Louisville vs. Missouri State
December 03, 2013 | Women's Basketball
Dec. 3, 2013
Recap | Final Stats | Notes | Photo Gallery 1 
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Louisville Head Coach Jeff Walz
(On taking us through what is was like when Antonita Slaughter went down) "It is definitely something you don't anticipate or you are not use to experiencing. I just took Antonita out of the game and was preparing to bring her back in. That is when my staff called, `Stop, stop, stop', and then I turned around and saw her. She was definitely struggling right there, she was out of it. We weren't sure what was going on so we got her on the floor. I am just really impressed and thankful for what a great staff we have here. The medical staff was there within seconds, the building staff had people there right there and kept people away. They did what needed to be done. You can tell they are professionals, I thought they handled it great. It is not like you see this every game, where you have 20 practice runs and you hope to never see it again. I was really impressed with the building staff and the personal on how it was all handled."
(On the latest update on Antonita Slaughter) "Right now she is at the hospital, going through tests. She is coherent and responding to questions, she has been talking with her family. We are not sure and they are not sure what took place yet. Hopefully, by tomorrow morning I would say we would definitely know more. They will probably put her through the gamete of tests just to try to figure out what took place. The four years she has been with me we have never had anything like this from her or she has never had any history of this to call on. This is more so just wait and see right now."
(On how his team responded after) "I was proud of them. It is ironic in a way because I was just on the phone, about four o'clock, on 680 with Will Purdue and Jason. We spent about 20 minutes talking about our game and what was going on. He asked as a coach how do you handle an injury, because he was up doing the Chicago Bulls' games and ever since Derek Rose went down they have not been the same. I worked for Paul Sanford for six years and the one thing he taught me is you have to get your players focused and get them to understand we are not doctors and as much as we want to be there for her we can't solve what is going on, we have to let the professionals do that. We know what Antonita would want us to do, and that is go out there and compete. We are going to play a basketball game it doesn't matter if you all want to play the game they are going to play the game. Let's go out there and go out there and compete and do it the way Antonita would want you to do. I thought they really responded, I just don't think people understand just what it took from this group of young ladies to continue to play like they did. They are close and I am telling you I know what happened to Kevin Ware was horrific it was just awful. He wasn't going through, what looked like, convulsions on the floor and not responding to anybody. It was darn right scary. But I was really impressed on how our kids responded from that."
(On what he said told the team after the game) "I told them we are going to do what we do. We are going to find out if we can go down and be there with her. Right now she is going through a lot of tests, so she is going to be going through a ton of tests all night long. The kids want to go down but all they would be doing is sitting in the waiting room. That is not necessarily good for them. I am going there after this, and be there with her and her family just to try to find out what the doctors are saying. Then I will continue to get information back to our players, sending texts to them and all the updates I get throughout the night."
(On the 24 assists on the 35 made field goals) "Twenty four assists on 35 made field goals is fantastic. I made them run yesterday, I didn't make them run for the turnovers against Kentucky. What I did was every time we turned the ball over in practice we are going to get on the line. I don't think our kids realized just how much we turned it over in practice until they had to start running for each one. Then all of a sudden you really start to value the basketball because you get tired of running. I thought we did a much better job tonight. With those 12 turnovers you get two that were charges and one was a holding call by Shawnta' Dyer when she was posting up on the offensive end, which counts as a turnover. Then one goes to Cortnee Walton when we tried to save the ball and throw it back in bounds. Out of the 12 we probably only had seven during the game where we made a bad pass. We are making improvements, it is something we have to continue to strive to get better at."
(On making substitutions a little over 20 seconds into the game) "I wanted them to run a particular tip and we didn't do it. I got those three players out of the game and asked them what was going on. And I don't recall putting her (Antonita Slaughter) back in. I don't know if she started to feel bad as she was sitting down on the bench or what."
(At what point did you get an update that you felt some relief) "I went down with about seven minutes to go in the half and Christine Herring, who is our Senior Women's Administrator, walk back in and I knew that she had been with her so I went down and talked to her for a second. That was when they told me she was coherent and was answering questions. She seemed to be doing ok, but they will continue to run a bunch of tests to try to figure out what took place."
