Kansas 70 - Kansas State 60: Postgame Quotes
Feb. 7, 2010
Recap | Final Stats | Notes |
LAWRENCE, Kan. –
Postgame Quotes
Kansas 70 – Kansas State 60
February 7, 2010
Kansas Head Coach Bonnie Henrickson
On the game:
“There was a great energy today. I can’t say enough about the crowd. Going into it considering what the kids have been through the last 48 hours I thought it was important to get off to a good start and felt like it would be important to feed off the energy in the building. Similar to when Angel went down and then we have Missouri and it’s a great crowd and great energy and we fed off that and then Danielle goes down and it was kind of the same with K-state. Our kids fed off the energy and played with tremendous confidence and toughness throughout the stretch. There were a lot of individual performances too. When Monica hit the three in the corner I looked at Danielle and told her that she taught her well. She was great, Caroline was great, Lachelda had a season high, Monica had a season high and Sade was tough early. I thought Kristen hit a big one and Nicolette had good minutes. I thought collectively as a group it was a good performance, great resolve and perseverance.”
On Danielle acting as assistance coach today:
“When I went and saw her after we got her MRI back, I told her she was going to be assistant coach. She was great. She was at the free throw line in our girls ear and she was in my chair when I come back, which is great. I thought she looked sadder yesterday than the day before. I called her late last night and told her it was going to be hard today and that I knew that but I said I’m just asking for one thing, ‘When your teammates look at you, they need to see confidence and strength.” And I thought she was great today. Angel has shown great resolve through this as well.”
Senior Guard Danielle McCray
On having a positive attitude in the wake of her knee injury :
“My spirits have been great. It is kind of weird because I am hurt, but I am being so positive. Everyone is like wow you are so positive and are doing so good. Yeah it hit me before the game and I had a few tears but that is just the love of the game. I just stayed strong throughout the game and once it got to game time I was really into it and trying to help my teammates the best that I could. They told me it is going to be tough, but just to keep talking to them and I thought I did a good job at that today.”
Senior Guard Sade Morris
On the team’s mindset before the game:
“We knew that it was going to be a struggle. Not only were we fighting for survivors of breast cancer or the ones who have passed from any for of cancer, we had our own fight. Unfortunately we have been hit with two different ACL tears and it has kind of been a struggle. We had to show everyone that we still had fight in us. Just because Danielle McCray is out does not mean the Jayhawks are going to go downhill. We are a team and we came out ready to fight. We felt like we needed to prove something and just because our best player is hurt does not mean we have to give up.”
On the team’s passion:
“I think everybody is getting into the rhythm now. It is near the end of the season. I think Danielle getting hurt helped us out a lot. We realized we thought we were going to go far with her and people were counting us down and out without her. So we knew we needed to prove them wrong and come together and play.”
Freshman Guard Monica Engelman
On keeping up the emotional intensity:
“Well we all love each other and we have to find it somewhere. I don’t know really where it came from, but we just try to keep an upbeat tempo and keep pushing.”
On playing Nebraska:
“I actually want to play them undefeated; it will make the game even more exciting.”
On the past 48 hours:
“I was heartbroken about the whole Danielle McCray situation. I still am. Today I was a little bit nervous, but I knew I had to step up and not only play for the team but play for her. I owe it to her to go out there and be aggressive.”
Kansas State Head Coach Deb Patterson
On the game overall:
“Kansas played a very aggressive, smart and consistent basketball game today on both ends of the floor. That was probably one of the biggest distinctions in this game. When you look at the end result of the first 20 minutes, we really did not match the quality of basketball Kansas brought to the floor. One thing that really stands out to me is the assists numbers for us. That’s a pretty good indication that we weren’t as good as we needed to be on the offensive end of the floor. In the second half we played even, but KU shot 60 percent from the floor. We were out played today in the small phases of the game and in the physicality. They had an opportunity to get to the foul line a lot because they had an aggressive disposition. We did a better job of attempting to do that as a group in the second half, but it was just not enough. They brought consistent quality and competitiveness the full 40 minutes.”
On Kansas playing without Danielle McCray:
“They played tremendous basketball. I think that’s often the case when players are put in the position of having to step up to emotional adversity. Today’s game was probably as much emotional adversity as it was physical adversity by not having her on the floor. (Monica) Engelman stepped up and provided unbelievable quality minutes. Everybody played to their strengths and played within themselves and played with great confidence. This was a game in which emotion translated into great execution on their part. Danielle is a tremendous player and her loss is going to be felt not only by Kansas, but throughout this league because of the amount of respect everyone has for what she brings to the floor. All compliments to players like Carolyn Davis, who stepped up her production, and Monica, who was tremendous today. Really just about every possession where it was important for them to make an individual play, whether it was a defensive play or a big basketball, somebody on the Kansas offensive end of the floor stepped up and did that relative to their strengths.”
Kansas State senior forward Ashley Sweat
On Kansas playing well without Danielle McCray:
“Every player that stepped out on the court was aggressive. They brought a physicality that we didn’t see from them the first time. When you lose a player like McCray I think a lot of that comes from the emotional experience that you go through. In this game they out-did us mentally and obviously they were physical and aggressive. That translated onto both ends of the court for them and that’s where their success came from.”
On Kansas State making a few small runs in the second half:
“There were spurts where we matched their aggressiveness on the offensive end, and on the defensive end we got a couple of charges and moving screens. That gives you a little bit of momentum coming down to the other end, but you can’t win a game playing in spurts. You have to be consistent and come every possession ready to play. We didn’t do that today.”
