Colorado University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Colorado USC-Aiken Quotes
November 07, 2015 | Women's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Linda Lappe
General
"[It was a] great dress rehearsal for us. It was fun to see our players get excited about putting on their uniforms for the first time. We've been working really hard, they've been working really hard since the end of August and really the last four, five weeks of practice. They deserve to be able to finally put on those uniforms. You could see a lot of great things that happened. We're still trying to find ways to click and take care of the basketball. I liked our defensive effort especially in quarters 2, 3 and 4. I thought we were pretty outstanding. It took us a little bit of time to understand what USC-Aiken was doing. You have to give them a lot of credit. They came out with a lot of intensity and aggressiveness and really put us on our heels a little bit. I also liked how our team responded to that and how we finished out defensively."
On CU's Defensive Play
"You want effort on the defensive end and then just positioning and understanding what position we are supposed to be in. Also, finishing with a box out and rebound. We obviously haven't worked enough on boxing out. We gave up way too many offensive rebounds. We didn't have bodies. There was maybe one or two people every possession that had a body on a defensive rebound so it's something we have to go back and work on a lot. But, they communicated really well. They were calling screens really well. They were helping each other out. The first quarter, there were a few miscommunications but we got those fixed and I liked our effort and thought we had pretty good positioning."
On The Performance of the Freshmen
"I thought they did a nice job. They stayed within the system and we're going to rely on them a lot as you can see. There are many times when we had three freshman on the floor at the same time. The great thing about it is that I don't even look at them as freshmen necessarily anymore. They've really earned that and they come to practice every single day and work hard. They are able to catch on to things fast. Our veterans do a good job of helping them out and they respond by picking up on things pretty quickly. It was good to see them get a little bit more comfortable in a game environment."
Colorado PlayersÂ
On First Collegiate Game
"It was fun. Its way more different than high school, and the whole team dynamic was good. I thought we all played really well for our first game. Nobody came out scared, so I think that was really good. We did a lot of things that we were doing well in practice that we put into the game. I think we have a lot of things to work on when we go back to practice. I think for the most part a lot of us came out there like we were ready to play and ready to go. I think that's a positive for the rest of the season."
On Pregame Nerves
"It's my first college game, so obviously there's always butterflies. Butterflies are good, because people say it shows you care. We all care that we're out there; we all care that we're on this team and winning games, the Pac-12, and winning a national championship. It was good dress rehearsal, like coach Lappe said, but next week we'll be even more ready than were this week."
On Recording Eight Assists
"In practice, we work on it all of the time, just running the floor. My teammates run the floor really well and I give them the ball. I like passing more than I like scoring, so it's fun to be able to dish them the ball when they work hard."
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Jamee Swan
On Taking Charge of Scoring Early
"It's kind of important. Starting fast and finishing strong is something we talk about here in practice, in the weight room, all of the time no matter what we're doing. For me it's just about starting fast. It gives me a good outlook. I think our team is going to do really well this year. We're going to start fast in every game and finish strong."
USC-Aiken Head Coach Mike Brandt
On Playing Division I Competition
"It's a great opportunity for our players. This is big time when you come to CSU, you come to CU. It's a chance for them to play in a great atmosphere and against quality basketball players and obviously this deficit is the way it should be, we kind of expected that. We just wanted to come out and compete for a while and make us better and this definitely did and hopefully we came out and helped CU do something. I was proud of our first quarter, coming out and not being afraid, not being scared like the other night against CSU."
On Giving Starters Playing Time Together In Exhibition Atmosphere
 "It's very important to make sure we develop a good team unity. At the end of the game we called a timeout to get something set up with the new rule and got our starters back in. It's important to get them in whatever the rotation is going to be and early in the season you try and figure those things out."
On Rules Changes
"I think the rule changes will really come into play in the closer games and so they may have no affected us this time. I do think that without the media timeouts at 16, 14, 12, I think you have to be in a little better condition than in prior years."