(On the amount of turnovers this team can have to function properly) "I think for us, if we turn it over between 15 and 18 times, against a Top 10 team I can live with that. It is because of how we are trying to play. You can't tell your kids to push in transition and try to run, and then be afraid to turn it over. I tell them, if we turn it over going north to south it is ok because it is going to happen sometimes. It is just the turnovers where we dribble it off our leg or we throw it off someone's shoe, or even Asia Taylor's in the first half. Jude (Schimmel) makes a great drive and drops it off to her, and she lets it fall through her hands. Those turnovers are the ones you can't have. Those are the ones we are really going to work on. The thing about it is we had 27 missed shots and we get 13 offensive rebounds. The way it is working right now, we get about 49 percent of our misses back. We are better off throwing it up from half-court. One might go in, but every other one we are going to get the rebound anyway. That is what I have been trying to explain to our players. Shoot the ball before you turn it over. If we can get that into our heads, we have the chance to be pretty good. Because we shoot the ball at about a 49 percent rate right now anyways. It is not hard math, if you get half of them back and then you make half of those, then you are in business."
(On shutting down #21 Bry Snow and the overall defense in the second half) "We came out and played zone the entire second half and are trying to work on a some things. When we get aggressive, that is when we have a chance to be really good. Sometimes we just put our hands straight down, don't get any deflections, and we don't trace the basketball. When you do that, you leave way too many passing lanes open. We are working on making sure we have aggressive active hands. "
(On #32 Emmonnie Henderson's progression) "It is like I said, she is doing better. The hard thing about this is that she is a freshman right now and four of our first eight games, because Florida State is going to be ranked very shortly, were against Top 25 teams. Three Top 15 teams and Florida State. It is hard to throw a freshman out there in those situations. She hasn't had the opportunity to get a lot of game minutes. To be able to learn as the game goes on and realize that this is the flow of the game and this is what I have to do is important. Normally you look at most teams that are out there playing and they aren't playing the schedule that we play. It speaks for itself if you look at the RPI right now we are ranked number 1 with a 7-1 record, now 8-1, and we are number two in the strength of schedule. We are playing people that it is not really great for a freshman to get thrown into. Games like this where we have the opportunity to get her out there and play, are really going to benefit her."
Senior Guard Shoni Schimmel
(on what Coach Walz said after Antonita was taken off the court) "He just said to go out there and do what Nita would want you to do. And that's to go out there and play your hearts out. If anything we were going to go play for Nita anyways but at the same time we have a game plan and we will continue to go out there and play which was our main goal."
(On how they focused as leaders and the way the whole team stayed focused) "I mean it's one thing to go out and stay focused, but we gathered there as a team and I feel like it brought us closer. We wanted to fight for Nita. But you know its scary seeing anyone being carried off the floor on a stretcher."
(When did you guys find out the she was ok) "Coach Walz told us at half time that she was good that she was awake and everything. She was at the hospital and aware of everything. That's when we found out about what happened."
(on having 24 assists on 35 field goals) "It's always great. I'm pass first shoot second kind of person. I'd rather pass make a nice pass to them and have them score. As a team, sometimes where we make that pass where we should have shot the ball instead of passing. He says that to us all the time. He definitely has control over us in a sense of we are learning when to shoot and not to shoot and when to pass and when not to pass. He definitely has us going at it and understanding the game of basketball."
(coach was joking about how turn overs weren't that difficult, you just need to pass to the person with the same jersey color) "Well he's color blind so he doesn't really understand. I'm kidding, but no one likes turnovers. We just need to value the basketball and we definitely learned that the day before we played. We ran for our turnovers and we understood how much we were turning the ball over. We definitely valued it today."
(Is Emmonnie one of those young one's that's getting there) "Definitely, she is understanding the game of basketball. The more she plays the more of an opportunity to understand and learn wrong from right. In the sense that you don't just back the girl down and hit her with your backside. She has definitely grown up the past few games that she's been in. She can only go up from here."
(When did you start to feel comfortable after the game started back up when Antonita left?)
"I think right after we got out of the huddle, we kind of gathered ourselves. We still had to continue to play the game of basketball. The only thing we can do is hope that Antonita is ok, and hope that everything is going to be ok when she gets to the hospital. For us to focus and get the game over and done with then reevalute and see how Antonita is, go see her. For us to just do our job and continue to get the job done and then see how she is."
Junior Guard Bria Smith
(How Scary was it looking over and seeing her fall on the sideline) "I fell like its scary seeing anyone get carried off the court on a stretcher, but to see Nita go down was tough because we are all sisters. But after it all happened I think we refocused well and went out and played for her."
(on her good shooting night from the floor) "A lot of teams they play me mostly for the drive because that's what I am known for. So when teams play me like this it has pretty much just opened up the mid-range game for me. I just try to take advantage of that and put points on the board."
(what did you learn from Sunday) "Definitely the value of the ball. That was the key thing that we took from the game. Also, that we can't just take our foot off the gas pedal. In the first half we were doing well, coming together as a team then we just kind of let go a little bit. And to stay together as a team through adversity that's definitely what we have to work on."
