Marquette University Athletics
Postgame Quotes
2/10/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 10, 2009
Marquette Head Coach Terri Mitchell
Opening Statement
"I just give our team a lot of credit for fighting and not giving up. On the flip side of that, I think if we would have played with that kind of energy throughout the entire game we probably wouldn't have been in that situation. So the good side of it is to see the fight, the bad side of it is to see that we can't wait until that long in the game to play with that kind of passion. Villanova plays a very different style of basketball. We showed our players and told them, but it should never take away from who we are. I was disappointed in our rebounding. I thought we had every opportunity to win - Angel [Robinson] and Jess [Pachko] fought and should have put their shots in but they didn't and it's alright because it's good signs as a freshman and sophomore. No one's giving up. We're getting two days off. Our team is very tired and needs a rest and we need to prepare for a very good West Virginia team on Sunday."
On the absence of Krystal Ellis in the lineup for the last play...
"I didn't think Krystal [Ellis] was playing her best basketball. I was looking at the statistics and where she was shooting at that point. She got beat a couple of times on backdoors so I just put in who I thought. It's just been a year of responding to whoever. I put Courtney [Weibel] in to shoot the three if we needed a three, and we were down when I put Courtney in, but then Courtney played great defense so I kept her in. Her being able to spot on the wing opened up penetration lanes for Angel. They have to respect her because they know she's going to shoot it. Every time she stepped on the court, they were yelling from the bench, "Shooter," so that did a good thing for us. Krystal just wasn't her game - I thought in the first half she had good minutes and the second half I didn't think she did. At this point in the year, it's whoever is playing well that is going to be in."
On the search for an identity on offense...
"It's unfortunate that Tatiyana [McMorris]is still having problems with her ankle. It sounds like a broken record but she was having problems with her ankle a while ago and she's not pushing off like she should. I think even if Krystal and Angel are struggling, when Tati was healthy, we never missed a beat because she could push. Right now, she's not quite there yet. That's why I agree with you - if those two aren't playing well, Tati is the third choice. These two days off for her will be very good so she can heal up and we can hopefully get her back in the starting lineup. She gives us a lot of spark."
On the struggle to find the right offensive combination...
"It's been a year of that and it's been game-to-game. It's been within a game. If you look at who we ended the game with - Marissa [Thrower], Jess, Erin [Monfre], Courtney, and Angel - I don't know how much that combination has played but they sure were great and they sure showed a lot of passion. We could have won that game very easily and we didn't. Our job is to look how we came back and how our team responded. It's frustrating but you wake up tomorrow and it's a new day."
On Jessica Pachko's attempt to miss a free throw, but making it...
"We hadn't worked on that a lot, and I'll take responsibility for a coach on that. It was a good strategy putting those two in and we still threw the ball away. It ended up being fine, we got the ball back and I told Angel to go to the hoop. I think she pulled up a little short, I would have preferred her to go all the way. Three seconds is a lot of time, you can cover the full court in four seconds, so I thought three seconds was a lot of time. You had two good kids [Angel and Jess] in here interviewing - great character, great spirit. We're just going to take the time off like I said and give them some distance from the game. Friday we get back to work."
Marquette players Angel Robinson and Jessica Pachko
On Angel Robinson taking awhile to find her game after leaving the game with an injury...
Angel: "When I went up for layup, I just got clocked in my face pretty hard. I got some drops in and shook it off and came back in the game. I was struggling but I wasn't really thinking about it. I know that I'm not just a scorer, I try to do all the other stuff that basketball players do too, like play good defense for my team and rebound. Once I found my rhythm on offense, I was a hot shooter so I just kept with it."
On the pressure of being the leading scorer with the ball in her hand at the end of the game...
Angel: "Not at all, I don't think I need to be the team's leading scorer. We have other scorers on our team - Pachko, she stepped up at the end of the game as well. I found her, the team found me, and I'm going to knock down the shots when it counts."
On the defense the last six minutes of play...
