Postgame Quotes

Jan. 3, 2011

Recap | Final Stats | Notes |

Postgame Quotes
Kansas 56, UMKC 41
January 3, 2011

Kansas head coach Bonnie Henrickson

On her team’s performance vs. UMKC:

“Our defensive numbers were decent but our offensive numbers… we kind of felt like we’ve went through this before break when we embraced who we were as a team offensively. Since we’ve been back I felt like we’ve been more undisciplined and haven’t executed as well.”

On her team’s offensive struggles:

“Our balance is good and our play-making is good, but we didn’t make good decisions tonight. We’ve done that more in the last two games than we’ve probably done in six games prior to that. We will look at film and find out where we’ve lost our rhythm and timing offensively.”

On Diara Moore’s play:

“She embraces the fact that we need her to guard and makes a play off the dribble and plays in the lane. She drove the ball in and got a lay-up on her first possession, so she’s heard the message and she understands that’s my way to get on the floor.”

On talking with new athletic director Sheahon Zenger before tonight’s game:

“The first thing he said to me was ‘I’m going to your game first’ and that he couldn’t wait to sit down and talk. He cares and he cares about women’s athletics and he cares about the big picture as well as the small pieces.”

On conference play coming up:

“It’s the little things like boxing out, rebounding and being who we need to be offensively. The best player makes the fewest bad plays and the best teams make the fewest number of bad plays, so we’ve just made a lot of bad plays for a team that is really good.”

Sophomore Monica Engelman

On the team’s increase in turnovers the last two games:

“I really don’t know what it is, but we have a lot that we need to work on this next week. We just need to get in the gym and hit it hard and be ready for Texas Tech.”

On head coach Bonnie Henrickson’s postgame message to the team:

“We had a slow start and a lot of our possessions weren’t good possessions. Coach told us that maybe four out of our 60 possessions were good possessions. We have a lot of stuff we need to clean up.”

Freshman Diara Moore

On driving the ball into the paint:

“It made a difference because when stuff happens like that it gives us a lot of intensity. It pumps us up a lot. I like to bring that to my team.”

On her and fellow guard Angel Goodrich pushing the ball in transition:

“Coach wants us pushing. It’s really good for us to have multiple people doing that.”

Sophomore Carolyn Davis

On scoring quickly in the second half:

“At halftime in the locker room coach challenged me to play better. She said that I wasn’t playing tough and I wasn’t shooting around the big girl. I was letting her block my shots. I came out in the second half with a chip on my shoulder to prove to them I could play tougher.”

On how the team can improve:

“We have to be more consistent. We have been playing poorly the last couple of games since we came back from break. That’s not the team that we have been. We have to get back to the team we were before break and I think we’ll be fine.”

UMKC Head Coach Candace Whitaker

On her team’s performance:
“More than anything coming into this game I wanted our kids to compete, and I thought they did that on the defensive end. We had 10 blocked shots at half and I thought we really got after it. We contested inside and tried to mix it up. This is a team that averages around 85 (points) per game and we held them to 56, so I think we did a nice job defensively.”

On the defensive play of freshman center Ashli Hill:
“This girl has extremely long arms and terrific timing. She had six (blocks) at half. Often when a smaller school comes into a Big 12 (school), it takes us a while to get going, but I was really proud that we didn’t shy away. We got after it a little bit.”

On Kansas’ play:
“They are a great team that plays a high-pressure defense. They are big monsters inside, so they are going to bother people inside. We don’t see that on a daily basis as far as people we play against all the time. I’m proud that we only turned it over 15 times against a team that pressures as well as Kansas and is as physical as they are. Sometimes we had two or three freshmen on the floor. We played mostly underclassmen, so I thought they competed well. You have to make baskets to win ball games at this level, so we’ve got to find a way to do that and take advantage at the free throw line, which we didn’t do.”

On Kansas’s team:
“I think they have a great ball team. They have a great inside-out attack. I’ve been at UMKC for five years. We’ve played KU quite a bit, and I think this is the best team that (Kansas head coach Bonnie Henrickson) has had because of their inside game. They’ve got nice guards that can distribute and get out in transition. They are great in transition. It was a huge key for us to try to take away their transition game because if you get up and run with it a little bit, they can be deadly.”

Freshman center Ashli Hill

On blocking shots early in the game:
“It definitely gave me confidence on the defensive end.”

On playing in her hometown of Lawrence:
“I knew it was going to be all love, so it was a positive environment for me. A whole bunch of my family was here and my high school basketball team so they supported me well.”

On playing against Kansas sophomore Carolyn Davis:
“She just buried me pretty well. I should have gotten around her and kept her out of the paint more often. She didn’t really do any post moves, she just turned and shot the ball.”