Colorado University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Quotes
November 21, 2013 | Women's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Linda Lappe
General
“Well you have to give Iowa a lot of credit for that game. That's a good team. They are NCAA tournament tested team. They have been to the last six in a row and you can see why. We knew they were not going to lie down and die even with the fact that we got up first half. We knew they were going to come back and that we had to stay aggressive. Their players play hard, but in the end, I liked how we responded to every one of their runs. We did not start off the second half very well. We could have folded at a couple of different times in the second half, but we came down and hit key shots, made key stops and got key rebounds. We really just came together in order to get that win and that is going to be a great win for us at the end of the year.”
On Mental Effect of Giving Up Big Runs
“We have some veterans on our team that have played in situations similar to what we faced tonight, as does Iowa. When you have that veteran leadership and you have people that have been through the fires, they do not lose their confidence easily, and I think you could see that we did not lose our confidence. Somebody just stepped up. Jen [Reese] had a tough first half, but she comes back and plays a lot in the second half and hits some huge shots and gets some key rebounds. It was really an overall team effort, especially with getting in foul trouble and different things. People's numbers were called tonight and they had to be ready to step up and I thought, for the most part, they were.”
On the Victory
“It is huge for them to gain confidence and for our young players to get some minutes and see what that looks like. Lauren Huggins came in, and the thing I liked about her that you are not going to see in the stat sheet is how well she played defense. I think she got five rebounds, but she also locked down whoever she was guarding and that was fun to see because she has not always done that, and she has worked really hard on it. I know how much time she has spent on it, so for her to be able to take away cutters, to deny like she was denying, to get in passing lanes was great to see. She is a long defender, either 6'1 or 6'2 wings, so when she decides that she really wants to defend, she is hard to see around and hard to pass around. She was one that I thought really stepped up and got some key minutes in a game that she needs to get some minutes in.”
On Lauren Huggins Performing in a Close Game
“She just came in and she did her job and that is what we ask of all of our players. It does not matter who you play, the best team in the country or the worst, you come in, you do your job and you know your role. She has done that since she has been here whether it was her role sitting on the bench or role tonight with playing a lot of minutes and taking some big shots. That is what she does, and she knew that she had people behind her and it was not just her. It was good to see her contribute and bear down. Lauren is a really smart player and against Iowa you need to have smart players on the floor that understand what we are trying to do.”
On the Student Section
“I think yesterday with all the Twitter messages and things on Sportscenter, it would be really easy to lose focus, so after practice yesterday, we just said you have to keep narrow focus. It does not matter if there is nobody in the gym or if it is a packed gym or who says what about you or does not like you. It is one of those things where we do not care and we are going to play Iowa and do what we do. We just talked about really having a great focus. We knew the student section was going to be awesome. The C-Unit was such a big help tonight in a game like that. It could go either way without them behind you. I thought they were into the game towards the end and really all throughout the game. Hopefully they enjoyed seeing a good basketball game. Hopefully it was not too painful to come and watch us play. We enjoy having them. I know it was a late night tonight and hopefully they understand just how much they mean to us, like they do to the men's [basketball] team, the football team, the soccer team, and whoever they go watch. Having students support you as a player is pretty special. It is something that can set you apart, especially in women's basketball because there are not a lot of places that have student sections. If they decide to, they could really make a name for themselves not only with men's basketball, but also with women's. They make this place a really tough place to play in no matter what sport.”
On Brittany Wilson
“Scoring wise I thought she did a great job. She took some better shots, but she has just got to get back into the flow of when she was the point guard. I thought Lexy Kresl did a fantastic job of running the point for us. When she fouled out and Brittany had to go to the point, it was good because that is something where she needs to get a few more reps and get a little more confident. She was a little hesitant the last six or seven minutes when she was making passes and just not being sure of herself, and that is just going to mean more practice time so she can feel a little more confident with the ball in her hands. We need her to be confident and make right decisions. Yes, her scoring is a bonus, but our team can score.”
On the Offense Tonight
"I think the one good thing we have done so far this year is everybody touches the ball and everybody can score. We do not get very one-dimensional, but at times tonight we got very one-dimensional. We were trying to get the ball into Arielle [Roberson] so hard that we were making bad passes against their best defense and everybody else was standing or Brittany tried to make something happen when we just needed the defense to shift. That is something that we will need to take a look at offensively. It is hard to disagree with 90 points, but there are a lot of things we need to get better with.”
On Fouls Early in the Game
“Between Rachel [Hargis] and Jen [Reese], they were in for about two seconds. Jasmine [Sborov] did a good job of stepping into that role. She has not really played four for us. We have actually been going big, where Jen and Arielle playing the three. Tonight we had to go really small. It helped us be able to match up with Iowa at the same time. Jasmine is such an unselfish player. She has become a really smart player and can fill whatever role we need her to fill. She smiles and she says “Yes coach, I got you.” She does whatever you ask us to do and she gave us some key minutes at the post position in the first half until we could our posts back in the game.”
