Colorado-Iowa State Quotes

Colorado Head Coach Kathy McConnell-Miller

General

“It was tough game to lose. When we went down 18, it was not what we wanted. We talked about the runs teams make on us, and we consistently have to recover from them. We did a lot to come back and we have to get to the point where we don't allow teams to go on runs. It is a tough matchup for us, and I think that Iowa State is one of the toughest teams in the conference. We had them on our floor with an opportunity, and we didn't take advantage of that opportunity. There are some good things that happened. I thought that Alyssa (Fressle) had a pretty good floor game, and she did a lot of nice things. If we had gotten (Brittany) Spears a few more touches it would have been a different story.”

On run to close first half

“I thought that what triggered it was when we had to go the length of the floor with 10 seconds on the shot clock and we got a layup. At that point we realized that their defense off of the drive was not as effective as it was guarding the 3-point line. We decided to drive the ball and kick it out instead of being a perimeter team using screens.”

On help defense

“That is going to come with experience. I think that Alyssa (Fressle) sees a kid driving the lane, taking a challenged shot and is in a position to help. We gave up some threes on open looks. Once we huddled up, we made the adjustments on the defense. We want them to take a challenged two, and guard the three.”

On Iowa State's offensive mentality

“I think that out of the gate, their objective was not the 3-point line, it was to go right at Kara (Richards).”

On runs

“It is something different every time; sometimes it is a mismatch or sometimes it is fatigue. You feel like you fix something and something else opens up on you.”

On 18-point deficit early in game

“It takes a great deal to overcome that kind of deficit. If you look at it in pieces it is actually a doable task. We talked about going into half and outscoring them by eight from this point on. If you look at it as coming back from 18 points, it looks like a much larger deficit than it really is.”

Colorado Players

Hannah Skildum, Sr., F

ON OPPOSING TEAM RUNS -“It is a different thing each time. I think that a lot of it is miscommunication, and sometimes it is fatigue.”

ON COMING OUT FLAT ? “Sitting on the bench you have an opportunity to see what is going on out there, and I noticed that we looked kind of tired. We came out without a lot of energy, and that was the reason for our slow start, but I think we got a lot better once we got some energy out there.”

Brittany Spears, So., F

ON CONFIDENCE ? “We have to stick together and keep on going. We had confidence; we just kept saying that if we talked on defense and switched on screens we would be fine.”

Iowa State Head Coach Bill Fennelly

General

“I thought the first 14 minutes we played really well. Defensively, it's 31 to 13, we are playing really solid at both ends. We couldn't really play a lot better. To CU's credit, they made some substitutions; Hannah Skildum came in and made a couple threes on us. They defended really well the last six minutes. Offensively we weren't real pretty. We missed a lot of free throws. But, when you hold a team to 47 points in their own building, you got a chance. That has kind of been our team. We are not doing it one way every night, but tonight it was certainly the defense that saved us.”

On Free Throw Shooting

“You go 4-13 from the free throw line, you are really lucky. We had people at the line, especially Heather [Ezell] where we would put them there every night, all night. You don't dodge that bullet very often. Luckily they [Colorado] missed a couple shots. They had a layup that they missed. For the missed free throw, we caught a break on the shot inside. But we kept guarding and they weren't scoring. We didn't knock them out, but it wasn't a situation where, well you always want to keep it at a two possession game, and while we were missing free throws it was seven points, a three possession game. That is kind of out of character for us, because our kids have stepped up and made a lot of free throws, but certainly not today.”

On Playing on the Road in the Big 12

“Our team is in a really tough stretch. We beat K-State and it was really good. You come out here, and you are not sure. Anytime on the road, you have got to be ready to play. We kept telling our players, they have three players that can score 25 points in a game. We have coached against Kara [Richards] a long time. Brittany [Spears] is as dynamic of a player as this league has had in a long time. [Bianca] Smith gets hot like she did in the Nebraska game. And to the other kids' credit, [Alyssa] Fressle and Hannah Skildum came off the bench and gave some good effort. You just got to grind it out, because you are not going to play at your best every night. And they made us play that way. It's not all about Iowa State; you got to give Colorado a lot of credit for the way they defended. They kept competing and put us in positions to make mistakes. Luckily we played through it. In a long season, these are games that at the end of the year, you hope you win, and not give one away or lose one where you think you could have had that one. My son is a golfer and he says that there are no pictures on the score card. We won this one and we will take it.”

On Winning on the Road

“Winning here is always tough. It's a tough environment for us. We had a phenomenal game with them here last year. Because they are in our division we play them again, and now we have a chance to sweep them. That's what you hope for. We have a win at Nebraska, a win at Colorado; those kinds of games are few and far between in this league. When you get them, you have to enjoy them. It doesn't matter how aesthetic it is, you have to enjoy it. I am very proud of our team to come out here, and do what they did tonight.”

Iowa State Players

Denae Stuckey, Jr., G

ON WIN -“It's pretty big. Even though most people will say it's not as big as it would seem, to us it's really a big win. We have won five straight with tonight's win, so it's a big win to us.”

ON FREE THROWS -“Even though we were up six points, there was still pressure that I needed to make these regardless of how much we were up I mean just in case. I missed them, it's kind of depressing, but we won and that's all that matters. It does matter because if we miss free throws in other games it might cost us the game. So this game we got lucky with missing that many free throws, but the whole thing is we won the game and that is the best thing that we got out of it. Other games we can't chance missing free throws like that.”

ON DEFENSE?“Defense is always a big part of the game. If you don't play defense you might lose. If you play defense they're not going to score a whole bunch of points. It was a huge factor today, this wasn't the best game we played, but keeping them under 50 [points] and us being able to score, that's how big defense was in this game.”

Heather Ezell, Sr., G

ON UGLY WIN?“There is such a thing as an ugly win, and in the end we got the W on our record, we moved to 18-4.It might not have been the prettiest thing, but what mattered is that we got the win in the end.

ON REBOUNDS OFF OF FREE THROWS?“Usually we are able to step up there and knock down those free throws and we weren't able to tonight. We were still able to go down in the defensive end and get the stops we needed and there were a couple times we were able to get some rebounds and things like that kind of kept us in the game.”

ON WINNING ON THE ROAD?“It's huge especially after coming off the two big wins we've had to get another win on the road is really good. Especially in the Big 12 road wins are hard to come by. So for us to get this and to come out here and go home with a win on our schedule is always nice.”