Colorado University Athletics
Colorado-San Francisco Quotes
December 01, 2011 | Women's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Linda Lappe
GENERAL:
"A win's a win. Sometimes it's okay to win ugly. I thought we did some nice things. Our rebounding was outstanding, but I thought our defense let us down. We put San Francisco at the line a few too many times and gave them some easy shots. You have to give San Francisco a lot of credit, they came in with a game plan of really driving the ball down our throats and they executed that very well. That was a tough team and they took advantage of a weakness of ours, which is guarding penetration. We have to continue to work on that and get back to focusing on defense."
ON USING THIS GAME AS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE:
"We were contemplating going zone a few times in that game. At the same time, the man is our staple defense; it's a defense that we have worked a lot on and we need to be ready to play it. I wanted us to be able to figure out how to guard on the outside. We didn't want to take the easy way out and go zone, so we decided to stick with man and I thought we had definite spurts where we were playing some aggressive defense, but we just didn't sustain it throughout the 40 minutes."
ON REBOUNDING:
"I thought we did a great job on the boards. We were grabbing rebounds, and that was definitely our focus coming in. I thought our players did a great job of crashing the glass and really not letting San Francisco have second chance opportunities. Rebounding was one of our goals, and I'm glad we achieved it. Now, it's just a matter of going back and seeing what else we can improve on."
ON JULIE SEABROOK:
"I thought Julie played tremendous. I felt like our team wasn't very focused tonight. But, Julie was a player that I thought was very focused. She did a nice job of posting up hard on the inside and really calling for the ball. She wanted the ball and she wanted to get to the rim. Our team did a nice job of getting her the ball when she had a chance of scoring. She got hampered a little bit in the second half with foul trouble from a couple bad breaks, but for the most part I thought she had an outstanding game."
ON NEEDING A GOOD PERFORMACE FROM SEABROOK:
"I think Julie needed to get the confidence. For her, it was very important to have a game like this. She rebounded well, shot the ball well, and she really let the game come to her. She wasn't forcing anything, like a lot of our other players tonight. She really understood what it would take for our team to be successful tonight, and that was scoring on the inside."
ON SHOOTING PERCENTAGE (50.8%):
"We have focused on making our shots in practice the last week. We shot a lot tonight. I thought we had some pretty good looks and some good shots. The shots that we made I felt like were within the offense or within transition. I thought we got a lot of looks in transition, which always helps your percentage. Chucky Jeffery stepped up for us. She has to continue to do that. She should be going one for two every single night. Today she went two for two, so that's what we need. Especially those top of the key threes when they are going to go and draw on ball screens or when they are going to sag off of her at the top, she's got to be able to hit those and tonight she definitely did."
Colorado Players
Julie Seabrook, Sr., F
On Her Play Down Low And Being Able To Get Baskets
"Well after Rachel Hargis got her second foul we were lacking a little bit of a post presence. I have been working on my post game throughout the summer and I really felt it tonight, I felt like I could bury them; they were a lot smaller than us. It was just flowing today and it felt good."
On Rachel Hargis In Foul Trouble and Meagan Malcolm-Peck being out
"Meagan is such a great rebounder and we had to fill that void. I think our guards rebounded well and we all picked up the slack. We got our rebounding goal which was great. I prepared the same way as any other game though knowing Meagan was out. Meagan brings a lot of defensive intensity and rebounding which we lacked tonight but overall I prepared the same way"
On The Rebounding Goal
"We came in kind of focused on rebounding but while we were focusing on rebounding we let some other things go in the meantime so we still have a lot to work on in practice."
On Her Confidence Tonight
"I worked on a lot of my post moves this summer when I was in China. I was playing the five (position) where I was undersized so when I get back over here and we are playing against a smaller team it is nice because you can shoot right over top of them. It is great knowing that our guards are getting it into the posts and we are just using our post players more this year. I'm happy about my performance but at the same time I'm keeping things in perspective we have a lot of games left to play."
Chucky Jeffery, Jr., G
On Their Rebounding Goal
"That was huge. We really weren't sure until coach came into the locker room and wrote plus thirty three on the board, we were all surprised, but I thought that was huge. That is a part of our identity and especially with having Meagan [Malcolm-Peck] out I think a lot of people stepped up; Jen [Reese] was huge with 13 rebounds. I think it was really good for us to get that goal."
On San Francisco's Strong Second Half Start
"We had a little lack of focus mentally; I think that's what did it. Everybody wasn't mentally on the same page, and I think that's why they were getting to the rim too much, we fouled extremely too much, and it was all focus and mental."
On Responding To San Francisco's Long Run
"Basketball is a game of runs and if they come with one then we can't let them keep going on a run, so once we saw that we kept our composure, grouped up and had to execute on offense, box out on defense and that's where we just took off."
On Her Overall Performance
"I was just playing the game, I didn't force anything and I just took what was given to me, I knocked down my shots and that is what coach tells me to do is when you get open shots; take them."
On Their Field Goal Improvement
"I don't think it was anything different, I know it was one of our goals and during practice we were working on hitting those open shots and we got a lot of extra shots in during practice which is good for us, because most of the time we don't implement shooting during practice we do it on our own time, so just that extra shooting time was good for us.
San Francisco Head Coach Jennifer Azzi
On starting second half with 11 point run: "Colorado was really killing us on the boards. I went in the locker-room and said if we play better defense and attack on the offense we can turn this around. My team is in a learning process and when you are transitioning from that you have to learn how to sustain that sort of run and keep being tough."
On Ale's impact performance: "I would love if everyone on our team would attack like that. I always tell them to make someone stop you. Basketball is about making plays one on one. If you can drive past your girl then you've created something. Ale has embraced her role this year and transformed her game."
On how this can help prepare for next game: "It sounds repetitive, but I tell them 'let's learn from this to get better.' We ultimately need to get better on the boards and really commit both offensively and defensively."
