Washington - USC Postgame Quotes
January 08, 2001 | Women's Basketball
Jan. 8, 2001
WASHINGTON HEAD COACH JUNE DAUGHERTY
General remarks
"I am so proud of this team. All year we have been talking
about our ability to play a lot of players. The UCLA game we played 13
people. We've been doing it all year and that helped us so much because we
were able to be fresh defensively and offensively in the overtimes and came
up big because of it. Our defense made them work the basketball and take a
lot of shots with the shot clock winding down. Fortunately we were able to
get great rebounding position. To have outrebounded them 57-40, I couldn't
be more proud of this team."
On the difference in the game
"I thought we showed a lot of poise. We
didn't get rattled, we just kept working hard. Right before the end of the
half, with about eight minutes left, we really stepped it up and got
aggressive and we showed it was going to be a slug fest. It was two great
boxers going toe to toe and it was like survival of the fittest. Our kids
are in great shape and played a lot of kids and that made the difference."
On turning point in the overtimes
"Getting the tip (third overtime) and
Megan going in for the layup gave us great confidence. She sat out a lot in
overtime. She is just a great athlete. She kind of got a second wind and she
scored six straight in the third overtime. Defensively we had a pop in our
step. We were confident at the end that we could hold them."
On the team's toughness
"I'll be honest with you. Last year we lost some
games that were tough like this and there were questions about how tough
this team really was. Did they really want to win? And I think that coaches
hear it, players hear it and the best thing to do is to just get in there
and work hard and make those question marks go away. That is a lot about
what this team is about. It is interesting to see the toughness that the
Mendiola's bring to this program as freshmen. It's great to see the six
seniors stepping up and saying ?we can do this.' I think this can go a long
way with our confidence. This is a huge game for us."
HUSKY FRESHMAN GUARD GIULIANA MENDIOLA
On Game Strategy
"I thought our coaches had a good strategy by putting
in fresh players to get through the overtimes. Rotating players shows how
much depth we have off the bench."
HUSKY SENIOR GUARD MEGAN FRANZA
The turn-around of the game
"We weren't having a problem getting the ball
up the floor in the first half, but our guards weren't in ?sync with what
plays we were supposed to be running, so we talked about it ourselves and
decided we just needed to improve our timing."
HUSKY SOPHOMORE GUARD LOREE PAYNE
On the triple overtime
"Last year USC came to Seattle, we went into
overtime and they beat us by 10. We owed them for it and we did it."
On USC
They are a great team. They came out and played hard- it's tough to
play three overtimes. They had a lot of players foul out and we were lucky
to keep out of foul trouble and that helped us a lot. Our depth on the bench
is also really good. We had fresh players coming off the bench and we knew
that whoever was going into the game was going to get the job done."
HUSKY SOPHOMORE FORWARD KELLIE O'NEILL
On guarding USC player Ebony Hoffman
"We focused on her in practice
everyday, we were trying to get over the top to pull her back but she's a
big girl and so we used a lot of help defense to try to stop her."
USC HEAD COACH CHRIS GOBRECHT
General remarks
"The way that we got hammered on the boards, you don't
deserve to win when you get hammered like that. We just ran out of bodies.
By the time we got to the third overtime, we didn't have many of our top
players left. That was our mistake, letting them get to the third overtime.
We should have put them away in the first, second or in the regulation. We
should have put them away. We've made that mistake twice this week. I
thought it was key that we didn't have Ebony Hoffman. I think if she had
been in the game it might have been a different story in those last two
overtimes. The turnovers hurt us in the first half, but we cleaned that up
in the second half. We're not a great perimeter shooting team so we don't
get too concerned about that. I thought our defense went real flat. You'll
have stretches like that when you're on the road, because you don't have the
emotion that you have when you're at home. We had our chances. We just blew
it."
On the rebounding
"The turnovers were the name of the game in the first
half. Rebounding was the name of the game the rest of the way. As much as we
struggled with different things, I still believe if we would have managed to
control the defensive boards we wouldn't have gotten in that position. Their
shots came off far. I don't know if it's the rims or just where they shoot
from. We were just getting killed on the boards."
On the depth of the bench
"I think in three overtimes it's a factor. I
don't know in regulation if their depth would have been that much better
than ours or if we hadn't fouled out all of our key players. It was huge for
us to loose Jessica Cheeks and Ebony Hoffman. We're heavily dependant upon
freshmen. We have a lot to learn. We are going to be a very good team at
some point. But we're just kind of a mess right now. We've got to clean up
that mess before the season slips away."
