Louisville vs. Morehead State
December 28, 2008 | Women's Basketball
Dec. 28, 2008
Louisville Head Coach Jeff Walz
(On the team's performance)
"I don't think that it was a step back for us today. It showed a lot about our freshman. I continue to tell them that they have to earn their playing time. I do not give them playing time, they have to earn it. Unfortunately, they are going in the wrong direction. Not all of them though. I thought that Mary Jackson played hard. She has got to cut down on her turnovers. She can not turn the ball over six times. Monique (Reid) played a really good game. Mo (Reid), for the 17 minuets she played, I thought she played hard for all of them. She had 11 boards. She did turn the ball over twice. She put the ball above her head and went back to being a senior in high school. Those kinds of things that worked in high school do not work in college. I thought that Gwen (Rucker) played well. She goes 2 for 7 from the field but everything else that she does for us is really good. We have got a few of them that are figuring it out but I have to get one or two more of them if we want to make a run in the BIG EAST and then the NCAA tournament. A few of these freshmen have got to start doing things the way that we want them done."
(On the defense pressure)
"We did a nice job in the first half. We got ourselves a nice lead and we decided to try to work on our half court defense after that and did not press the entire time. I was pleased. For us to hold them to 16 points and 22 points in both halves was very good for us. It is our first game back after the break. Angel (McCoughtry), I thought played well, going 7 for 11 from the field and getting 17 points and 12 rebounds in 19 minutes. We are making some strides. I thought the most impressive thing for me was how well we did offensively the last 10 minutes of the first half when Angel was on the bench. That is something that always concerns a coach, can your team score when your best players are on the bench? I thought that we proved, tonight for sure, that we can do that."
(On the turnovers)
"They were brutal! Some of them were just careless. A few of them were from making crazy passes and forcing it to someone who had two or three defenders on them. All we have to do is make a simple pass. We have to get some of our players to understand the value of the ball that's for sure."
(On Brittany Pittman's defensive performance)
"I think that is where we get careless in not following the scouting report or the game plan. We specifically told them you can not dribble right into her and throw it up because she will block it every time. Unfortunately, we continued to do that time after time. I was kind of shocked that she only had eight blocks. She is probably the best shot blocker I have seen in my 14 years of coaching. She times it as well as anyone that I have ever seen."
Morehead State Head Coach Mike Bradbury
"I think the biggest thing for us was that we couldn't rebound ball in the first half. That was our biggest concern coming in and it proved to be our weakness with us being able to stay in the game early. The turnovers hurt us a little, but not near as bad as rebounding."
(On Brittany Pittman's limited time in the second half)
"At the about the 12 minute mark we got her and Bozeman and Lumpkin out of the game and tried to play the rest of the way with who we've got."
(On Angel McCoughtry)
"She's as good as advertised. I think Coach Walz did the best job on her today. I appreciate the 19 minutes for her. It's a good thing we're friends."
(On Louisville's 34 turnovers)
"I think they were a little sloppy, I think both teams had some different combinations out there that normally aren't out there and don't get a lot of minutes. We average about 15 or 16 turnovers a game. We normally won't turn it over that much. There were some different combinations out there. We were trying to rest some of our kids and they had a huge lead and were doing the same."
(On Louisville's defense of the three)
"We didn't make any. I thought they did a good job of contesting, especially against the better shooters that we have. They really got out there and contested. We tried to drive it by them a little bit and when we did we couldn't finish at the basket in the first half. Lumkin got it to the bank two or three times and missed a layup. Pittman got in there and missed a couple of layups. We did what we were supposed to do. When they took the three away, we drove it and we couldn't finish around the basket. And once again, we couldn't get a rebound."
"I will say, a lot of our shooting percentage was due to them. Even the shots that we got that were open, which were not a lot, but the ones that we did were so rushed. We weren't used to being open. And that's normally the case for us. So even when we were open, we couldn't get our feet set."
