University of Minnesota Athletics
Postgame Quotes
12/12/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Head Coach Marlene Stollings
Opening Statement...
"I'd first like to say that Memphis is a very quality opponent, probably our toughest home non-conference opponent on the schedule, and I was very pleased with our young ladies and how they handled their defensive presence. They're known as a defensive team, pushing 20 turnovers a game, and we only had nine, so credit to our young ladies for handling their pressure and multiple different defenses. I'm real pleased with the start of our second half. The 17-0 run to start the second half obviously was huge. We pride ourselves on being a second half team. Incredible performance by these two young ladies [Carlie Wagner and Rachel Banham], with 20-plus scores and Rachel with the double-double. It was huge for us and will continue to be huge. This is a historic night of the program with Rachel being honored prior to the game."
On motivating the players at half time...
"I think most of them are self-motivated, but we were very positive because we felt like, even though they were ahead, we were getting the looks that we wanted. We were getting a lot of layups and we missed a lot of shots that we don't typically miss, and we thought that wasn't going to continue, and it didn't. We wanted to keep our defensive pressure on. Something we focused on all week was improving in that category and this was our best defensive performance of the season thus far."
Sophomore Carlie Wagner
On whether she knew shots would fall in after the first half...
"I just knew that the shots would keep falling or they would eventually fall, because we're a scoring team, and when you're a good shooter or a driver you just keep going at them. You have a short memory and just forget about the misses that you've had and keep going."
Senior Rachel Banham
On whether she knew if shots would fall in after the first half...
"We just had such great looks. I wasn't worried about it. We knew were going to keep getting that in the second half, especially as they started to get tired. It became a lot easier. It's just finishing the layups, is all it is."
On the emotions before the game during the ceremony with Lindsay Whalen and Stollings honoring Banham for the career Minnesota scoring record...
"It was really cool. I love Lindsay. It was a good ceremony. It was fun. She's fun. Coach is great. It was a good time."
