Post Game Quotes vs. Iowa
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Dec. 2, 2015
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Head Coach Joanne Boyle
Opening Statement:
“Obviously, we’re disappointed about the loss. I thought we fought hard for three quarters, but we let one of the quarters get away from us. We did not get many stops and that affected the flow on offense. Iowa is obviously a great team, but that part was disappointing.”
On the pace of the game:
“Once we start scoring the basketball we can get into the press and I thought that helped us and was effective. But we need to play at that pace. That’s good for us. They’re a really good team. They play mostly four guards and one post, so they really spread the floor and that’s one of our weak spots. We got exposed off of dribble penetration and didn’t do a good job of stopping that. Once they started scoring a lot in the third quarter, we had to call some sets and that’s not really our strength. I think that quarter really hurt us.”
On not executing:
“We didn’t have a flow. I think when sometimes you get stagnant on one end, you lose a flow on the other end. I keep telling them that we’re going to figure that piece out. We’ve been playing so many games and we just need time to get a little bit of practice in to understand that and clean some of that stuff up.”
On getting into foul trouble:
“I hurt us, especially with Faith [Randolph] and Lauren [Moses]. Lauren has been doing a great job anchoring us so when she’s out of the game, it’s tough. We just have to have some conversations. I know she’s trying to play physical and strong but somehow she’s got to try and stay in the game more. She got 21 minutes. If she wasn’t in foul trouble, she would have been somewhere between 30 and 35.”
On shifting team strategies:
“Exactly. What is that next layer for us? Finding rotations, honestly. Finding rotations off the bench, the energy, the spark, someone that’s going to come in and get a stop. That is going to be another piece of that too. That’s another layer for us.”
On pressing Iowa in the fourth quarter:
“We said we wanted to be under ten with five minutes left. It was eleven with four something. We were trying just to get stops. We had to speed the game up defensively so we had to press. You’re taking your chances. Sometimes they turn the ball over and kicked it off their foot. Sometimes they broke through and got a layup. At that time, we were really just trying to disrupt them.”
Junior Guard Breyana Mason
On whether Iowa was better at playing at a higher pace:
“I don’t know if they were better, it was just more of what we were doing or what we weren’t doing as far as transition defense, like stopping the ball and making sure we locate their shooters. It was just really a struggle for us all night defensively trying to defend them, and we just never really got in a consistent flow of where we could lock them down defensively.”
On the difference in play in the third quarter:
“Our intensity level on defense. We were getting stops and our press was giving them some problems, and I think that helped us offensively as well because then we were getting easy baskets, we were able to run in transition. That is really the tale of our season right now with our losses. If we are struggling defensively, we don’t do very well offensively and vice versa. If we are doing well defensively then offense will come.”
Sophomore Guard Mikayla Venson
On the flow of the game offensively:
“I think our flow could have been a lot better. We definitely could have attacked them more and had transition offense. They are not a great transition defense team, so I think we could have been more aggressive on that. Then, just in our half-court sets, everyone could have just continued to attack. They were not great at ball screens and their post players were not that fast, so we could have definitely attacked them more and especially gotten to the free throw line a lot more in the first half.”
On what made the Iowa backcourt a difficult matchup:
“The point guard was definitely making their press break go. We were trying to stop her but she was just catching it and going, and it is pretty hard to stop that if we are in foul trouble and we cannot be aggressive.”