Colorado University Athletics
Colorado Press Conference Quotes
March 21, 2003
BOULDER - The CU women's basketball team went through an open practice and followed it up with a press conference Friday in preparation for its first-round NCAA Tournament game with Brigham Young, scheduled to tip around 9:30 p.m. Saturday at the Coors Events Center. The following are quotes from the press conference.
Colorado Head Coach Ceal Barry
GENERAL: "I'm happy to be here, it never gets old. This is the third tournament for Sabrina, Linda and Tera. I'm particularly thrilled to play at home and happy that the administration deemed it important to bid for a tournament. It shows how much they care about our women's basketball program."
ON THE LATE START SATURDAY: "The late start Saturday does concern me to a certain extent because fan support is a big deal. Hopefully, people in the state of Colorado will get behind our team and support us."
ON BRIGHAM YOUNG: "BYU is like K-State in the way they are patient. They screen well and look for the ball. They are disciplined, and the defense is similar with the half-court style. Their scores typically are kept in the 50's and 60's, and their style isn't up-and-down. The second time we played K-State, we played harder and competed better. Games are different from game to game. You hope the players learn from the course of an entire season to put us in position to play this type of style. We've never played BYU, but the best I can do for our players is to compare them to Kansas State."
ON TERA BJORKLUND'S BIG GAME PREPARATION: "Tera is the nicest person off the floor. She is social and easy going. When she gets on the floor, she's a competitor. Tera gets fired up when people talk about her having weaknesses. She really likes the game and has a healthy approach. She never goes overboard emotionally."
ON RECRUITING ERIN THORN: "We did recruit Thorn, and they told us that her only choices were BYU and Duke. It is tough to recruit out of Utah when you have a team like BYU there."
ON SABRINA SCOTT: "She is not a one-on-one, break-'em-down type of player. There are so many valuable, little things she does on the court. She will be focused and her head will be in the game. If they decide to leave her open, I'd like to see her shoot it."
ON THE POSSIBILITY OF THE TOURNAMENT GOING TO A NEUTRAL SITE IN THE FIRST AND SECOND ROUNDS: "Our Regional's are neutral sites and the Final Four is a neutral site. I would like to see Regional's sold out first before we change the first and second rounds to neutral sites. I support whatever the committee decides to do. A lot of coaches criticize the committee's moves, that is probably because they don't have a home court site. Best I could do is to support the direction that we go in. I would like to see Regional's played on sites that are really neutral where nobody plays on a home court.
Coloardo Players
C Tera Bjorklund
ON BRIGHAM YOUNG: "I'm not really sure how BYU plays, but I'm just trying to be mentally prepared for whatever they throw at me, whether it's single, double or triple teams. (Danielle Cheesman) is a lot like (Kansas State's) Nicole Ohlde, she can get outside so I'll have to play perimeter and post defense."
F Sabrina Scott
ON BRIGHAM YOUNG: "You can liken them to Iowa State or Kansas State. They have a lot of good shooters. You can compare Erin Thorn to (Iowa State's) Lindsay Wilson. They have a good inside threat in Cheesman, and they have a good two-man game going. We're looking to shut down Erin Thorn and not give her any good looks and also shut down the inside players."
ON BYU'S SEED: "We know that they're a good team, they beat Iowa State on the road and I couldn't believe they were only seeded 11th. We're just excited to get out and play."
ON HER ANKLE: "I'd forgotten about my ankle when playing and I've been playing all week. I feel like it's getting better."
ON THE BIG 12 TOURANMENT: "Our last Big 12 game against Texas didn't affect us emotionally. They upped the pressure and we just didn't handle it."
F Linda Lappe
ON BRIGHAM YOUNG: "We're expecting pressure. We'll just focus on playing defense, getting through screens and getting the ball inside to Tera (Bjorklund)."
ON THE PACE OF THE GAME: "We can play either way, but they like a slower pace, so if we can speed it up, that would help."
ON THE POSSIBILITY OF PLAYING IN A FINAL GAME: "I just want to go out and focus more and play harder and get in my mind that we're going to win."