Colorado University Athletics

Colorado-Valparaiso Quotes

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HEAD COACH LINDA LAPPE

GENERAL:
 "I thought it was a good win. Our defense was outstanding. It was fun to see multiple players contributing and working together. There were times that we had different line-ups than usual, and that was sometimes visible offensively. But, our defense is what really led us."

ON STARTING LEXY:
"Brittany Wilson had a concussion from the CSU game, so she wasn't in practice for a few days. It wasn't like Lexy beat out Brittany; it was more so just getting in and getting reps because we weren't sure if Brittany was going to be able to play tonight. Thankfully Brittany was able to play, but we ended up just going with what we had been practicing with all week."

ON JEN REESE PLAYING TOMORROW:
"I hope she will be able to play. It's one of those things that is still up in the air. We are going to plan on not having her, and if we do end up having her then that's a great bonus."

ON THE DEFENSE:
"I thought our pressure was good. We were in good position. Our post defense was outstanding. We knew coming in that their post players were their leading scorers. They used a lot of on-ball screens and I thought as the game went on we got better at getting through those. We also rebounded the ball well. We let a few too many drives get past us and let them have a few too many offensive rebounds, but besides that, we were pretty good defensively."

ON THE GUARD POSITION AND REBOUNDING:
"Our guards are pretty athletic. Ashley is an extremely hard worker. Offensive rebounding is all heart and effort. Every time a shot went up, Ashley was rushing the glass. She had seven rebounds, but probably could have had about 12. I told her at one point she was almost over-running them and going too hard. I thought our guards did a nice job of picking up rebounds and getting offensive rebounds for us."

ON GETTING RUNS AND PREVENTING THE OPPONENT FROM GETTING RUNS
"Runs are important. A lot of times it's a game of runs and not letting the other team have runs. So far we have been pretty good at both. We have to keep sustaining that. If you can always get your runs and never really let the other team get their runs, then you are going to win a lot of games. I thought our start tonight wasn't as good as it has been, but I thought our end and our start to the second half was what put the game away."

ON THE WAY THE TEAM HAS PLAYED SO FAR THIS SEASON:
"We always tell our players that if you want to be an NCAA team, you win the games that you should win, and then you steal a couple others. On paper this is a game that we should win, and I thought we did a nice job of taking care of business and not taking our tournament for granted. You can't get to the championship game without winning tonight's game, and our team knew that. This is a good stepping stone of what's to come."

 

Chucky Jeffery
ON PLAYING WELL EARLY...
"That's just what we practice and what we know we have to do because if we come out flat then the same thing could happen to us. We know that every time we come out we have to throw the first punch, we have to be aggressive, we have to play defense hard. That's just what we are taught, so we have to emulate that on the floor."

ON THE KEY TO FINALLY GETTING GOING IN THE FIRST HALF...
"Transition. Getting defensive rebounds, getting high outlets and pushing up the floor. When Ashley and Brittany and Lexi and all of them run the floor I get up the ball up easy and we get easier scores that way because it breaks the defense down, they're scrambling. I think that's real good.

ON THE SHOT AT THE END OF THE HALF...
"I was excited. We were just feeling it, that 10-0 run was big for us especially going into halftime because we have all the momentum. It kind of just flattens out the other team. It was big and we were excited. We were in the locker room but we know we had a whole 20 minutes to play and we know the game is still winnable for the other team so we had to put it back on them."

ON THE LINEUP CHANGES...
"It's early in the season and we have a lot of different players that can have the potential to start. We have a lot of people that can rotate in and out so I think it's just getting the feel of each other tonight. We do it a lot of it in practice, so it's not weird when somebody else is in a different lineup. We have different lineups all the time so it's kind of different that we do have different lineups all the time but it's good because we learn how to play with each other at the same time."

ON A YOUNG TEAM RESPONDING EARLY...
"We are a young team, and I think we responded really well. They listen to us. They don't come in with egos and none of that, and playing time, none of that is a factor. They just come in ready to work and learn. They just come in ready to go, and I think they responded really well especially taking us in and listening to us and knowing that we have been in the program, under Coach Lappe for a year, and we know what's going on. They've responded really well."

Ashley Wilson

ON THE 4-0 START...
I wouldn't say easy. We put in a lot of hard work so that's why it looks easy, but I mean it's the same position we were for us because we work hard so the outcome is just what you see.

ON HOW THE SEASON IS GOING THUS FAR...
"It feels real good, but we can't take it for granted. We can't take it for nothing. We know we are good, we know what we have to do, but we also know that we can't let it off. We can't just think that 'oh we've won a couple games' so we can't start slacking now. We just got to keep going, and keep getting better and better.

ON REBOUNDING...
"I feel like that's one of the things that I could be competing in besides defensive rebounding. I like reading the ball see which way it's going to come off, I like getting the rebound, I like getting my team second opportunities to put the ball in the basket again."

ON THE TEAM BALANCE, BOTH SCORING AND REBOUNDING...
"I like it a lot because you don't have to focus on one player doing a whole lot of everything. It comes from everybody and that way you make the extra pass, you make the open pass, whoever is open knocks the shot down. That's just how we play."

ON THEIR NEXT MATCHUP AGAINST WISCONSIN...
"Yeah we watched them. We will be ready for them. They are a pretty solid team. They got a scorer that we have to stop. Like I said, we will just be ready for them. We will be ready to go."