Colorado University Athletics
Colorado-Utah Quotes
February 18, 2012 | Women's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Linda Lappe
General
“It was a disappointing game for sure. I thought we worked a lot harder tonight but didn't always work smarter. Free throws were a huge deal in this game and we are disappointed but we have to get back to work.”
On Losing This Kind Of Game
“There is no difference. We had a lot of shots in the paint tonight and that's exactly what we designed. If it didn't fall we crashed the glass and got some second and third opportunities. So it is about bearing down and working through adversity and there was a lot of adversity down the stretch tonight.”
On The Last Minutes Of The Game
“I think we did some great things down the stretch to close the gap. We started curling, Chucky started driving, we started going to the rim she hit a few shots in the last minutes. I thought Jen made some nice reads. So I thought our offense was better than it had been. But in the overtime, we gave up too many points, you give up four points max in overtime and we gave up too many. I thought we had a couple of key let downs defensively where we just weren't very smart and that really hurt us.”
On Our Fans and Home Record
“Our fans are great! We are second in the conference (in attendance) with our fan base and they have been awesome. I thought tonight they were really into it and they had something to be into it about. I thought our kids came out and played extremely hard, but we just didn't get the win. Sometimes that happens, and we don't want that to happen but there are things we can change and learn from. All in all I thought we played Colorado basketball tonight and I haven't been able to say that for a while in terms of our energy, enthusiasm and our effort. I was really happy with our team with those regards.”
On Utah's Improvement Since Last Meeting
“They are hitting shots, and anytime you can hit shots you become a better team. So they are running a few more sets they are doing a few more things. They have very balanced scoring, their top four leading scorers showed why they are the top four leading scorers tonight. They all came though at different times and they hit some clutch shots. The first time we played them they missed easy shots and tonight they made them.”
On Guarding Wicijowski In The Second Half
“I thought we did a lot better, we started doubling her at the end of the first half and I thought that really helped. We kept that going into the second half. What hurt us was Ashley (Wilson) getting two fouls on the dig, because we really needed her in there at the end of the game to play defense. That hurt us, but I thought we also did a better job on the ball and not letting her get to the paint and we made her do some different things.”
Colorado Players
Chucky Jeffery, Jr., G
On Tonight's Game Compared To Last Time They Played Utah – “It came down to possessions tonight. We looked at the stats when we came in and the difference tonight was free throws. I didn't hit any of my free throws, so that is disappointing to know, especially because the game can be won or lost by free throws. That's ultimately what it came down to, because we had effort, we played the entire time.”
On Their Low Free Throw Percentage – “It was a lack of focus. I know I was pretty short on mine. I think when you miss a free throw, you think about it then you miss the next one. I let that get to me tonight.”
On How Utah Won in OT – “They didn't do anything different. We were just trying to be aggressive to the rim. We missed some calls, but we just had to get back and play defense. I mean, they didn't do anything different at all.”
On Final Minute Defense- “We knew what the game would come down to. We knew it was close, we knew we were down six with like four minutes left and that was the last media timeout. So we said we were going to win the last media. So we knew we had to go out and get stops and that's the only way we were going to have a chance to win. So we just picked up our ball pressure. We knew they were curling a lot, so we were meeting them on the screens, and we weren't giving them anything easy.”
On What Changes It Will Take to Win- “At this point, we are in the end of conference play. So each team knows what each time is running; we have each other scouted well. It's all about being smarter and making the right reads on offense and reading the defense. I definitely think we are way tougher than we were at the beginning of conference. That's something we've been working on and we're really tough now.”
Jen Reese, Fr., F
On Battling Down Low – “It was hard work, but I knew coming into the game that it was going to be tough, especially with guarding [Taryn] Wicijowski. She's bigger than me and older than me, so I just tried to hold my ground. I took that one charge when she came at me and they called it.”
On Handling Wickijowski in the 2nd Half- “I know coach told me to get around her more, I was kind of behind her in the beginning and had my arm up, but not all the way around, so I was trying to push off the block more to make sure she wouldn't get any easy catches and then my guards came and helped get the ball from her too.”
On Final Minute Defense- “We never quit. Our team has great heart and we played with great effort today.”
On Losing in The Final Minutes At Home- “There have been a lot of games like this. We like to make it hard on ourselves and we've done that all season. It's just a learning experience for the next four games coming up.”
Utah Head Coach Anthony Levrets
General
“I'm really proud of them. This is our third overtime win. We're 3-0 in overtime. Backs against the wall, we seem to perform at our best. At home against Colorado, we were ahead by 10 with seven and a half minutes left and we went 0-14 down the stretch and they came back and beat us. We let it slip away again here this time. We didn't give in and we kept getting stops and I couldn't be more proud of them.”
On Going Into Overtime
“I told them that our bus doesn't leave until 6:00 tomorrow morning and we will play to 6:00 if that's how long it takes. They laughed and I think it loosened them up quite a bit. We have a great senior leader, Janita Badon, who made two huge plays offensively. Even more importantly, defensively she locked down [Lexy] Kresl, not giving her the chance to make threes. It was a great team win.”
On Improvements Needed
“Everything needs to be worked on. We are young and we're still learning. I know it's crazy to say that but we've played 25 games and I still think our best basketball is ahead of us. Everything that we do has to continue to get better. We need to continue to improve at everything we do.”
