University of Minnesota Athletics
Postgame Quotes
1/10/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Head Coach Marlene Stollings
Opening Statement:
"Credit to Michigan. I thought they came out with a lot of energy and we came out flat. If you look at the box score, we won the second and third quarter, and we tied in the fourth. You look at that first quarter… You don't always win a game in the first half but you can lose one. I thought that that held true today. I thought that we just came out too flat defensively and let them get a lot of confidence and get a lot of easy buckets. Giving up 35 points in a quarter is obviously unacceptable by our standards. We were fighting the rest of the way. They outrebound us by 12 and they get to the free throw line 28 times. You look at us offensively, any night we're scoring 86 points and we have three young ladies with 20-plus points, we should come out on top. We've got to tighten up, obviously, how we start the game and defensively. I've been pleased with our effort defensively the last three or four games, we're really making progress in that area, but obviously had a setback in that today."
On the play in the post…
"We've got to be tougher. We've got to be more physical. We've had a couple games here where we were coming along, and then today we had a little bit of a setback in that area. We can't let them have deep post-ups at the basket and I didn't think we were physical enough keeping them out of there. Some of those were obviously on drives and in transition our coverages weren't right. The shots at the basket can't happen that deep in Big Ten play just one-on-one."
Sophomore Guard Carlie Wagner
On scoring when Rachel Banham isn't on the floor…
"I think we just need to stay poised when we don't have Rachel on the floor and just run our offense, be patient and look for openings and not force things. We're all capable of scoring very well so we just can't panic when she's not in the game."
On facing a deficit early in the game…
"We always fight back. No matter how we start or what's going on in the game we always fight. It's just that first quarter that really hurt us. Coming out and losing the first quarter by 15 points really hurt us. We've just got to come out with more energy for sure and not be so flat and deadline on defense at the start of the game."
