Marquette University Athletics
Postgame Quotes
1/27/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 27, 2009
Marquette Head Coach Terri Mitchell
Opening Statement
"I give Syracuse a lot of credit for the way they pressured us and kept their press on the whole time. I felt like our time outs were a lot of deja vu, with always talking about the same things; getting the ball in the middle, turning, and attacking. We were very passive in the second half with our mentality-attacking and getting the ball in the paint. When we did get in the paint, we either had a lay-up or a good shot. Going 0-11 for 3's in the second half definitely hurt us. We didn't adjust so it happened, and we are all disappointed, and we'll figure it out and get ready for the next game."
On settling for a front-court game...
"I think I said that every timeout. I don't know why. When we did attack, very good things happened. I don't know why. I think we have very good guards, and I think today we were not playing like we know we can usually play. We'll watch it and teach them and keep teaching them. This year seems to be a year of lessons. It seems to be a year of keep showing them what we need to do. That's all we're going to do. Tomorrow is a new day, and we need to adjust. We will relive the bad moments and make them better tomorrow and get ready for Pittsburgh."
On Syracuse's quickness in covering MU's ball reversals...
"They did a great job of their press and their half court trap and keeping the ball pushed way out. I felt like the middle of the paint was wide open around the "Big East." I felt like when we got it there good things happened. We were having problems seeing, and we were rushed. If you look at our assist to turnover ratio, obviously we were not setting each other up. On the other side, they shot 50 percent the second half. We had some failed defensive assignments-on their double cutter that we knew about out of our zone- so we switched to fist. Those things add up. It was a pretty good second half and then at the nine minute mark, we just lost our focus, and you can't lose your focus in this conference and expect a victory."
On the slow start of her team...
"I don't know. If I truly had an answer, I would tell you. They are good people. They want to win. We started slow, but we did climb back. It was a one-point game at half time so I felt very encouraged at half time because we did start so slow and we finally got it and we fought in the second half. Our energy around the nine-minute mark in the second half just went down, and then our focus went down. I don't know if it was our energy first or our focus, but we stopped doing the things we were supposed to do, and then we dug a hole, and that was it."
On the difficulty of suffering a home loss before a road game...
"It's difficult to win on the road in the Big East. They just took one from us. We all talk about protecting your home court because we know how hard it is to win on the road. We just have to do the best we can preparing for a very good Pittsburgh team."
Sophomore Guard Tatiyiana McMorris
On difficulty of playing with Syracuse's half-court trap...
"We just kept passing the ball around the perimeter. Coach kept telling us to attack the gaps and get an inside game, and when they collapse, kick it out, but we didn't capitalize on that and we struggled with their zone."
on team's poor shooting...
"In the second half, we went 0-11 from the three-point range, and we just need to get it inside. One of our goals is if we miss outside then we need to try to get it and score from the inside. We didn't listen to that, and we came up short. We were off tonight."
On the lack of fast break points in tonight's game...
"That's our game. We want to be a fast-paced team, and their fast break kind of slowed us down. In the beginning, we were attacking, but in the second half, I don't know what happened. We were thinking too much, and we weren't attacking enough. But overall our goal is to be a fast break team, but we didn't do that tonight." Syracuse Head Coach Quentin Hillsman
Opening Statement
"I want to start off by saying it was a tough BIG EAST game. When you come here, you know it is a very tough place to play. Winning a game here is like really stealing one because they have a really good basketball team, very strong guard play, good balance inside and they can really score. We were really concerned about their guards just taking the game over. We knew that Angel, Tati and Krystal can really play. I watched Tatiyiana grow up in New York city so we knew what kind of player she was. We didn't want to lose sight of her either. She made a few driving plays down the stretch, a few driving kicks. It was tough game. It was great to come on the road and get a win, especially after letting one go at home against Pittsburgh. We're happy for the win, but I have to give Terri a lot of credit. She does a really good job with her kids. They really spread the floor, they really make you guard. We thought that this was the one team in the conference that we could not zone. We thought they might shoot the ball too well. We did a good job of getting on those shooters and trying to hold them to contested shots. The ones they made were on transition and we just didn't talk and we got screened. Overall, I thought defensively we played really well and we knew their guards were really good and we controlled their guard play."
On their defensive playââ'¬Â¦
Normally we play two steps higher. So we moved it two steps back. We knew we didn't want to give their guards too much space. We didn't want them to be playing with two much area. We wanted to shrink the floor down so if they made any penetrating moves it had to be at half court and not at three quarters court, where they can drive past us and start pitching out and getting threes. We just moved our press back two steps and we got into it and we got into aggressive.
What they were doing, that I thought was really good, even when they didn't attack and get any shots off the transition, they reversed the ball quickly. They got the ball on the back side they got a few brush screens and then they started beating us off penetration baseline. I thought second obviously half she made a great adjustment. They came out second half and attacked our forwards and attacked the baseline and started getting dribble penetration baseline and we weren't getting over and cutting the basket off. They got a few on us like that.
We talked about it. That's been our whole thing. Make sure on ball reversal, we can close out under control and try to keep them in front of us. I thought for a three or four minute stretch we didn't do that and they got baseline drives and lay-ups. They got some easy stuff on us. Right around the 16 minute media time-out to down to about 12 minutes they were hurting us getting in the lane.
On Nicole Michaelââ'¬Â¦
She's a very athletic player. That's what she does; she's a very good fly-out defender. When she got get running steps on your jump shot its hard to make them on her. She actually blocked two of mine today in shoot-around. Its hard to get them off when she's flying at you. She's long and athletic. She's been big in the BIG EAST play. She's been really stepping up for us.
On shutting down the shootersââ'¬Â¦
We just wanted to make sure they took contested ones. We didn't want to give them wide-open shots. I thought the ones that they made were wide open. I think the critical part about the second half was that they were 0-11, I think it was, behind the arc. I thought that was the difference in the game. They had some decent looks the just didn't knock them down and I think in the first half the knocked the ones down when they were wide open.
