Colorado University Athletics
Colorado-Stanford Quotes
January 14, 2012 | Women's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Linda Lappe
General
“Stanford's a good team. They're the number four team in the country for a reason. I thought they came out and played hard and were the aggressors. We had a tough time getting shots to go down in the first half. Anytime that happens you have to give credit to the defense.”
On Chucky Jeffery's Struggles
“When another team has great players like Stanford does, they key on her. She had some decent looks in the first half but she was a little tentative. She stopped pushing the ball in transition, that's when she's been at her best. She's entitled to a bad game like anybody else. Hopefully she gets her swagger and her confidence back. I say she's entitled [to an off-game] because everybody has one, but we're not going to be very successful when she does. We just don't have players that are capable of doing the things that she does. She just needs to get back into the gym work on shooting, ball handling and other things.”
On Who Needs To Step Up
“That's the million dollar question. We've talked about it with our staff and with our team it. We want Julie Seabrook to take a few more shots. She's only taken 10 shots in the last two games. When we are successful, she is taking 10 shots a game. When she recognized she was wide open, she shot it. She's a good enough shooter and scorer to recognize [the opportunities]. We need a couple more to step up game in and game out.”
On The Early Struggles Shooting the Ball
We were getting good shots; you just have to stay positive. Hopefully those things will fall. We've seen Brittany shoot the ball well, Chucky getting to the rim and hitting her shots. It's tough when everybody is having an off-night at the same time. Everybody went dry at the same time.”
On The Defense and Rebounding
“I thought we did a great job defensively in the first half, limiting them to 32 on a team that averages 80 (per game). They're going to score the ball; but you hope you can score more than 15 in a half. You just have to play for 40 minutes against Stanford but you also have to do that against every other team in this league.”
“We got outrebounded against Cal, for the most part, but we took the rebounding challenge this week. This game and the last game, I have been pleased.”
On Jasmine Sborov's Performance
“I thought Jasmine did some really nice things. She's gaining confidence and giving the staff confidence. She came to compete on that floor tonight. For her to come in and score our first four points, who would've guessed that. It depends on the team, [but] if she keeps practicing like she's been, you find a way to find her more playing time.”
On the Lessons Learned From The Loss
“I think understanding their roles, some of their roles have changed and evolved in the last five weeks or so. If your role is to get to rim, then you have to get to the rim. If your role is to be a great rebounder, you have to rebound. If your role is to hit the open three, you have to hit them. It's about players stepping up. We have to fight and play for 40 minutes. The good thing is that there's a lot to learn [from these losses].”
Colorado Players
Ashley Wilson, So., G
On The Overall Game
“We knew it would be a tough game, we just have to keep fighting, keep throwing punches, do what we can to stay in the game. It's very frustrating but we have to learn how to stay together, pick each other up.”
On Playing Well At Times Against Stanford
“We just have to keep throwing punches and keep getting defensive stops, as much as we can do on defense eventually our shots will start falling on offense.”
On Difficulty Defending Stanford
“Well Nnemkadi and Chiney Ogwumike are very good players they are both very athletic and they also have guards that know what they need to do. You have to be ready at every position on the floor, we need to play team defense, it's playing team defense all together. We just have to be ready to go.”
On The Importance Of Another Strong Shooter
“We know it is hard on Chucky Jeffery, she has a lot of weight on her so we know that when she is not having a good night there has to be somebody to take the weight off of her shoulders and help pick her up. And we just need people to step up and we will get there, the players have confidence we just have to know that when we step up shots are going to fall and we will get it…it will come we are going to start knocking down shots and then as the season goes I feel like we are going to find our player who is willing to step up and balance Chucky Jeffery out.”
On Bouncing Back This Week
“Just getting ready and regain focus. We lost two so now it's time to regain focus and work on what we need to work on. Get in there and watch film, see what we need to work on in practice and just fix the little things.”
Jasmine Sborov, Fr., G
On Difficulty Defending Stanford
“We did a good job with Nnemkadi and Chiney I just think we weren't as ready for Joslyn Tinkle #44. But I thought we did a really good job on the boards and we just need to work on boxing out more. “
On Concentrating Too Much On The Ogwumike Sisters:
“I think we did a little bit in the beginning but as the game went on we realized we needed to focus on everybody, they are all good players. But I think as the game went on it got better controlling them. “
On Coming Back On Stanford, Offensively
“It all depends on if everyone is on the same page or not, if we are on the same page then it really doesn't matter who we are playing because we are both good teams, so we just need to learn to come together a little bit more.”
