Colorado University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Colorado-Utah Quotes
January 14, 2015 | Women's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Linda Lappe
General
"It feels good to get that one. I liked how our team came out tonight, our intensity, our aggressiveness and our confidence. When it came to overtime, we were comfortable. We've been in a lot of overtime games so far this year. Even though we could have won in regulation we were not at all disappointed to be going into overtime. We just made plays down the stretch. It was the first time in a few games where we just made plays, whether it was offensively and defensively. You have to give credit to everyone on our team with what they brought. I thought we had great bench play, especially in the first half. It allowed Lexy [Kresl] to get some valuable minutes on the bench so that she could go in the second half. I thought Brecca Thomas did extremely well tonight, Alina [Hartmann] gave us great minutes as well along with Zoe Correal. All three freshmen came in and did some great things for us. This really was a team win, everyone had a part in it."
On The Increased Bench Play
"I thought our bench did a fantastic job. They got an extra day of drill work and they really took that and got better. They carried it into practice yesterday and carried it into the game. They keep getting better and our freshmen keep getting better every single game, especially when they have the opportunity to do break-down drills in practice on Monday. I felt like all three freshmen did a tremendous job and it carried over to the game."
On Playing Utah In Back-To-Back Games
"The one good thing about that is that we don't have to prepare for another team. We know all of their players, they know ours, we know what they're going to run offensively and we know their defense. There are just a few tweaks you can do in-between the games that can give you an edge going into the second one. They are who they are and we are who we are, but it is nice to get that mental break to not have to learn a new set of players, offense and defense."
On The Physicality Of The Game
"It's always physical against Utah. They do a really good job on the defensive side and a lot of times it's a half-court game. I feel that we can play any type of game that's thrown at us. It was a little different than a couple of the other games, but I feel like every game is pretty physical."
On How The Team Handled Adversity Near The End Of The Game
"I think we handled it really well. I think that if we hadn't been in three or four other overtime games this year that we would have handled it as well. We went in with the same mentality we had all game, we were having fun. When we went into the timeout, I saw a group of young women that were excited to be playing. We needed to execute better down the stretch, we didn't execute great in the last minute and a half, but fortunately we made enough plays to hold on and force overtime."
Colorado Players
Jen Reese, Sr., F
On Getting First Conference Win
"Its exciting. Its our first win in conference and we worked hard for this. We deserve it, since we have been working hard all season. This game was a hard fought win and we should be very proud of it and we are."
On Utah Playing A Physical Game
"It was a very physical game, and we knew that going into it. I feel like our post players did a great job. We didn't just get punched in the face we punched back. Throughout the whole game we stayed our ground and I feel like we did pretty well."
Lexy Kresl, Sr., G
On Being More Aggressive
"Coach Jamie [Carey] and I kind of went over how they play defense, and I knew that it was something different then most teams. It kind of forces you away from the screen but it also leaves a wide open lane. Just kind of took advantage of that and just pushed in transition. We knew that we had to carry over our aggressiveness from the second half of the UCLA game and that was my goal tonight."
Utah Head Coach Anthony Levrets
On The Difference In Tonight's Game
"It's not one play at the end of the game. It's just the course of the game. You have to take advantage of every opportunity. We had some opportunity in the first half that slipped away from us and then we had some really poor execution down the stretch in overtime when we had a chance to put it away. That's the difference in the game."
On Their Next Home Game Against Colorado Next Week
"I don't know [what the preparation will be] yet. We've done this now three times and the second game is always the dog fight. Everybody knows what each other is doing. We'll make some adjustments. They'll make some adjustments. But we all know exactly what the other group is going to do. It's going to be a fight kind of like tonight way."
On Utah's Taryn Wicijowski
"She's a really good player. She's been struggling through some ailments. We feel like she's finally starting to get healthy and obviously has a really incredible skill set. She's really hard to guard inside. I'm really proud of her effort. I'm proud of all of our team's effort but we have to get beyond and get a win."
On Colorado's Lexy Kresl
"[Lexy] Kresl went crazy tonight. She played great. I give her a ton of credit. They [CU] went right at us with her which they had not done with other teams this year. We did not match that early enough and she got herself going. When she gets going, she's really hard to contain."