League first-round tournament game. And I've told the team that just because we say we want to finish in the top four doesn't mean we can't still compete for the top one or two. But this is just a realistic goal for Colgate this year.

“It's a tough goal but something that if we work hard and compete every day and we're consistent, then we can achieve that goal. We want to be an up-tempo team and we want to score a lot of points. We want to shoot the ball quickly; we don't want to use the whole 30-second shot clock. A 24-second shot clock would be good for us.

“The biggest thing is competing in the non-conference. We have some games where we definitely can be competitive for those wins, and we have some that are going to be very difficult but will help us in the Patriot League season. We just have to remember that and get better every non-conference game, because we're playing to get ready for the Patriot League season that matters for our postseason.

Describe your team's style of play
“We want to be up-tempo. It's fun for the players to play up-tempo. It's fun for recruits to see us playing up-tempo. Everyone's free to shoot when they are open – we have the greenest green light. It's fun for fans that we play an exciting style, which is a big reason we had more fans last year.

“It is a little bit about growing the game. Not that we're growing it by thousands here at Colgate, but we want five- or six-hundred people to want to come back to the games. This is us. If we want more fans, we're responsible for it, and it's a fun style.

“We want to switch up defenses. We never want to be known as just a man-to-man team or just a zone team. We want to switch it up and keep other teams on their toes, keep them guessing about what Colgate is going to do next.

“We've got to try to be smarter. We've got to pay a little more attention to details, but that's what we want to be known for.

Why are recruits drawn to Colgate?
“Colgate is a unique opportunity to play Division I athletics at such a prestigious academic institution. Not many places combine both. You have the opportunity to compete for a Division I conference championship, knowing that every student-athlete who walks across that stage after four years is getting one of the best degrees possible.

“I have no problem selling that to a prospect because I truly believe it. This is one of the best educations that anyone in the country can get. My goal is now for every women's basketball player who walks through this door to have the opportunity to compete for a Patriot League championship.

“Why Colgate? The Village of Hamilton, the Colgate community, the Colgate alumni. Colgate's alumni are so passionate. I've never been part of a university that had such a large group of passionate alums. If I'm walking through an airport wearing a Colgate shirt, people say, 'Oh, Colgate! Do you work at Colgate? Do you go to Colgate? (I love that one.)

“They're so passionate about Hamilton and their experience here, and they always want to tell you their story. That's a great thing for our Colgate student-athletes to know they have such a great network of alums right at their fingertips.

“We tell our student-athletes all the time that you have to embrace it. This is why you came here – to be part of something bigger than you but something you can still feel a big part of.

Were there any pleasant surprises for you at Colgate?
“I got here and just really fell in love with the spirit of Colgate and the people who make up Colgate. That's what really sold me. I really believed in the vision of Colgate women's basketball, Colgate athletics and the student-athletes at Colgate.

“The spirit, the Village, being up on campus – you just feel this is a really special place, and it's the people who make it that way.”