On Her Performance
“It is a good feeling to finally get back to my roots and really contribute, its hard sitting on the bench and not contributing as much as you would like to, so it was a good feeling. I feel like practice has been going well, I just needed to produce a little more in games and so tonight was good for both me and my team.”
Stanford Head Coach Tara VanDerveer
On Stopping Chucky Jeffery
“She is a terrific player. We had to work hard to defend her. I was really proud of the way Amber Orrange defended her. But I think overall it was a team effort. We worked really hard and our players stepped up defensively.”
On Nnemkadi Ogwumike's Injury
“She tweaked her ankle a little. But we are not a one player team. I thought Joslyn Tinkle stepped up big for us tonight. This was a break out game for Tinkle, and I was really happy she played so well in this environment.”
On The Importance of Stopping Chucky Jeffery
“We worked hard against her. We had a lot of people guarding her. We had about four or five different players guarding her throughout the game. Colorado isn't a one-dimensional team either. I think we had the inside strength and we were able to go inside to the net. We actually missed a lot of shots early, but we finished on them later.”
On Playing On The Road
“It's funny, we play better on the road than we do at home sometimes. This is a team that likes playing on the road and likes playing with each other. They are very talented and they like to play hard. I thought we had to play hard today, and that's a compliment to Colorado.”
On If Coach Lappe Resembles Ceal Berry
“Linda was trained by an absolute legend in our game. Because she learned from Ceal I think she definitely is doing some things that Ceal taught her.”
On If They Focus On Their Conference Winning Streak
“No, not at all. We come out and play one game and play it well.”
On Switching Up The Line-Up
“I rotated the players around a lot. I always kept a couple more experienced players with the less experienced players. We have four freshmen and this play is new to them, but I thought they played really well.”
On If They Take This Game For Granted
“Not at all. Colorado is a very capable team. At the end they started hitting some shots and we started fouling them a bit. But, overall I was proud of our team effort.”
Stanford Players
Joslyn Tinkle, Jr., F
On Her Exceptional Play
“I try to take everything on a day to day basis. Recently we have started to switch up the lineup, so I was brought into the mix about a week ago. How I play is something I take to heart and I choose every day to keep working on it. Today, I was super excited to play here. I think we were super prepared for them. I think that just being out there gets me going. It's fun to play with those girls, get in the mix, and get things started.”
On Playing So Close To Home
“My home is in Montana, so being out here in the mountain air is exciting. We are looking forward to hopefully coming back here for the final four in Denver. It's nice to see some snow and feel the chilly air; I like it.”
On The Altitude
“We try not to stress too much about that, we are in great shape. We have our strength and conditioning coach working with us. Playing at Utah helped us a bit too, coming into this game. We got a taste of it there, so we knew what to expect. We did a really good job running today and we tried to not get too freaked out by the altitude. We definitely could feel it, but it's not something we were really too scared of.”
Chiney Ogqumike, So., F
On What This Game Meant
“This was a great game. This being the first Pac-12 game we've played here in Colorado was exciting. There was a big crowd and it was fun to play here. Colorado is a great team. They came off to a great start this season by going 12-0, so we knew that they were going to bring the air game. It was really competitive in the beginning and luckily our defense helped us out a lot tonight. We were aggressive and I think we contested a lot of shots. But, everything is not clean in the sport of basketball. We made a lot of mistakes, but we made up for it with our hustle. It was just a fun game to play.”
On Playing More Defensive Minded Tonight
“It's always a game plan to play aggressive defensively. It's a matter of if we choose to or not. I think tonight there was some sort of special feeling. The atmosphere here is great and we loved practicing here, minus the altitude. The altitude didn't really affect us too much, but I think having it as an extra factor allowed us to band together. When one person is aggressive, it's contagious.”
On What It Will Take To Make It To The Final Four
“It's going to take a lot of discovery. Each game we learn something new because we are so young. We need to be more comfortable and in sync with each other, learn our chemistry offensively, and we all need to individually spend that extra time to get better. A lot of people think that Nnemkadi is the main focus of our team. In order to get to the final four we will have to contribute individually, so that we can be prepared for anything the other teams bring.”
