Colorado, San Jose State Quotes
December 23, 2009 | Women's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Kathy McConnell-Miller
General
"It was a great first half. I thought they executed the game plan as far as how we were going to defend their sets. It started with Meagan Malcolm-Peck and the on ball screens, and quick steals leading to layups. I think it carried over with Bianca Smith. I just thought we handled their sets, which concerned me very much coming into the game because they like to penetrate a lot. That wasn't something that I thought was our strength. I thought we could do it, and we got better at it, but I thought the first half set the tone. I still have concerns with the way we came out in the second half. If there is any area of concern, it's that, and that we gave up 20 offensive rebounds. We had a lot of combinations on the floor that don't always play together, but I thought they fought through it. With the exception of [Brittany] Spears and Bianca [Smith] 28 and 25 point performances, I thought it was fairly balanced with the rest of the team as far as the touches and the shot selection. We are getting better with our assist-to-turnover ratio."
On Preparing for the Game
"A couple things that we are doing different are, throughout the week, we are throwing more concepts at them without them knowing. The day of the game, we rest them a little more. We have been all about breaking down and going through things live. We have really cut back our game day activity, so to speak. I just think they like playing at home, they have got energy. Defensively they are on the same page. I think you can attribute that to the start. I don't think it's necessarily what we are doing on offense. I think it's what we are doing defensively. We did it Saturday night, and I think we did that tonight; just took them out of their stuff and really put them on their heels. It gave us some momentum. Secondly, we come off the bench with Bianca [Smith], Bianca is coming on the floor when players have typically played four, five, six minutes and we are finding her. I think she has got the ability to break that open."
On Big 12 Preparation
"I think most importantly, execution, finding ways to score, defensively adhering to our system, adjusting to personnel, and really advancing our defensive philosophy throughout the last three or four games have really helped us. Establishing some depth and a rotation off the bench have helped as well. We have got the players that just don't want to come off the floor. We have got depth. We need experience going into the Big 12. We have never had that luxury. Brittany Spears had to play 39-40 minutes, and she was exhausted. Right now we are just trying to develop some more players, against whoever we can develop them against. We are getting tested in a lot of areas; our rebounding, our conditioning, our execution. I just think there are a lot of areas that we have progressed over the past couple days."
On Six Straight Home Games
"If you take a look at everybody else's Big 12 schedules, everybody is playing 9, 10, 11 games at home. It's something that took me a little while to learn about this league, but it is reality. Having home games builds confidence, builds momentum, increases our fan base, builds some excitement around the program, it allows our players to go to class, and continue to excel in the classroom."
San Jose State Head Coach Pam DeCosta
On Coming Back to Colorado (DeCosta was a student at Mesa State and Metro)
"It's good. It's always good to come back home. Obviously as a coach coming back you wish you could perform better, but it's fun to be back."
General
"We got intimidated. That is not who we are. Colorado came out and didn't do anything special, we just didn't show up. We got intimidated, there is not too much more to say about it."
On Better Second Half
"That's a little bit of who we are. We still didn't do what we needed to do. That's a little bit of who we are and if we could have started the first half better and took it at CU, it would have been a different ball game. Would we have come out ahead? I don't know, but it would have been a lot more competitive game if we would have done what we were supposed to do."
On Colorado's Team Speed
"Their speed didn't hurt us. It was us, it was all us. We came out and we sat back on our heels. We got intimidated and we were passive. We were passive on both ends of the floor and that's exactly what happened. In the second half we showed glimpses of who we were but we never got there."
Colorado Players
Bianca Smith, Sr., G
On Advantage Of Coming Off The Bench- "My teammates set good screens and find me on the floor. That allows me to get open shots. I think it helps coming off the bench just to get a feel for the game and a feel for what's going on and for the other team's defense and how they are playing. It puts me in a position to help the team."
Brittany Spears, Jr., F
On Hard Work Paying Off- "Yeah I think it is paying off. I'm getting more open shots."
On Confidence Going Into Big 12 Play- "I'm much more confident because I have the experience of two years. Plus our bench is better than the past two years."