On the Defense Tonight
“In the first half, our defense was huge. With all the free throws, it is going to be tough to keep people under 70 points. It really is when you are giving up 30 to 40 free throws. It is going to be really hard to keep somebody under 70, and you are going to see a lot more high-scoring games like this. I think we lacked a sense of urgency at times in the second half defensively, and that is something that we have to get better at. Overall, we came out strong in the first half. Every time we made a mistake defensively, Iowa took advantage of it and that is something you like at this time of the year. You like to have that film and be able to show your players how we did, how we were supposed to do it, and what should happen. They could feel it out there, which was huge. Sense of urgency wise, we did it when we needed to do it, but 40 minutes of that would probably be a little bit better.”
Colorado Players
#11 Brittany Wilson, Senior, Guard
On the Win over Iowa
“First off, just hats off to Iowa. That is a great team, and we knew it would be a good game. It means a lot for this team to get down with the best, and we came through at the end with a couple good stops. So that means a lot. It is a great win.”
On Iowa fighting back at end of game
“They are a great team. We knew they were going to keep fighting and competing. But we also got a little tentative. It went back to 10 then to 17 then back to nine [referring to Buffs lead over Hawkeyes] so they are a great team, again hats off to them, but were a great team too. We just came and battled and at the end we came out on top.”
On having a career high game
“I just think my team gave me all the confidence. It has been a long seven weeks so just to get back what I had it felt good my team mates had me the whole way. They really kept my confidence up and I just played.”
On off season expectations compared to performance in first two games
“Yeah it was rough to not be in my groove, but once again, my teammates kept my head up after the first two games and just told me 'you cannot be so hard on yourself'. I mean I am my biggest critic. I just took open shots that they gave me, they made excellent passes and I just took open shots and free throws.”
On free throws
“We knew we had to hit free throws. We hit free throws well versus Alcorn State. Earlier shooting around coach said 'we're going to get you to the free throw line a lot and we have got to hit free throws'. We just stepped up and hit free throws especially right at the end.”
On students attending game to get tickets for men's Kansas game
“We talked about this all week and coach and whether they came to watch us or just to get tickets, they were there. There was also other ways to get tickets so that was their choice to come. I mean they were there so what more can you say?”
On energy from student section
“I felt like it was regular energy like our regular fans always give us. It was really no different. I really do not pay attention to who is in the crowd. There are 10 players on the court and three refs and that is what we pay attention too.”
#1 Lexy Kresl, Junior, Guard
On Iowa's big point run going into halftime
“Yeah, you never want to give up momentum going into halftime or coming out of halftime. So that was definitely a big mistake on our part, and it is something that we are going to have to work on, ending stronger and starting stronger.”
On if Buffs would have prevented bit point run before halftime
“Yeah, if we would have started stronger, then I think it would have been a different tone to the game.”
On CSU game as preparation for Iowa
“CSU actually plays pretty similar to Iowa so that was good as well to prepare us. Close games are fine as long as you win.”
On first time giving up 70 points in two years
“I do think that we should have held them a little bit lower. But this team has been scoring almost 100 points and we did probably hold them below their average up to this point. But I think we expected to hold them to a little bit lower score then we did.”
On defensive side at end of game
“They were attacking us, we weren't attacking them. We were a little hesitant and they smelt the blood.”
On students attending game to get tickets for men's Kansas game
“In my opinion, they might have come for a different reason. I think it might have opened their eyes a little bit to an experience they might have enjoyed.”
Iowa Head Coach Lisa Bluder
On Adjustments Made At Half Time- “You know, we just got our heads straight at half time. I think their defense disrupted us in the first ten minutes of this game, caught us off guard a little bit and we turned the ball over too many times. Once we settled down and started doing the things we are supposed to do, we scored 52 points the second half. But, in this game if you look at the statistics, it comes down to the free-throw line. They scored more free throws then we did, and they shot 10% better from the free-throw line. Otherwise, we shot better than they did from the field. It's just unfortunate because we were out rebounded by nine, we did not shoot well from the free-throw line, and those are all things we can control, and we could have controlled coming in here and beating a top 20 team in the nation.”
On What The Offensive Key Was In The Second Half- “Well [Samantha Logic] started really taking the ball to the hole hard. I mean, [Samantha Logic] felt like she had to take matters into her own hands, and she did. She did a nice job of getting to the hole for us, and it was mostly just her pushing the tempo of the game.”
On The First Team To Score More Than 70 Points Against Colorado In 34 Games- “It doesn't mean anything right now because really the only thing that matters is the win-loss column. You know, I'm proud of the team as far as they were down twenty, on the road, against a top 20 team. They could have easily just went through the motions and packed it up and gone home. But we came out the second half and we came out with fire, and I wish we had started the game like that. You look back and you think about the “what-ifs” in this situation and there are a lot of them, and that could've given us the win.”