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Feb. 11, 2016

Recap | Final Stats

Head Coach Joanne Boyle
Opening statement:
“We came out and took a punch. We got down pretty quickly and that hole kept getting bigger and bigger. Syracuse does a great job of pressing teams for 40 minutes. Like any other team, we turned it over. They were able to capitalize. We really turned it over in bunches and that really hurt us. I don’t think we did a particularly good job defending. They really came at us in every way tonight.

On the team’s slide in recent games:
“I’m trying to find the words of encouragement. We’ve lost our identity. We’ve got to get back to doing the little things well. I feel like we’re on our heels. Whether it’s people not knowing their roles or what, there’s just not a collective energy as a team. We’re all on our own page right now and it’s not a good look.”

On how the staff will deal with players’ rest going forward:
“I think any time you’re in a losing streak, coaches are always trying something. I don’t think there’s any blueprint out there. Part of it is feel and part of it is saying, ‘What’s the best thing to do right now?’ We’ve got to practice. That’s just how it is. But how do we use Breyana [Mason] and Mikayla [Venson] to make sure that we’re still on point and coming in fresh. Sometimes that’s shortening practice, sometimes it’s an extra day off and sometimes it’s film. Again, we assess what we need to be doing every day and just attack it. Obviously, our practices cannot be long stretches. We’ve got two key players we need to keep on point and then everybody else needs to get the reps to be comfortable.”

Junior Guard Breyana Mason
On the difficulties they faced in the game:
“On the court as a player you see a lot of things. I’m not exactly sure why they are happening. We prepared well in practice, we do well in practice and then we come out and do things a little differently. I guess not being confident enough in what we are doing or what the coaches are telling us to do or not following directions. Just being assertive and knowing that we can compete with these teams, we can score, we can defend, and doing that on a nightly basis.”

On the shooting of Syracuse’s Brianna Butler:
“I think early on she just got a lot of open looks, and she is a good shooter so she knocked them down. Once you get in that rhythm as a shooter the basket gets wider and wider so you get more confidence. She had done a lot of damage to us. When we started to slow her down and get a hand in her face the damage was done.”

Sophomore Guard Aliyah Huland El
On handling the full court pressure:
“They are an up-tempo team and we made the mistake of letting them set the tempo. In practice, like Breyana Mason said, we really worked hard to execute against their press and we knew that they were going to press, so it wasn’t a surprise. We just weren’t strong with the ball and we turned it over too much.”

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