Louisville vs. Kentucky
December 02, 2012 | Women's Basketball
Dec. 2, 2012
Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery 1 
| Photo Gallery 2
Louisville Head Coach Jeff Walz
(On Kentucky's last three point basketball with 0:09 seconds remaining) "It went in. It was a good shot, we just didn't have our hand up. It doesn't even come down to that. We go 3 of 6 in the last 2:30 from the free throw line. We gave them the ball game. Our kids played hard as can be, I thought they competed, did a great job. You can't go up to the line and go 3 for 6 in the last 2:30, that's why I spread the floor at the end. I knew they couldn't guard Bria (Smith) one-on-one so we just broke the shot clock down, we milked the clock, and we got fouled on three occasions. If we go to the free throw line and knock them down, ballgame. It was a great effort; I mean our kids played hard. I thought we did a really nice job after we calmed down in the first five to eight minutes of the game. We took care of the ball and we did a much better job of taking care of it. We executed really well in the second half. You're up 14 with 15:08, and then we just kind of, you know missed some opportunities. We had some breakdowns defensively. We played hard, the kids played hard. It's not one play, there were plays throughout the game that, when you start adding them up, that's why you lose."
(On how the team bounces back from a tough loss) "Don't worry about it. It's like I told everybody- everybody wants to go up in arms that its Kentucky versus Louisville. Let's be honest, sure it's a big game, but its nine games into the year and nobody wants to hear that from me, because they're all like, "You have to beat Kentucky". No. Does it hurt that we lost? Sure it does, but I don't care if we're playing (Texas) A&M right now, it hurts if we lose by one to (Texas) A&M. It's not football, where you get 12 opportunities a season to play. You screw it up on a weekend, boy it shoots your entire year. In basketball, we're practicing tomorrow and we're playing on Saturday. Play on Saturday, come back and play next Friday. Come March, nobody cares about this ballgame. If we do our job and continue to improve and make a run in the NCAA Tournament, it doesn't matter. Do we want to win? Of course we do. But, everyone's going, "It's terrible, it's devastating." No its not. It's one game."
(On Janee Thompson's three point shot and conversion of three free throws late in the second half) "That is very, very good. She played extremely well in the second half. She shot the ball extremely well and she shot it with confidence. We fouled a three-point shooter and that was the one three she took that didn't even have a chance. When it left her hand I knew it wasn't even close. But we ended up helping a little too much and then recovered and fouled her. I'll give her credit; she stepped up and hit three big free throws. It was big time, but then we come back down the floor and get fouled and go 1 of 2 from the free throw line. She stepped up, she made her three and we go 3 for 6. It is what it is."
(On if his view of the game changes because it's a matchup between two top 10 teams) "No, I mean I care about the rivalry. I know you're going to print that, "Oh he says he doesn't care." Come on people. Can we not have some understanding here? It's a great game, it's a fun game to coach in, and I know it's a fun game to play in. It's for the crowd. The fans, they're diehard, which is great. So I don't want people to think I don't care about it, I do care about it. But, I promise you if we can make a run and go to the Final Four, I think everyone's going to be okay."
(On Kentucky's run at the end of the second half) "We just didn't make free throws. If we make free throws, there really is no run. It stays at six or it stays at eight - that's when you just kill yourself. You go to the line and you go 1 for 2. Now, instead of being up six, you're up five. Then they score a layup. We come down at 1:41 and get fouled. You make two free throws and it's back to six again. When you got a six-point lead, it's a little more challenging and puts a little more pressure on shots. But then again, everything is put on the last two or three minutes of the ballgame. I could go back to the first half, where we had some opportunities in transition, and we just didn't convert the finish. It was a learning experience for all of us. I was really proud. I thought Shoni [Schimmel] played well. I thought she fought, I thought she competed. Sara Hammond played extremely well. Antonita Slaughter rebounded the ball great in the first half. We're a young team, we got some young kids out there. We miss Tia [Gibbs], we miss Asia Taylor - some seniors that could just handle the basketball. Hopefully, in a game like this, we're just one guard from being able to get some kids some spells because Shoni got tired out there. Bria got tired, but it's hard when I don't have another ball handler to rotate in there."
(On the defensive intensity for both teams) "I sat there and I told our kids, `Our goal was to limit to 12 points off turnovers.' We ended up giving them 17 in the first half. They're a very talented basketball team. Matthew [Mitchell] does a really good job with them. If you can get them into a half-court game, that's not what they want to do. When we got them into a half-court game, it took them out of easy baskets off transition. Janee Thompson made some big time one-on-one moves and made some shots. Overall, I thought we did a really nice job. Our whole goal was if you turned the ball over, you throw it up into the crowd. We had some shot clock violations, but it stops. It's a dead ball and now we're back defending. For the most part, I thought we did a very good job, defensively."
(On the attendance and how far women's basketball has come in Kentucky) "It's a down game for us. We had 22,000 last time we played them. Our fans are great, but I'm going to challenge more of them to come out. You had a chance to see two top-10 teams. I will admit, the first eight minutes of the game, we both have set basketball back about eight years - it wasn't pretty. As it went on, both teams started to relax a little bit. You saw some very good individual plays. You saw some nice team efforts. Both teams ran some things that worked. We're used to playing in front of 10,000 every night. It's a great atmosphere. I think it speaks volumes for basketball in the state. Our fans are some of the best there are. We're very fortunate to have such dedicated women's basketball fans as we do here."
