Post Game Quotes

Nov. 9, 2004

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Head Coach Bonnie Henrickson:

On the game:
“I was pleased with the win, with the effort and intensity. We will be able to look at this tonight and break it down and find a lot of things that were positive and an equal number of things we need to work at and get better. I have tremendous respect for Fort Hays and their kids. They will have a good year. I thought they did a good job hitting some more shots later in the game. I loved our enthusiasm and unselfishness. We had a lot of uncontested shots because we set good screens. What is good about our team is that we have a pretty good mix of kids who can penetrate, but keep their heads up to find someone with an open shot. The most glaring thing to me was the amount of offensive rebounds we gave up. We will be working on boxing out next practice.”

On Crystal Kemp:
“We know how much better we are when she is on the court, but as a junior, she has to know better than to get the second foul so early in the game. She has a responsibility to her teammates to not allow herself to get into foul trouble like that. There are some things that I thought she did very well, but defensively I think she needs to be better. Each one of these kids did a lot of things well, but we also have a lot of things to work on.”

On adjustments in the second half:
“We did not try to force things through the middle of the lane in the second half. Their game plan was to make us hit shots outside the paint. One of our keys was to take what the defense gave us. I thought we made better decisions and handled the pressure better in the second half.”

Junior Forward Crystal Kemp

On playing for the first time under Coach Henrickson:
“Everyone was really hyped to finally get to play a game. Overall it was a good experience for us. We knew the whole pace of the game was going to feel a little different, everything from timeouts to how we were going to end the game. Everything was different, but I think we adjusted well. She (Coach Henrickson) was calm, cool, and collected like always. She told us what we needed to do, but most of all just to go out there and have fun.”

Freshman Forward Jamie Boyd

On playing her first collegiate game:
“On one of the first plays of the game I got a fat lip. So I guess that was my welcome to college. I was nervous at first, but in the second half I was a lot more calm and more relaxed.”

On her eleven rebounds:
“I try really hard after every shot to get a rebound. One of my rules as a player is to crash the boards as hard as I can and Coach (Henrickson) really emphasizes that.”

Senior Guard Aquanita Burras

On the game:
“We needed to show that even with a new coach, we were still going to be behind them 100 percent. With all of the effort that we brought onto the court, I think we proved our point.”

Fort Hays State Head Coach Annette Wiles

On the game:
“The first impression that we take from this game is rebounding. We also have to take the concept of defense. It was a situation where we were not putting very many points on the board. We needed to do a better job of shutting people down. The gates opened and then it was just like a stampede. We started giving up one or two easy baskets, and then the next thing you know, it turned into six or seven. I think defense and rebounding are definitely two things that we need to work on.”

On playing in Allen Fieldhouse:
“I know that there had to be a lot of nerves and butterflies in the stomach of our players. This is an exciting venue for (our players) to play in and an exciting opportunity.”

On Crystal Kemp:

“Crystal (Kemp) is a tough player to guard because she is a good sized player. I felt like we did a very good job of keeping the ball out of her hands in the first half. In the second half, due to foul trouble, we had to go to playing some of our guards in the low post position, and she took advantage of that. She is a great player, and I think we battled her to the best of our ability.”

Senior Forward Katie Rhodes

On playing Kansas:
“When you play a quicker, more athletic team, it is going to expose your weaknesses. We are going to work on our weaknesses and try to make them strengths.

On the game:
“We need to work on our rebounding. It is not that we can’t do it, we just need to put our minds to getting rebounds. We have been working on our defensive intensity, and I think (our defense) did well tonight, but we can always do better. We got in foul trouble too early. With only nine players, we have to make sure that we are playing smart.”