Post-Game Quotes
November 16, 2008 | Women's Basketball
Nov. 16, 2008
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Coach Tia Jackson
Opening Statement: "Give all of the credit to Gonzaga; they are a fantastic team. They came in here doing exactly what we expected: rebounding like monsters, getting [Courtney] Vandersloot the ball, and they found a way to execute those things and do it very well. I felt like there was a chance even when there was 29 seconds left. When you give a team 21 second chance opportunities there is a chance that they are probably going to pull out a victory, and that is what happened tonight."
On missed opportunities in the first half: "They had 16 offensive rebounds in the first, they knew they were missing so they pursued the ball even harder and that really hurt us."
On the charge called against Morton late in the second half: "I would love to put blame on one play saying that if that had gone our way the outcome might have been different, but the game is not about one possession it is a compilation of all of the possessions, and we want to do our best to be as close to perfect on all of our possessions. When you are on the defensive end we have to make sure that we rebound and do not keep giving the other team second chances. When you give a team two shots every possession they are bound to score on one of them."
On the five for five substitution early in the second half: "Well we knew that the first four minutes of the second half were going to be crucial, the first four minutes is always the most important time of the second half and we knew that we had to come out and be the catalyst. When that did not happen and they came out and on the first possession got an offensive rebound I knew that we had to make a change so I sent that next group in."
How much of the turnover problems was Gonzaga's defense and how much was sloppiness: "I would not call it sloppiness I mean they were trapping freshman and other player and when they would trap we would immediately get out of attack mode and go into a complacent mode, and that took its toll on us. I will give all of the credit to Gonzaga."
Emphasis after the game: "We are going top learn from it, we are not going to beat very many teams when we give them 21 offensive rebounds and turn the ball over 31 times. We have to commit to taking care of the ball and doing the little things. We have scoring power we just have to make sure that we can get it into their hands."
When did the decision to change the starting line-up take place: "I made the decision and told Laura last night. Laura has always been someone who if she can go 100% then she is going to go. She is a very good player and if she can go then we want her on the floor."
Freshman Guard Kristi Kingma
On playing against Vandersloot: "We never played in High School. We played against each other in summer basketball and then I played her High School team once she had graduated. Courtney is a great player and she is always going to go 100%. I think we did a good job of having a scouting report on her, but I think today she was just better than our scouting report. She did everything she could to get her team a win. She was a big part of that like she always is."
On Vandersloot's second half changes: "She's just a team leader and they didn't get a lead until later in the second half. She probably just sensed that for her team to win she needed to take over and she did that."
On a missed opportunity to build a bigger lead: "They also played a game on Friday and we were aware of that. I think that if we could've come and run them into the ground early they might not have had the legs they did in the second half. We missed that opportunity. We also came into halftime with a lead though so you can't really expect anything more. We hadn't played our best basketball so we were excited because we thought we were going to come out in the second half and hit more shots but they were the aggressor in the second half and they really took it to us."
Sophomore Laura McLellan:
On a missed opportunity to build a bigger lead: "Early on we missed a lot of rebounds. They had 21 offensive boards and they got a lot more shot attempts off of those. If we could've boxed out and given ourselves an opportunity to score I think we really could've built a larger lead that we did. Going into half time we knew we needed to step up and we knew we needed to box out but they just found ways around us.
On coming off her injury: "I actually felt pretty good for sitting out as long as I did. I definitely had a lot more legs and wind. There were couple times where I had to tell coach I needed a quick breather because I was struggling a little bit but as soon as I got my 30 seconds of wind I was ready to go so I felt good."