(On Monique Reid) "Tonight, she played 19 minutes and got 5 points and 2 boards. She's not as explosive against teams like she used to be. We're working on some quad strength, trying to just get her knee back to where it is. When we're playing some bigger, stronger people, that's where she gets pushed around a little bit. In the second half, I challenged her there on the bench and told her, `You got to start competing.' She went back out there and I thought she did a really nice job."
Kentucky Head Coach Matthew Mitchell
"Well that was a really hard fought basketball game. I just want to compliment the University of Louisville on their players and their coaches. That was a very tough team that we beat today. I thought they really outplayed us for the majority of the game. They made it very difficult for us to score as you can tell. I thought their players played with a lot of heart and tenacity. I give them a lot of credit. We were fortunate to win, but I was really pleased by our players for fighting when things weren't going well. They stayed at it and played a full 40 minutes and it took every bit of it to win this game today. For our team and our players, this is a great victory today."
(On not playing #3 Janee Thompson the entire first half, what made you put her in the game for the second half) "Well at halftime we were clearly frustrated by Louisville's good play on defense and our offense wasn't very aggressive. I thought they really had us back on our heels. I just asked the assistant coaches if there was anybody we haven't played that can help us on the offensive end. The game was so tight and so tough we needed someone who would come in and assert themselves offensively, and she certainly did that. That was the discussion we had before we came out."
(On Janee Thompson's shot and what he saw) " We just struggled all day to get into any kind of rhythm. Louisville did a great job of switching up defenses at the end two or three times there in the last minute, and we were having a hard time getting into something. I just let it play out and it was just an incredible shot as you can see. She really elevates on her jump shot. She just raised up and made a great individual play. I saw the ball in the air, then I saw it go into the bucket and I was extremely happy. I knew they had a lot of time left in the game. Eight seconds is a long time to defend a good team like Louisville."
(On Azia Bishop and her block at the end) "That was as big as the three. Obviously the three gave us the lead, but Bria Smith had gotten to the bucket a couple of times there at the end, and we hadn't done a very good job. We have really been talking to Azia about being a shot blocker. She is a tremendous athlete, and I was very proud that she could come in and function during crunch time. She made a huge, huge difference in this game. That was just a spectacular play, and A'dia Mathies saving it under the goal I thought were going to have to do it all over again with one second left. Saving the ball from out of bounds was huge. It was a great team win for us today. "
(On #23 Shoni Schimmel scoring 13 in the first half and then what #13 Bria Goss was able to do to her defensively) "Our defense gave us a chance to win it today. You hold a good team like Louisville to 47 points, you would be hopeful to win that game handily. They are so tough on defense too, so we both played a tough game. I thought Bria just made her continue to work. I thought that with all of our players. We made some smart plays defensively and were able to turn them over enough to get the win."
(On what he told his team before the second half comeback) "When we went down 14, they were just out hustling us. I thought that kids like Antonita Slaughter were just playing with so much more energy and going to the boards. She's just one that kind of stands out in my mind. It looked like they wanted it worse than we did. That's the part that was so disappointing for me was that we weren't fighting. But then we got it to nine around 10 minutes and I said `Hey, we are back in this thing.' Under four (minutes) when we had cut it to 4 I thought that we had a really good chance to win at that point in time. We were much more aggressive at that time and we were kind of bringing the fight to them."
(On the officials explanation of Sara Hammond's reviewed 3-pointer) "It was a clock malfunction. I was hoping we would get away with one right there. The buzzer went off when Hammond caught the ball - what an incredible shot that was. They went back and timed it. I can't tell exactly what all happened, I just knew that it was 3 (points) and then it was 6 (points). We were playing really well. I thought that was a huge play of the game and for us to come back and win - that was a great play by a player and I was proud our team bounced back from it. It was the shot clock going off too early."
(On DeNesha Stallworth's play) "Denesha did a great job. She kept us in the game in the first half, there's no doubt about it. She made enough plays to keep us in it. She was really aggressive. Finally towards the end of the game we got a group of guards that would attack and get in the paint. We had been asking them to do that all day and for whatever reason we were a little hesitant to do that. Louisville was doing such a great job on defense. It was a combination of her making some really tough plays in the first half and then she made some big buckets in the second half as well."
(On the turnover situation) "They had 25 and we had 23. It was just a real clean game out there - very impressive. I'm sure Coach Walz and I can market a ball handling tape out of that somehow, someway. "
(On Janee Thompson's free throw shooting at the end of the game) "They were big. Again, we were struggling to score at that point in time too. For a freshman to step up there and in that situation, we needed all three of them. That was a really good play for us and making a play under pressure that was big time."
(On his teams confidence after the win on the road) "I'm real proud of our players and how hard they fought to win the game. I want you to know if it had gone one point for them or one point for us, it's just two real good teams that can get better. We are real happy that we won today. It's a very important win for us and it'll be good for us down the road. But, we clearly have some things we need to get better doing. It's very big. Anytime you can get a win against a quality team like that its big for you."
