University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota Quotes
11/18/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
MINNESOTA POSTGAME QUOTES
Minnesota 74 Louisville 69
Attendance: 5,723
Coach Pam Borton
Opening statement:
“It was nice to come out of that game with a win, having not really put our best game together. I thought we were sloppy at times and we were fueling their fire with some of our turnovers that led to their transition points and so forth. I think we really put together a great six minutes at the end of the game and I thought that's where the game was won. The last three-and-a-half minutes or so, I thought our defense really picked it up and played well. When you look at the box score and see that we were out-rebounded and were only 19 for 28 at the free throw line, those are things we'll have to improve, but I liked the way our scoring was balanced and everyone stepped up and made plays.'
On Emily Fox:
“We're just seeing the beginning of what Emily Fox is going to do and the thing that I keep saying all the time is that she really steps up and hits big shots and that's what the Emmy Fox's of the world are supposed to do. I think that she and [Lousiville's Angel] McCoughtry both played like All-Americans today.'
On
“I don't think we were planning on stopping her. We've had a couple of All-Americans in our gym a couple of years ago and you know that those kids are going to get their points. We just couldn't get down on ourselves when she was hitting big shots and hitting deep threes. From our perspective, we didn't want to let everyone else on her team go off. [Candyce Bingham] had 11 points and everyone else was 4, 3 and 2. We just couldn't have four of their players in double figures because we knew that Angel was going to get hers but we focused on doing a good job on everybody else.'
On the crowd:
“We had a great crowd. There were almost 6,000 people there, but it felt like we had about 10,000 in the building. I think our fans really appreciate how hard our kids work. They play with fire, they fight back; they don't give up. I think it helps how confident our kids are when our fans are our sixth player and I think that they were tonight.'
Guard Emily Fox
On
“She's obviously an amazing player. We knew that she was a scorer, she's an All-American. She obviously had a great game, but we came together as a team and played some good basketball. That's how we won this game.'
On playing limited minutes because of foul trouble:
“It was hard obviously, but I have confidence in my teammates. Everyone stepped up when I was on the bench. Kay [Sylva] did a great job, Brittany [McCoy] did a great job. It's tough to sit there not being able to do anything, but when I went in, I was able to make a contribution.'
On
“Coach told us that we were going to have to take it right at them. We weren't going to be able to play soft. They were very athletic. Ashley [Ellis-Milan] did a great job being aggressive and taking it right to them. We shot a lot of free throws, but we need to work on our free throw percentage.
“Last year, I'm not sure if we would have been able to stay composed and come back. We kept chipping away and we wanted to slowly get back into the game.'
On whether she wanted the ball for a third 3-point shot:
“I really did. I told my teammates that we were going to win this game. Everybody made big plays at the end. It was just a great team win.'
Center Ashley Ellis-Milan
On the game:
“At halftime, we went down into the locker room and talked about playing better. They are a very athletic team and we're very fundamental. We did a great job running them, but they were very quick, too.
“In the second half, I think we were wearing them down a little bit. They were really going [in the first half] and were playing really well in transition. We were better at getting back on defense in the second half. At the end of both halves, we came together much better as a team and made some big plays. Emily [Fox] and Brittany [McCoy] really stepped up at the end and I was really proud of them.'
On coming back from 15-2 and 62-50 deficits:
“It came down to motivation.
Forward Korinne Cambell
“I was really motivated to play [
