Kansas 75, UC-Riverside 60 Postgame Quotes
Dec. 20, 2009
Recap | Final Stats | Notes |
LAWRENCE, Kan. –
Postgame Quotes
Kansas 75, UC-Riverside 60
December 20, 2009
Kansas Head Coach Bonnie Henrickson
On Danielle McCray’s effort Sunday:
“If it weren’t for Danielle McCray today (we would have been in trouble), she dialed in great and that’s what All-Americans do; that’s what seniors do and that’s what players of her caliber do. She should be a little bit weary tonight; she carried 14 other people with her. Credit to her and how tough she was. Not that she hit tough shots, but I thought her effort on the offensive glass and the defensive boards was special, she was great tonight.”
On the team’s lackluster performance:
“We didn’t talk defensively. We had a really good workout on Friday. Defensively, we dialed in and did some scout stuff. Sade (Morris) has been in a little bit of a fog offensively. I love the fact that she will guard but we need her to score. Unless we want to have fun in the WNIT like last year, we’ve got to step up and play. I challenged her to be as aggressive as (Monica) Engelman offensively. Monica is not afraid to take a shot. Sade needs to take a shot; she takes two shots and she’s got to be better. She goes 0-for-3 and doesn’t have an offensive rebound. Krysten (Boogaard) struggled to finish in the lane. Aishah (Sutherland) was out of it. Marisha (Brown) was a spark plug in the first half. LaChelda (Jacobs) was a spark plug in the second half. Angel (Goodrich) looked out of it. Her turnovers, in thinking about where most of them were, they were deep in the baseline and by then you should have a decision made. She typically makes most of her passes not much deeper than the free throw line so she looked and second guessed herself and looked again and tried to throw it and it wasn’t there. We threw a bunch of bad balls today, making just a bunch of bad plays on offense. Defensively, when we got up and guarded we were pretty good. But we were just soft and lackluster. We can’t be that way on Tuesday. We’ve got to get it turned around quick.”
On the team’s defensive performance:
“We let them get inside and we didn’t talk. The crowd was quiet and you couldn’t hear us talk. Which means we were quiet. They assumed screens and they cut and slipped and got to the paint and got the rim. In the second half, (UC Riverside’s Marissa Rivera) goes crazy on us inside, we let her get loose. We only blocked her one time. I didn’t think Krysten (Boogaard) was very good defensively. Aishah wasn’t, Nicollette (Smith) wasn’t. Nobody guarded her and we weren’t a whole lot better in the first half. (UC Riverside’s Amber) Cox had some good looks and we’ve just got to be better than that. We didn’t fly around, we weren’t loud and we weren’t active.”
On the team’s rebounding performance:
“When we got them to miss a shot, they didn’t get a lot of offensive boards. Six offensive boards, they only had one in the first half. But that’s as bad as we’ve been as far as defensive field goal percentage all year. They shoot them in the lane, one-on-one inside. They could make theirs and we couldn’t make ours. Honestly, I don’t know if we shot 25 percent in the paint. I will have to look at it tonight but we were terrible in the lane. We’re focused but we’re not focused on finishing. We’re focused on length and we’re focused on the people around us but we’re not focused on finishing.”
Senior Guard Sade Morris
On if the upcoming road game will help the team:
“Yeah, having a road game will be nice. Coach (Bonnie Henrickson) always says this is one of the hardest games of the year, just because it’s right before break. It’s going to be a test, but I think we can handle it.”
On her plans over break:
“Actually, I decided to stay here in Lawrence. Just relax, and stay focused on basketball. I figured since I’m a senior this year, I can come back home in the spring when I’ll have time.”
On if the upcoming road game will say something about the team:
“I guess you could say that, but we just need to come out and play well. You don’t want to end Christmas break with a loss. Nobody wants to go home miserable when you lose to a team that you should have beaten.”
Senior Guard Danielle McCray
On the interior defense:
“We just need to communicate more, that’s the big thing right now. We just need to talk more. Today wasn’t a great day for us defensively. We just fell out of it. But I think we’re good now, and this game showed that we can be better – and we need to be better.”
On opening the game up slow and sloppy:
“I’m not sure, there was just no intensity. We didn’t come out focused like we should have. We were focusing on the wrong things. We didn’t focus on getting to the rim. We missed three easy layups and had turnovers.”
On the game running through her today:
“It doesn’t concern me. It’s our first game back – it’s not an excuse, but I think we can get it back. But it also lets us know that we can have those things working, and it’s good to have those plays. We’ll be fine.”
Junior Center Krysten Boogaard
On what was going on in the beginning of the game:
“We just came out a little flat; we didn’t come out with a lot of energy, which was really difficult to get into a rhythm and a flow. Danielle (McCray) did really great today. She was all over the floor, which is really good for us.”
On how Danielle McCray played:
“(McCray) is a great player, and she was getting to the offensive and defensive boards hard, she was showing everybody how great of a player she is. We cant always rely on Danielle.”
UC-Riverside Head Coach John Margaritis
On the game overall:
“Kansas is a well-coached team. They are on a different level than us and (Danielle) McCray is unbelievable. She is very good.”
On his team have 18 assists on 26 field goals:
“I don’t know if it’s our passing. I don’t know if I feel we’re a good passing team. The way that we play in our offense, we try to play away from the basketball. We don’t do a lot of things with the basketball. We have the ball in our hands and people away from the ball work to get open, so after the pass they look to shoot. It helps get assists. Once you put the ball on the floor, you don’t get the assist. We don’t dribble the ball that well, so we try to score by catching and shooting. We do all the work before we catch the ball.”
On holding Kansas guard Angel Goodrich to just five assists:
“When you switch, it negates screens. It forces people to put the ball on the floor in order to create something. I think she played very well. She got the ball where she wanted it go it’s just that the people that were catching the ball were not open and then Kansas took it to us.”
On UC-Riverside outscoring Kansas in the paint 38-28:
“Kansas decided to go elsewhere. We were obviously sagging and they were taking what we were giving them. We switched screens so then they took it off the dribble. They wanted to go inside, but we were sagging, so they made outside shots. It’s not like they were suffering from the inability to score. They just found another way to score.”
