Colorado University Athletics
Colorado, North Dakota Quotes
January 05, 2011 | Women's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Linda Lappe
General
"The bottom line, a win is a win, and we're happy to start off 2011 in the right way. We're excited to get the win. We obviously didn't play very well; we didn't play nearly as well as we are going to have to from here on out to compete in the Big 12. That's something that we need to go back to the drawing board and definitely work on."
On the team's effort
"We saw it in shoot-around this morning. I hit upon it in shoot-around, and we came out flat without any focus, and I kind of got on them a little bit. You can't expect to turn on the switch at some point and not be focused and not be lackadaisical and all those things. It's something that, from here on out, we can't have. We've got to come into every game with an extreme amount of focus and determination, and we just can't have 27 turnovers again, for the entire year."
On whether it was tough to not overlook North Dakota
"It shouldn't be. I don't know what the thinking was on our players' parts. Obviously as a staff, we want to prepare our team. It doesn't matter which team we are playing, we want to make sure they are prepared as well as we can prepare them for every single game. I think it's definitely not an excuse, that we're playing North Dakota. They have a good tradition, and they were a good team. They did some things. They adjusted tonight and kept us off our game."
On starting Brittany Wilson in place of Meagan Malcolm-Peck
"I think Brittany Wilson has done a great job in practice for the last three or four weeks, really. She came back from Christmas ready to go. She's done a nice job talking, and offensively she's a good spark for us. I thought Meagan [Malcolm-Peck] did a great job coming off the bench tonight. She had one of her better games of the season, I think, just in terms of letting the game come to her. She had a double-double. She was just really solid tonight and did a great job and didn't let not starting affect her. I think that showed a lot of maturity, and I'm really proud of her."
On cutting down on turnovers
"There's never an exact science. Every team is a little bit different. Our passes are very, very soft. We don't have any zip on our passes right now. We telegraph, we get tunnel vision in our passing. The good thing is a lot of them are passing, and it's not like we have to work on passing and footwork and travels and all that stuff. Right now, our big focus is on being able to pass the ball and on hitting the open player and letting them know that it's not that difficult and just being confident. Sometimes we get tentative, and we just have to be confident in our passing."
Colorado Players
Meagan Malcolm-Peck, So., G/F
On her thoughts of being taken out of the starting lineup-"I do whatever I can to help my team. Brittany has been playing awesome, so it's amazing that she gets that opportunity. I want to come in and do what I can, so I focus on rebounding, passing and assists, just trying to help out my team the best that I can. It doesn't matter, whatever I have to do.
On using games like this to prepare for Big 12 play-"I don't think that we came in and executed or had as much intensity and focus as we needed. I think we are all pretty disappointed with how we played all around. I think we definitely need to cut down on turnovers. It showed us a lot of what we need to work on. So we're coming in tomorrow and working on passing and just working on the fundamentals. We are not happy with our turnovers at all. We played lackadaisical, I think.
On reasons for lackadaisical effort-"If we play like that, we will not get any wins in the Big 12. We all know that we need to step it up and make improvements."
Brittany Wilson, Fr., G
On getting her first career start-"I found out yesterday when we were going through the North Dakota film. It feels good, I have been working hard. All that hard work paid off."
On her first half buzzer beater-"We practice that. We do a drill in practice where we shoot the ball from half court, but I saw the time and I knew my speed. So, I knew that if I took the extra dribble and got my feet underneath me, it would be good. Then it went in."
On the reason for the lackadaisical effort-"I really don't know. As a team, we have to pick it up and learn how to play forty minutes. We are not quite there yet. I don't know where our lackadaisicalness comes from. A win is a win, but twenty-seven turnovers, you can't be happy with that."
North Dakota Head Coach Gene Roebuck
GENERAL - "I thought we battled back, we kept working the whole game. We came back after being 25 down, came back and made a game out of it, made them work. That is basically what we wanted to accomplish is the fact that we only played 40 minutes of hard basketball."
ON TEAM'S OVERALL PLAY - "I thought we played good defense. Obviously we had 18 steals. I thought we were in the right spots defensively. We made them stand a lot and I think when you stand a lot on offense, it tends to flatten out your shots so I think that helped us. On offense I think we just got going better in the second half, played much better offensively and I think right around the half point of the first half is when we started to play a lot better. I give our players a lot of credit; we've been on the road for ten straight days, this is our fourth game and we played pretty hard."
ON SEVEN GAME ROAD TRIP - "The wins and losses aren't there, but we've won one game, we've definitely been in another and we battled Toledo and Colorado. That is the one thing I have to say, we've got to battle every game and we're in transition and we are not where we want to be in the next couple of years."
ON MALLORY YOUNGBLUT - "She is definitely a veteran; she has proved her mettle - scored her 1,000th point against Toledo. She is very comfortable with the ball and I can play her all over the floor. I can play her 1-2-4, she is very versatile, handles the ball very well. She is playing great right now. She is playing under control and she is playing great."
ON WESTERN KENTUCKY MATCHUP - "We are going to have to play just like we did the last 30 minutes. That is the thing, consistency is big. We are going to be undersized against most of the mid-major, major teams. We are going to be undersized and we are going to have to make it up by being aggressive. The big thing is keeping our turnovers down; we've been in the 20's every game. If we can get our turnovers down, we are going to see some wins down the road."
