Postgame Quotes
2/23/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 22, 2011
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -
Head Coach Terri Mitchell
About the game overall...
Providence came out with a lot of confidence, we got down early, they hit a lot of shots and I just felt like our team was very composed. Angel did a fantastic job of making sure that we stayed composed on offense, that we got the ball inside, we talked all day about attacking her scout (Ashley) - attacking, not just getting the ball in the paint with post touches but being able to penetrate. I thought Angel understood that. Our team settled down on defense. You expect that a home team is going to go on a run, and they did early. We had the mentality of chipping away, working together, and we defended well. Gabi Minx gave us great minutes today. Her stat line shows 1-for-2 and one monster block and one steal, but her defense was unbelievable and her ball handling was great. It was a total team effort. Paige's effort today - a double-double - can't say enough about mentality that she has right now.
About the play of the seniors...
The seniors have a total sense of urgency. The way we played against Rutgers in the first 12 minutes is not Marquette basketball and again I give Rutgers a lot of credit for how they came out. We were able to watch that film, and we've always bounced back strong after a loss, and this is a a win on the road. I don't care what anyone's record is in the BIG EAST - they're always tough games. And our seniors, once we got that tie, they were the ones - Angel scored, Jasmine scored; we got a quick four points. We just went at them, and that's what you expect this time of the year from seniors. The BIG EAST is important, we have a huge game Saturday night, our last home game, a huge game on the road against Cincinnati, BIG EAST Tournament and then NCAAs. That's what this is all about - building our resume and taking one step further.
About MU's defense in the second half versus offense...
Most certainly it our defense (that won us this game). We knew our offense would settle down. We talked about the attacking, but it was definitely defense. They went from shooting 50 percent in the first half to 26 percent. To me, that's the difference. We were contesting shots, we were really helping in the paint too long and we were slow on their skip passes. I thought we were there on the catch, ready to contest, and they had to shoot contested shots. It's a whole different thing. Providence is a great shooting team when they're uncontested. We needed to make them work, I thought we made them work in the second half.