Louisville Women's Basketball Postgame Quotes
December 18, 2016 | Women's Basketball
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Louisville Head Coach Jeff Walz
(On Kylee Shook's game)
"She has been working on shooting the ball in practice, has been staying extra, and it's starting to pay off for her. That's one of the hardest things for these players to understand is that if you spend one day extra shooting, you're probably not going to see results. It's got to be weeks. It's got to be a routine, and she's been getting in the gym and working on her game. Offensively, that's exactly what we had seen when we recruited her. Now I'm not expecting her to go 8-of-10 from the field, no, but she makes open shots. I thought she ran the floor well a few times, got some easy baskets in transition, which is what she can do. I thought Briahanna Jackson threw her a really nice pass, but it wasn't an easy catch; she caught and finished. Then, she rebounded the ball with two hands, which has been our biggest challenge for all of our freshmen, is that they all try to rebound it and tip it to themselves, and it just doesn't work like that in college. In high school, when you're five inches taller than the next kid, you can just tip it to yourself. So they're finally starting to rebound the ball with two hands, so I think that makes the difference. Now I still got to get her to cut down her turnovers, that's one area that we're working on with her game, but I was really happy for her."
(On the defensive effort)
"I thought we did a really nice job until the fourth and unfortunately for some of our crew, the crew that was out there in fourth, it's not giving me much confidence that, in close games, you're not giving me much hope to put you out there, and that's one thing I try to be as honest as I can with them is that when you get your opportunity, this is your chance to prove to me that, 'Hey, I should be playing more instead of less.' So now you look through our schedule, and I'm not sure there's anybody that you see on that schedule where we're going to be up 30 at half, so I'm expecting games to be going down to the wire, tight, and now, they're only going to have practice to show me, and, unfortunately, we aren't for three or four hours a day right now. The rotation will start to get cut down, but solely based on them. I would love to be able to keep a rotation like this and 22 minutes a game is the most for any one player because imagine how hard you could go if you knew you were only going to play 22 minutes, but we just did not look very good defensively in that fourth period."
(On the positives taken out of the four-game stretch)
"I really think our energy. I thought we played hard, which was encouraging. I thought we had different freshmen step up throughout these four games. Now, I'd like to start seeing more consistency. I thought Jazmine [Jones] played well again. She's one that I think is really starting to play consistent; played 14 minutes and came up with eight boards, shoots 50 percent from the field, three assists, no turnovers, that's a solid stat line. Kylee [Shook] again, she knocks down some open shots for us, has four blocks, so we need our freshmen to be consistent. I'm not expecting her to get 18 (points) and 10 (rebounds). I'd like that, but it's not something I'm expecting from her every night, but we do need to get some good minutes from our freshmen in order to be as effective as I think we can be."
(What have you liked about this three game stretch from your team?)
“We have done a really nice job. We've done a nice job of dictating the tempo early in the game. Instead of being on our heels, letting people push things at us and dictate how they want to play, we've tried to be the ones that have said, 'This is how we want you to play. This is what we're going to do.' It all starts at the defensive end of the floor. Starting that second half, I was really impressed with Asia Durr on defense because I could hear her talking from my end of the floor. When you start to do that, it makes it easier for everybody else out there. Hopefully that's something that will continue for us because I feel pretty confident as we continue to get a little further along that we're going to be able to score the basketball. Now it's just going to be a matter of can we stop somebody else from scoring.”
(On the positive effect of playing Maryland and Kentucky consecutively)
“Well, we're getting better. I think we're learning that as good as we are, we still aren't just head and shoulders above people. That's the one thing I think in women's college basketball this year, I think anybody can be beaten. Now, no one's beaten UConn yet, but I think people can be beaten. Where in the past, you went into a game with 'Hey, we can do this,' but you may have been the only one that actually believed it could be done. Now there's a lot more parity with that though, if you don't come and play hard you're going to get beat. That's what we saw a few times ourselves, unfortunately.”
(On what Kylee Shook can add to the team through her play)
“If she can continue to do that for us … She shot the 3 well in high school, so it's nothing new. It's not like something she hadn't done before, but what it does for us. It's kind of what Antonita Slaughter did for us for four years. It spreads the defense. It gives somebody with good size that can also play in the post, can defend the post. Now, are you putting a guard on her? You putting a post player on her? So it really gives us some matchup advantages, and then it should open the floor more for our guards to be able to drive and attack.”
(On the upcoming Vanderbilt game)
“They're playing extremely well right now. A new coaching change and style of play. They're really trying to get up and down the floor and run. We're going to have to get back in transition defense. We're going to have to value the basketball. It should be a very good college basketball game. There's no question about it. We're going to have to be prepared to play, and it's going to be a 40-minute game.”
(On Kylee Shook's double-double)
KS: “Coach (Walz) has been working with me in practice, so I was just trying to put what he is teaching me into the game. My teammates, like Mariya (Moore), are really good passers, and she just gives open looks for everybody. It was just an all-around good game for everybody; we just have to work on a few things.”
(On Mariya Moore's overall game)
MM: “We are really trying to focus on passing, rebounding, and team defense, because we need to make sure it becomes habit for the bigger games.”
(On what worked well defensively)
MM: “I think we did really well on our zone defense. Man-to-man comes out comes out of pride, and zone defense comes from talking, and making sure you are in your position and doing your job. I think we did a really good job all around on defense.”
(On the team playing Vanderbilt on the road next)
MM: “I think we are really excited. We live for big games, so I know we are going come into practice tomorrow and work really hard, and work on the things we need to improve upon, and I think it is going to be a great game.”
(On what coach Walz said after the game)
KS: “We need to play better defense, and tomorrow, that is what we are going to work on. We have to pick it up, because these little games might be little, but in the end, it is going to affect how we play in the big games.”
