Louisville vs. DePaul
February 23, 2011 | Women's Basketball
Feb. 23, 2011
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Louisville Head Coach Jeff Walz
(On Louisville's defense) "They played well. I was really pleased with our effort tonight. I talked to them the past two days of practice, and said if we come out and play hard and defend, we really did have a good chance tonight. They are such a good offensive team. If you take away the first two minutes of the game, where we stood around and watched, I think we defended extremely well and played hard. We give up eight points in the first two minutes, and then we give up 47 in the next 38."
(On if the game is a big piece of the season) "It's one game at a time. You never know what they think when it comes to who's going to make it [to the NCAA tournament] and who's not. We have to worry about our game against Seton Hall here on Saturday. It's our last home game and hopefully we can get 12,000 in here, which would be great. We'll take care of that game and then we'll have to go up and play at Providence on Monday."
(On if the game can build momentum for the rest of the season) "I don't think it can hurt. I'm excited. It's one game at a time and that's been really our Achilles Heel all year is our consistency. I challenged them in the circle to go ahead and celebrate this, enjoy it, and then tomorrow when we get back to practice we have to be prepared. We've got to get our mindset now for a Seton Hall team who is pretty good."
(On Monique Reid) "She decided to play. Mo is as good as there is, when she wants to play. I've told her that the entire time. The first four minutes of the game, she did not play very well. She was very passive. She was worried about getting her shot blocked. She missed a wide open layup to start the game. Then finally she got aggressive and started to take the ball to the basket hard and wasn't worried about getting a shot blocked. When she does that, we've got a chance to win basketball games. I was really proud of her. We have to have that from her every night in order to compete against Top 10 teams."
(On what he said to the team after DePaul's second-half run) "I'm pretty honest with them. I was not too pleased with them. We've got a few players that have to step up for us and be able to handle the basketball. I challenged a few of them that we can't always rely on Shoni [Schimmel] and Shelby [Harper] to dribble the ball when we're getting pressed. That's kind of what we do. We just throw it back to Shoni and say here you go, we'll watch. Finally, other players started to attack them and we started to get open shots from the press. That's what you have to do."
(On Louisville's defensive stops) "We had some stops. I thought we did a very good job at defending the three-point line. We didn't really give them too many wide-open looks. As well as they shoot the basketball, you can't afford to do that."
(On defending DePaul's Sam Quigley) "We just switched a lot of screens, all on ball screens. We did a really good job of being in front of her and not giving her the opportunity to create a lot."
(On if this is the best Louisville's defense has been all year) "It sure is. We've actually defended well the last four games. Our West Virginia game we defended well. Our Syracuse game, we hold them to I think 55 points. The only problem is we scored 47. South Florida, I think we hold them to 50-something. So we've actually been defending well. Tonight we finally got more offense, and that's what we have to do. Teams are really doing a nice job now of putting big defenders on Shoni [Schimmel], and trying to harass her as much as they can. I've got to get Tia Gibbs back. I've got to get Becky Burke back. They've got to become more of an offensive threat for us. As soon as they start to look to attack, then it's going to open up things for Shoni again."
(On Louisville's free throw shooting) "I was very proud of that and excited about that. That's something we've challenged our players, that if you want to win games, you've got to make free throws."
DePaul Head Coach Doug Bruno
(Opening Statement) "This is an unbelievably beautiful arena. It's just awesome to play in an arena like this. I remember I coached a lot of games over in Louisville in front of 100 people, 200 people. It's a thrill to come here and see what Louisville is doing with the program and putting these kinds of fans up here. It's just awesome. It's about growing the game, and every school has got to keep growing the game. It's just impressive to come and have to play in an environment like this. This is a great place to coach. Louisville did a great job. They've just got a really solid basketball team. You don't beat Kentucky by 25--Kentucky is the second best team in the Southeastern Conference--without being very good. Yes, they've been a little bit up and down because they're young, but they're still a very, very good basketball team. I just really looked at this game as an NCAA Tournament level game--the kind of environment of being on the road and playing on the road. We knew we were going to have a difficult, tough ball game. Monique Reid just owned the ball. We tried to guard her in a lot of different ways. We have no answers for her. That was really a key issue here this evening. Again, I just really believe this is a very, very good Louisville team. I would have liked for our team to win the game, get away with the win, but at the same time, this is a NCAA Tournament team. Hopefully our players will learn from this, get better. We've got to go to Marquette on Saturday. We've got Notre Dame coming in on Monday. We don't have a lot of time to feel sorry for ourselves."
(On Louisville's defense) "They just basically defended. I don't know if there was anything really strategic, as much as they are a good defensive basketball team. I really believe they are a good defensive basketball team and they can play. I can't stand coaches that stand up here and say we got good looks, we just missed. I really believe that when you miss, the reason you miss is because the other team makes you miss. I really believe they did a great job, great game plan by [Louisville Head Coach] Jeff [Walz]. When I start talking about what our players didn't do, it immediately takes away from what the Louisville players did do. I still thought we had some places of decision making that were not real wise, and I'm not talking about turnover decisions. I'm talking about, you have to look at the basket. When you're playing tough defensive teams like Louisville, you can't pass up looks. You've got to be able to see where the looks are. I thought we didn't do a great job tonight. I think it's one of our strengths as an offensive team to seize the looks that we are able to and take those shots. You've still got to make them, but still take them. I thought we didn't do a real good job of seizing the looks, some of the looks we had. I didn't think we did a great job of getting the ball inside. I thought some of our perimeter people passed up some post feeds we could have gotten. We also didn't have a great night from the free throw line. Our kids were not making free throws. We had some situations to score--the ball is dead and you have the opportunities to get some of your key people to the line. You've got to capitalize on those and we didn't."
