Louisville Women's Basketball Postgame Quotes
January 08, 2017 | Women's Basketball
- www.GoCards.com -
Louisville Head Coach Jeff Walz
(On forcing 24 turnovers and the Cardinals losing the ball just six times)
“Well, you know it's always a good thing when you know what color jersey you're wearing. We simply just threw to the people in white. You know, Paul, it's a pretty simple thing. The bakery was shut down today, which is very nice because we weren't passing out those turnovers. We just had better focus. We had better focus. I mean it's one of those things. We didn't force as many of those passes tonight. But we were still very stagnant on offense. We held the ball way too much. We just got to get better as players in understanding who has made shots and where they are on the floor. Mariya comes down and makes that one 3 as we're going on that run, and then she never touches the ball for the next three possessions, and it's unacceptable. It's not that she has to shoot it, but we got to at least get the ball reversed to give us a chance to see if we can't get her another shot and that goes for anything. It could be Myisha at that point. It might be Asia. It might be B.J. Whoever it might be. But we've just got to get smarter as basketball players. You know, I think some of them think it's like equal opportunity like, 'Well she just shot, so I should get a chance to shoot.' Well, if you don't practice and you can't make shots, you don't get to shoot. So it's up to you, what you do, and the player you want to be, but you got to show that in practice.”
(On Mariya Moore more stepping up)
“Oh, she made some big time plays, and really did a nice job. I thought our bench did very well. I was really pleased. Brianna Jones came in the game; I was just trying to find someone to be physical and be a presence. She gets after it. It's the same thing I told her, where she jacked up two quick shots, and I said, 'Don't keep firing it up. Show me you can do more.' She gets a rebound, gets fouled, goes to the free throw line, knocks down two free throws, comes up with that steal, gets fouled again, and knocks down two. I was really pleased with her. Jazmine Jones, I thought, played really well. Kylee, offensively, was great. Our freshmen have to learn to guard. They have to be able to defend somebody, and unfortunately, right now, they are a liability at the defensive end of the floor.”
(On Asia Durr not playing the second half)
“She looked really tired to me. She looked tired, so if I didn't have to play her in the second half, I wasn't going to. I was just trying to give her a break. Tomorrow is a day off of practice. These kids, they are college kids, and don't do a very good job taking care of themselves. They all want to stay up until two or three in the morning, and then try to sleep during the day, and that's not the way it works. If you want to be an elite athlete, you've got to make sure you are getting to bed at a decent hour, and getting a good night sleep. Your body takes a toll, and it is a war out there.”
(On Pittsburgh's Brandi Harvey-Carr)
“We knew she could play and she wore us out, there is no question about it. It really didn't matter who we put on her, but it starts off when you allow her to get some easy ones. We played on the high side which we weren't supposed to, and it turned into two quick layups. As soon as you do that, you get some confidence going, and then all of a sudden start to make more difficult shots. Give her credit, and then she made some really nice post moves.”
Mariya Moore and Jazmine Jones
(On Mariya Moore hitting 3-pointers at a better rate)
Moore: “Praying more, because of the way we were playing … we take a lot of shots in practice now. I think we did before, it just comes down to confidence. I got a lot of confidence after the Duke game and it made me realize that me missing and getting upset about it was really affecting my shot and my team, so just the confidence to keep shooting and they'll eventually go in.”
(On whether Mariya Moore felt she needed to give the team a lift)
Moore: “Yeah, definitely. Every night, but tonight during that stretch where we were struggling and I tried to pull through as best I could.”
(On Jazmine Jones consistently hitting the mid-range jumper)
Jones: “Coach Sam [Purcell] tells me every day at practice, 'hit your mid-range, always attack, be confident in your shot.' He always tells me I've got the best mid-range in the game. Every time he tells me that, I'm really confident shooting it, so tonight I knew it was going in.”
(On the Pittsburgh run to start the third quarter)
Moore: “Lack of focus. It was lack of focus. We just weren't all together on the same page and they capitalized on our mistakes. And we had to pull back together and dial in and figure out whether we were going to win or lose this game.”
(On Brandi Harvey-Carr's good game and what they expected from her)
Moore: “Yeah, our game plan was to have a lot of help-defense and we didn't. So we've got to make sure we follow the scouting report next time, because she had a huge game. If our posts are fronting the ball, then they have to have help and we didn't have that today.”
(On Pitt's 24 turnovers)
Moore: “Coach emphasized pressure, so I think that we really tried to take what he said and apply it. I didn't even know they had that many turnovers, but we just kept rolling and we had a lot of intensity on the defensive end.”
(On maintaining focus)
Moore: “It's hard. I'm a junior and it's still hard to focus the whole time, but it just comes down to little things - like in practice, we have to focus the whole time so it can roll over to the game. When someone isn't focused, you have to hold each other accountable. A teammate has to tell them and then we all have to get back on the same page.”
(On how much confidence a game like this gives Jazmine Jones before her hometown trip to Florida State)
Jones: “It gives me a lot of confidence. Coach Purcell was talking about it earlier … I had a couple of good days at practice and he told me to roll it over to the game and just be confident throughout the whole game and stay focused. We'll go down to Florida State Thursday and just the same thing – attack mentality.”
