Colorado University Athletics
Colorado-Western State Quotes
November 06, 2010 | Women's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Linda Lappe
General
"I thought we played pretty well. Obviously it's a start. We have to continue to work and get better offensively. Our team came out and they played extremely hard. We worked together, we did a lot of things that we worked on all week, as far as effort and getting after somebody. I think you could really tell that today and they really carried over practice from this week. We had a few really good days of practice and that showed on the court. These two [Brittany Spears and Shae Kelley] did a great job of spurring our offense, spurring our defense, and they really got us into what we really wanted to get in."
On the team's performance
"I liked the fact that we did a great job sharing the ball. We moved the ball well at times on offense, obviously it wasn't for 40 minutes, but against their zone I thought we picked it apart at times. Against their man we did a nice job moving the ball and setting screens and finding open gaps. I thought we did a great rebounding the ball, I thought we did a great job defensively getting in the passing lanes. We were getting a lot of steals which leads to getting easy baskets on our end. Defensively the thing that I think we need to work on is not fouling. Moving our feet. I thought we put them at the free throw line too much, we just had a couple of lulls. One in the first half and one in the second half around the same time. We just have to continue to get better at that and play a full 40 minutes."
On impression of freshmen
"I knew what they could do because I've seen them in practice for three weeks, but I thought they came out with a ton of energy. It was their first time putting on a CU uniform and coming out of that tunnel and they showed a lot of promise, they showed a lot of intensity. Shae did a great job on the boards. She did a great job in transition, she did a great job defensively, so she was able to get a lot of easy baskets at the rim. Her teammates did a great job of setting her up with the ball when she was open and she could score it."
On staying level-headed after the win
"I think we have to downplay how much we won by. There are a lot of things that we need to work on. They played us even for a lot of the second half. It's a game where you look at it on paper, and you should win. You want to win big. I think we definitely can't think that we have arrived and that's where Spears, [Britney] Blythe and the seniors really know what's to come and they know that Western State isn't anywhere close to who we're going to play down the road. That's where you use their leadership to help the rest of the team understand that."
Colorado Players
Brittany Spears
ON NEW PLAYERS-"My first impression was the freshmen are pretty good. Because of how we practiced, we came out hard and we had a lot of energy."
Shae Kelly
ON FIRST GAME-"It felt good. I left off my senior year here [in high school], so those were my beginnings. It didn't feel like I was too nervous or anything, it felt like I've been here before."
Western State Head Coach Latricia Trammell
On Playing Against Colorado
"It's a great experience, it makes us play at an elite level, and it's something we can hopefully build on."
On CU's Offense
"They're very good athletes, we knew that coming in, especially Brittany Spears and Chucky Jeffery. We knew that one thing we had to do was to get the ball inside more and I think our group did a good job of that. They're a great group of girls and they made us try for every possession. That's what we wanted and I'm proud that CU invited us to play them."
On CU's Defense
"They got up in our passing lanes and denied the passes hard. We had a difficult time on our own ball entries, that was something we had to adjust to, like I said their guards did a good job of defending our wing players."
