Colorado University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Colorado-North Dakota Quotes
November 16, 2014 | Women's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Linda Lappe
General
"I'm really proud of how we played in the second half. We settled in offensively; we settled in defensively. We told them at halftime, if we wanted to win we needed to do two things: we needed to rebound and we needed to out-hustle them. I thought we did a tremendous job in those two categories. We turned the tables a little bit, rebounding-wise, and really until the maybe the last five minutes or so they didn't' have many offensive rebounds in the second half. That really helped us start our transition game and get some easy baskets on the offensive end. I'm really just happy with what we saw; you never know what you're going to see in the first game. We're excited to keep moving on and we're excited to keep playing and continuing to have a chance at a WNIT Championship."
On Defense And Scoring Drought In The Second Half
"You win with defense. That's who we are; that's why I was so happy with our second half defensive effort. We were everywhere. We made the court look really small. We forced them into some turnovers that we didn't force them into in the first half. We just made them uncomfortable; we made them do things that wasn't easy for them. We made them work for all of their shots. You got to give North Dakota a lot of credit though. That's a great team; they'll win their league. It's going to be a great win for us when the end of the season comes around because they're going to win a lot of games. You can see why; they don't' back down, they play hard, they're physical, they've got a great inside game, they get a lot of easy shots, and they do a tremendous job on the boards. We're happy to be moving on. In that scoring drought, I thought the one thing that hurt us, we got great shots, and we missed a lot of easy layups. I just told our players to settle in and get themselves a better angle and I thought they would start to make some of those, and that's what happened."
On Getting Tested By North Dakota's Emily Evers, Sr., C
"I'm so glad we got to play against these guys because she's a great post player. If you have 21 [points] and 18 [rebounds], that's a good night, and 8 offensive rebounds. We worked all week on getting her off of the glass. She does a tremendous job of getting great position. Her team does a nice job of getting her in position to score. They ran a couple of nice sets to clear out our weak-side help. Their timing in getting her the ball was pretty good."
On Play Of Jamee Swan, Jr., F and Jen Reese, Jr., F At End Of The Game
"That's where you really count on your veterans. They know that at the end of the game, in the last two, three minutes, it's about getting stops; it's about coming up with plays. It's not always scripted; you can't always script the last few minutes. I liked how we attacked the last two to three minutes. I thought a lot of players came up with big plays. I thought Haley Smith [So., G/F] came up with big play after big play tonight. She was guarding [North Dakota's Emily] Evers for a lot of the night. Evers had a tough time getting the ball against Haley. Haley rebounded the ball very well. It says that she only had 6, but I could swear she had a few more than that or at least was in there on lot of rebounds. I think between those two, and Haley, they as a threesome really increased our toughness level."
On Amount Of Team's Fouls
"They were aggressive. I thought we went in spurts with our fouls. I didn't mind most of them. There were a few that I thought we could have, I thought Jasmine [Sborov, Sr., G.] picking up her second foul in the first half, she could have avoided that. I'd like to maybe be a little smarter, not getting in foul trouble. Other than that, it's going to happen. It's the game and game-speed. North Dakota is rough, so they're going to create some fouls. But, I thought we did a much better job in the second half of getting to the free-throw line. That was a big discrepancy for a lot of the game. We needed to turn that around if we were going to have a shot."
On Play Of Brecca Thomas [Fr., G]
"I thought Brecca did tremendous. We need Brecca to come in and be steady, get us into our offense, and lead our team, and hit the occasional shots. I don't think we lost anything with Brecca in the game in the first half, or really in the second half as well. Brecca hitting that big three [point shot] in the second half, that was a huge shot for us. We needed to score in that possession. Any time that happens, it gives their team confidence to do the same. She gave us great minutes, as did Alina Hartmann [Fr., G]. Especially in the first half, I liked her aggressiveness. She got a few scores and hit that three [point shot] when we were having a tough time scoring."