Angel: "Getting a stop. We know that they are a team that likes to run the shot clock down, so halfway during the second half we just kept pressure up full court and just kept pressuring our defense. They weren't getting easy shots. We picked it up at the end as a team."
On the last play of the game...
Angel: "My adrenaline was kind of up there. After the first shot, I think if I would have taken my time a little bit on the second shot after the offensive rebound, I probably would have knocked it down. I know I would have knocked it down but there was just a lot of excitement in the last five minutes of the second half."
On Jess Pachko missing the layup with three seconds left to play...
Jess: "Yeah, I missed one, but that won't happen again. I know I can make that shot and I should have made it. It won't happen again."
On making the second free throw Jessica Pachko tried to intentionally miss...
Jess: "I was trying to belt it hard off the back so I could give Marissa and Georgie an opportunity to get it because Georgie is a good rebounder but I did it too hard. It ended up working out."
On Angel Robinson's final shot...
Angel: "Coach Terri just wanted me to go to the hole. We had three seconds left on the clock and it was enough time for me to get to the hole. I don't know what happened but we had plenty of opportunities at the end to finish it. Jess is still learning as a freshman so we keep her head up. We'll be fine. We'll knock those shots down."
On if the team is still looking for an identity on offense...
Angel: "Not at all. We know what team we are but we're just really up and down. Every game we all have to come play together and that's been our focus all year. When we play together, we get good shots and you've seen that at the end of second half, we were all working hard together, getting defensive stops and rebounds when we needed it, but at that time, it was crunch time. We were trying to tighten up the score at that time. We know what team we are - we just need to step out there and get out there on the court and just do it."
On if Jess Pachko's career high in shot attempts was a focus of the game plan...
Jess: "It's always part of our game plan to go inside because that sets up the outside game. We try to always have an inside-outside relationship.
Villanova head coach Harry Perretta
Opening Statement
"You saw when I started coaching we blew the lead. I thought we played very good defense the whole game. The last three minutes, we have a stall game, it's not a total stall game, we didn't even come close to executing it properly. When they're double teaming us we're supposed to attack the double, and we're supposed to shoot the first open shot, which our players did not do. They reversed it. Our kids kept trying to do something with the ball instead of just shooting it and then we wind up taking a bad shot and we got two shot clock violations and then they started to make some real tough shots down at the other end. At the end, we executed the inbounds play correctly with three seconds to go, but Laura's not supposed to try to advance the ball. She's supposed to just catch it and hold it and let the other team foul her, but she tried to advance the ball and we turn it over again. We just made a lot of really dumb plays in the last three minutes and their pressure was pretty intense the last three minutes of the game. It was a good win for us. I thought our defense was pretty solid for the majority of the game.
On the strategy of the last defensive play of the game....
"We were just trying to keep them in front of us. We didn't want to get beat on a lay up, we wanted to get beat on a skill shot. She [Angel Robinson] took a tough shot and she didn't make it thank god for us. That was our whole strategy, just not to get beat for a lay up or to just not switch a screen properly and give up an open shot. We just wanted to give up a contested shot."
On Villanova's defensive play...
"The score was right where we wanted it. It was three minutes to go I think it was 45-36. The problem is we score what, three points the rest of the game? We don't score a field goal the last five minutes of the game. Even though they caught up, you have to say our defense on the road was pretty good because we held them under 50. The problem is we're not a good offensive team, we're just not. Because we go into these scoring draughts, the other team is never out of it and you saw that at the end of the game."
On the play of Angel Robinson...
"The momentum swung and they became much more aggressive. What happens is, it's just like during the course of the game, we're executing really well and you can see our confidence is soaring. As soon as they sensed us being disrupted and we became confused they became comfortable. I've coached for 31 years, it's so evident when you watch the game, one team is playing not to lose, which is us, and the other team is playing to win at the end. We made every mistake conceivable to help them to get back in the game, they made tough shots, don't get me wrong, but we don't make free throws, we don't shoot the ball, shot clock violations, we did a lot of things wrong. Their defense, I thought, was really good in the last five minutes of the game because they sensed that we were confused. If you ever play, you know when the other team is confused and you go after them."
