University of Minnesota Athletics
Postgame Quotes
1/2/2012 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 2, 2012
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Minnesota vs. Indiana
Minnesota Head Coach Pam Borton
Opening Statement
"This was a great win. I thought our team played extremely well and extremely hard. I really like how we started off the game making several shots. I think our defense and rebounding carried over from the Purdue game today."
On the impact of Brianna Mastey
"I think she's played extremely well in the last few games. It's nice bringing a player like her off the bench. She's a senior and she's been through the rigors of the Big 10 before and she knows what it takes."
On the recent play of Rachel Banham
"I think each and every game I learn something about Rachel. I learned a lot about her on the road at Purdue, and I think she learned a lot about herself. It was a tough environment and I think she grew from it. You're only going to grow through adversity."
On the difference in today's game compared to the game at Purdue
"We made shots today. We just missed a lot of shots and we should have won at Purdue. We missed layup after layup and we gave that game away."
Freshman guard Rachel Banham
On grabbing a career-high 11 rebounds
"Rebounding is one of my big things. I want to continue doing that whether I'm a guard or not."
On making her fifth three-pointer of the contest
"All of it just felt good. I was confident, I was laughing. It was fun."
On the key to continue winning in Big Ten play
"I have to keep being confident and know that my teammates have my back and that we're in this together. If I have a bad game, someone else is going to step up, and if someone else is struggling, I'm going to step up. We just need to play together to win games."
Senior guard Kiara Buford
On bouncing back from her performance at Purdue
"Establishing myself in the paint and making layups was something I wanted to do today. I wanted to get to the line and make free throws."
On cutting back on turnovers
"I think we were poised and took care of the ball. I think what helped us was we were executing when you can execute, then you can score."
On what the first conference win of the season means to the team
"I think it's great confidence-wise for our team. I think we played well at Purdue, but we didn't finish well. I think we can take these couple games and propel us through the season. We know we can play with anybody and now we know how we have to play for 40 minutes."
On the three-guard lineup
"Our lineup works well because we have a certain amount of guards that can be versatile. So, when Leah comes out I can pick up the ball, and when Leah comes in, she can take the ball and I can move to the wing. We feed off of each other well."
Indiana Head Coach Felisha Legette-Jack
On the outcome of the game
"It just wasn't in the cards to [win]. I want to apologize to Fred Glass at Indiana, the athletic department and this fine institution. In the end, we need to compete for forty minutes, no matter what we're doing. We didn't go out there and compete like we needed to in the first half. Mr. Glass deserves more than that from me, he deserves more than that from our institution and we need to figure out how to get better with that."
On Quaneisha McCurty's play today
"She's great. We just need to have a point guard that can manage that kind of scale. She could be one to watch in our conference. She could be a face for posts, because all of our great post players have graduated, and now we're becoming a guard-oriented conference, like at Ohio State and that young lady here at Minnesota. It's a very guard-oriented conference now, and [McCurty] could be a force to be reckoned with, but we have to surround her with better players out there."
On how the flow of the game changed after Minnesota's 22-2 run
"I just really couldn't believe that. I thought that somebody stole our basket. I wanted to stop the game and have somebody go put our basket back. You call a couple timeouts, try to get them to understand to take a deep breath. If you can't get the shot, the attack, the offensive foul, be competitive, be in attack mode... it's a group of young ladies that didn't understand the attack mode. We have to get better, because it doesn't get any easier. We're on our way to Nebraska in a few days and they're playing at a high clip right now."