Colorado Players
Jen Reese, Sr. F
On Finishing The Game Strong
"Finishing was one of the things we struggled with last year. That was a focus this year too, just we need to finish and not turn it over and I feel like North Dakota was a good team and the tested us to our full potential tonight, which was great. We came together and we finally settled down after the drought we had. We came together and we scored and locked in."
On Starting Tonight After Not Starting Last Week
"It doesn't matter if you start or don't start. When Bri started that day she did amazing and it was great. Even if she didn't start she still did good. It doesn't matter, you are still going to get in the game if you're playing defense."
On Playing an NCAA Tournament Level Team Tonight
"I loved it because of the competition, we are competitors in this game. To have North Dakota come in and play like they did really is going to help us moving on. I just felt like that's probably the best first game we can ever get. We appreciated North Dakota for giving it their all tonight."
On Having A Rough First Half And Cleaning It Up In The Second Half
"We weren't hitting shots, we weren't driving to the lane enough. We were taking to many outside shots and too many post touches for 23 (Emily Evers). We finally buckled down like we've got to get this done, and I felt like we did that in the second half."
On Messages From Coach At Halftime That Led To Second Half Improvement
"Defense and get the rebounds, don't let them get the offensive boards anymore because they had like ten already in the first half and that was unacceptable on our end so we had to really push back and box out and go get the ball and be strong with it."
Jamee Swan, Jr. F
On Being Tested By North Dakota
"We've been practicing on them for about a week and a half now and they came out ready to play. We're in the preseason NIT, everybody is going to be playing their best basketball. Maybe not their basketball at the beginning of the season but they are going to play to their best ability. So I wasn't very surprised, they were good and it was just a battle of who wanted it more. I think that when we buckled down and played defense it ended up being us today."
On Facing Emily Evers
"She is a great player, she is big, she's smart with the ball, she knows where she's going. It was fun playing somebody who was of the same build as us as posts. It was a real good test for us before we get into PAC-12 play, even non-conference play. I think that seeing how she plays will really help us further on in the season."
On Setting Up The Final Sequence Of The Game
"Back to defense, it was just playing fundamentals, being in the passing lane, and making sure I wasn't jumping the ball and giving them the back door. I only could do that because I knew I had someone behind me if she faked it and went back door. I knew either Jen or Haley was there. So I couldn't tell you, I just know that for me I was like, I can do this because I have my teammates."
On Having A Rough First Half
"I think for us, coming out in the first half we didn't really know what to expect. We kind of came out soft and let them hit us first. As we continued on we we're like okay, we have to start fighting back. I think when we came out the second half, we came out swinging and it came out in our favor."
On Playing The First Real Game
"It's awesome knowing that we can go out there and play our hardest, even when our opponents are as good as us. I think it was fun, its finally means basketball season is here, it's great."
North Dakota Head Coach Travis Brewster
General
"I thought we played a pretty good first half. I think Coach Linda Lappe and her team did a nice job adjusting in the second half. They started post-to-post doubling with us and we didn't handle that very well. We talked about it at half time and we knew it was coming. We didn't react to it. I thought they were the aggressor on the offensive end. They took it to us, got themselves to the post and started making free throws."
On First And Second Half Differences
"We came out and were a little lackluster. We weren't moving as crisp as we were in the first half. Some of that comes with experience and some of that also comes with being a little bit more relaxed when we play."
On Center Emily Evers
"She's pretty good at 21 points and 18 rebounds in 26 minutes. I think the big thing with Emily is that she's got great hands. Obviously the key for her is getting her the ball. The thing is they were sagging in on her and double teaming her and she's a good passer so now we have to work on passing as well."
On Thoughts Moving Into Regular Season
"There were some very encouraging things tonight. I liked how hard we played. We had a spot in the second half for about four and a half minutes that wasn't very good, but that happens at this time of the year. The key is whether or not we can build the mood and attack teams by playing with intensity all season long. I think that the match up was good. It's always different when a Big Sky school plays a Pac-12 school, but Coach Linda Lappe does a good job."??