Quotes
Dec. 2, 2005
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Kansas Postgame Quotes
Kansas 72, Birmingham-Southern 50
December 2, 2005
Head Coach Bonnie Henrickson
On Junior Guard Sharita Smith:
“Sharita (Smith) gave us great defensive energy and played hard every posesion. She gave us good opportunities for us in transition. We are good defensively and have passing lanes I think we can be pretty good. We gave up too many uncontested shots. There are certainly some things we have to work on and be better in a hurry for tomorrow’s game against UNO. We need to get back to playing every possesion no matter what the score is and play for 40 minutes.”
On sharing the ball:
“We’ve done that all year. We’ve tried to be aggressive off the dribble and try to understand where we can find people and who is the primary weapon on offense. That’s been consistent and that’s been solid. That’s certainly necessary for us to be successful tonight, and the same thing tomorrow. We are a very unselfish group and have been all year.”
On the bench play:
“First and foremost it gives minutes to the kids who need some minutes right now. I would like for those kids who came off the bench to give me a couple more reasons to want to play them earlier in a closer game and that conversation just happened in the locker room. They have another chance tomorrow for them to give me the oppronunity to play them and play them sooner.”
On preparing for tomorrow’s game:
“We anticipate some zone and some pressure tomorrow, and we will go through the scouting report. We will shoot some more and go through their press breaks.
On free throws:
“I think it’s just a lack of concentration. We shot it really well yesterday at practice. We just have to be aggressive to get there and reward yourself and your team by knocking them down. We have too many kids that have a great stroke and follow through. We shouldn’t struggle that much on the free throw line.”
Senior Guard Erica Hallman
On re-entering the game late:
“I didn’t think I was going to go back into the game, but the subs came in and didn’t do what they were supposed too. Coach was upset so she put us back in. We just have to be better defensively and get a killer mentality because we should have probably beat this team by 40 points.”
On pacing herself for tomorrow’s game:
“I wasn’t worried about doing that. I was just playing this game. I am just going to let tomorrow’s game come when it gets here.”
On Ivana Catic establishing herself as the point guard:
“Yeah, she has established herself as the point guard. I think today we played against a better team defensively and she made some freshman mistakes, but she is going to be all right. She will make mistakes I know I did, and she is going to finish up well.”
Freshman Guard Ivana Catic
On needed improvements:
“We have to focus on the things we didn’t do tonight. We need to focus at the free-throw line which would have been an additional ten points tonight. Tonight we had 20 turnovers, and we need to get that back to 12 or 13 which is our goal.”
On her 10 assists:
“I have to give credit to the shooters. Erica Hallman and Kaylee Brown both hit some big shots. It was my passing, but they made the shots.”
On playing for Coach Henrickson:
“I love playing for Bonnie. That is why I came here. When she first came to visit me at my high school I knew I wanted to play for her. She is always honest, and she will never critique me if I do my job well.”
Birmingham Southern Head Coach Brad Hodge
On the game:
“Fortunately we don’t have to play in the Big 12. I thought that they really got after it defensively. They (Kansas) made some comments about their defensive level is not where they want it to be, but it was there tonight. They really took us out of what we are good at. For the better part of the game, I thought we competed as hard as we could.”
On Kansas Senior Forward Crystal Kemp:
“They knew what they needed to do tonight. They dumped it into Kemp and we tried to double team her. She has great passing skills and she found the open player.”
On Kansas:
“They are a well coached team. They are much improved from last year. Bonnie (Henrickson) has this team going in the right direction.”
