Post-game Quotes
4/5/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
April 5, 2008
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EAST LANSING, Mich. -
Marquette head coach Terri Mitchell
Opening statement...
There are a few teams that get to end their season with a win. It's an incredible feeling. We were fortunate to come in here, our third game on the road, and be able to pull away with the victory in front of a great crowd and against an excellent team. I can't say enough about this team, their unselfishness, their togetherness and their passion to get it done.
On Marquette's play in the first half...
We have been coming out extremely well in all of our games, particularly on the road. It takes something extra to win on the road. We found out in the Big East how difficult it is on the road. Our conference has prepared us physically, mentally and emotionally. We came out well in our last two games and it was our defense that sparked our intensity.
On the crowd...
The crowd was incredible. It's a great basketball tradition at Michigan State. It's a difficult place to play and win. That got us all the more excited. The fans came out and you could tell that they were excited and wanted a championship. Even when we were up double digits, it didn't matter, the crowd was still loud. You couldn't ask for a better college environment.
Michigan State head coach Suzy Merchant:
On not being able to slow down Marquette's transition offense...
That was something that we worked on ever since we knew we were going to play them in watching film. I thought you could really see the difference in the athleticism out there. What happened sometimes with us, I felt like all year long, was that maybe my best defensive team, that has the athleticism, isn't a very good offensive team. And when you're struggling to put the ball in the basket, you make some subs, and maybe you're not as quick, but you're hoping the ball falls. Tonight, it didn't work on either end. Our best defensive team really couldn't get a stop, and our best offensive team couldn't put it in the basket. Give a lot of credit to Marquette; they did nice job. And it's a lesson to be learned, that's for sure.
On the team potentially running out of gas down the stretch...
That's not fair to Marquette. I thought Marquette did a great job. Terri (Mitchell) had them ready to play, and they played their style. We didn't see anything different or anything new. We knew that they were going to double and triple team Allyssa (DeHaan), we got the ball in there to her, she got fouled, and she scored at the foul line. Give a lot of credit to them, because I certainly think that top to bottom, they did a very nice job of executing. It just wasn't our night. I was disappointed in our defense, because all year that's kept us in games, and I just felt like some kids maybe ran out of gas a little bit. I know Brittney Thomas is our best defender, and we were playing that kid 40 minutes a night as a freshman, so maybe there's some validity to that. The alternative really wasn't what we needed. I thought we fought hard, and we showed at times where we had some resolve. But we just didn't fight through our screens the way we normally had been doing it, and defending the dribble-drive as well as we had been.
On Marquette guard Krystal Ellis' play...
I thought she was one of the best guards we've faced all year. You can't send her left, you can't send her right. She can hit pull-ups and three's, and she can create. That's the thing, if you get her to a point where she's giving it up, she's giving it up and most kids were hitting shots today. I thought we probably could have done a better job challenging. We talked to our post players, and early they were stepping up to help too soon, and we've talked to them all year about just staying home and waiting until the last minute so it's not such an easy dump pass. I thought Brittney (Thomas) did a pretty good job on her. She (Ellis) had 40 points against Kentucky, and she was averaging 25 a game in the postseason. So to hold her to 15, we felt good about it. You have to give the rest of them a lot of credit because they got production from a lot of different places.
