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Postgame Quotes vs. Rutgers
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Nov. 20, 2016
Head Coach Joanne Boyle
Opening Statement:
“I’m just happy to come out with a win. I thought it was very much one of those grind out games, it was never a start to finish by any means. We found a way to win. We tried to change up some defenses and we were stuck a little bit offensively until the end of fourth quarter, but we stuck it out and I’m glad to get the win.”
On reasons for high number of shots today:
“I think the biggest thing is we just need to move the ball around. If we’re hitting well, lets keep shooting, and Aliyah [Huland El] and Breyana [Mason] in the second half really picked it up. When we are not, we have to get the ball inside and just rotate it. I thought Lauren [Moses] did a good job of getting some touches at the high post and just driving against the zone there. It’s always a balance. We want to get our assists up and we want to play team basketball. If we’re shooting well then we’re going to keep shooting.”
On Rutgers’ fourth quarter defense:
“They spread it out a little bit more but I just thought we stepped up. Breyana, you could tell, she just relaxed and Aliyah was shooting the ball pretty well all night. I think we just knocked down some shots and brought them out of the zone. They had to go man towards the end and then we ran some sets to get good looks to the basket the last four minutes.”
On significance of beating Rutgers:
“Vivian [Stringer]’s been coaching longer than anybody in the game. She’s a great coach and she’s been doing it a long time. She has always had great teams but they had some really good players that graduated so I think they’re just trying to find themselves a little bit. They came out and really played hard tonight. But for us, no matter’s who’s on our schedule, we’re looking towards taking care of us. Everyday, we talk about. I don’t care who we’re playing, if we bring our effort, our energy, our defense, our rebounding, we will find a way to score. I feel like this team, as you can kind of see in the scoring and rebounding column, it’s really balanced. The last two games, it has been more the upperclassmen. The first two games, it might have been a little bit more the underclassmen. On any given night, we probably have five or six people that can score for us, so I’m not really worried about that. I don’t think Dominique [Toussaint] and Jocelyn [Willoughby] shot the ball well tonight but that doesn’t mean moving forward they’re not going to have their nights either. I like the balance of this team when it comes to scoring. But we will always continue to focus on the defense, rebounding, getting better at that. We put an emphasis on rebounding tonight coming out of the Richmond game where I thought we did a poor job. I thought they did a much better job really attacking and keeping them off the glass.”
Senior Guard Breyana Mason
On five free-throws in the last 25 seconds:
“I mean we practice free throws every day, so it is kind of just muscle memory and routine. Obviously when the stakes are higher other factors can come into play, like nervousness, but when you do it so much you are able to just calm yourself down.”
On starting out 4-0 and looking forward:
“It is always good when you can get people in the game. We have eight or nine people who have played a lot of minutes for us. That will be really good down the road. In the past we have started out well and then around Thanksgiving break we have struggled in those areas. We are looking forward to the break and hopefully we can improve on things we have struggled with in the past.”
Junior Guard Aliyah Huland El
On playing Rutgers, a hometown team:
“I’ve been playing some of those girls since I was young, so it’s always a good rivalry that we have.”
On pulling away in the fourth quarter:
“I think our defense helped us pull away. We really buckled down and tried to get stops on defense. We tried to get them on their toes because they were hitting shots very well.”