Postgame Quotes
1/18/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 18, 2009
Head Coach Terri Mitchell
Opening Statements:
"You cannot have the kind of droughts we did in the game. At 34-30 I thought we were in a good fight, but they took off and we did not, they hit their shots and we did not and a four-point game changed quickly to 10, 15 and 20. That is what happens in this league if you do not come ready to play for all 40 minutes. You cannot have a game with five assists and think you are going to win. You have to share the ball, get it inside, and we did not do those things, and certainly defensively we had major breakdowns and they took advantage of it."
On preparing for RU's small lineup:
"Well we knew they used the small lineup against Villanova, so we were anticipating one or the other. The offense they ran, we adjusted as we went, and it looked good early when we were switching from a zone to man. I think for us the key was to make switches defensively, and while we did that, while our team was focused, we were good. When we lost focus we were not very good."
On Rutgers offense:
"They hit great shots. What I am disappointed in is that to me, a 20-point game, I am thoroughly disappointed in that. If you are going to lose, you go down fighting, and I felt that we got back on our heels and didn't recover."
On RU guard Epiphanny Prince:
"I think she is just explosive. We needed to make her work harder. One-on-one is not how you can defend her. You need two people and even then she just finds a rhythm. She is cool, calm and collected. You see the shot clock and she is scoring with under 10 seconds remaining and it really doesn't faze her at all. She is a tremendous player and she showed all of that this afternoon."
Senior guard Krystal Ellis
On the game:
"We went backwards when they went on their run. We should have fought harder. They hit all their open shots. We did not rotate right, so we only have ourselves to blame for what happened."
On Rutgers as an elite team in the BIG EAST:
"I think they are a very elite team in the BIG EAST. Any given day, any team in the BIG EAST can win. We did have an off day, and I think that helped them, but I feel that Rutgers is a good team and even though they lost players from last year they are still an elite team in the BIG EAST and we did not capitalize."
