Syracuse vs. Rutgers
January 6, 2009
Carrier Dome/Syracuse, N.Y.
Opening Statement:
"I just want to start off saying that our kids played a masterful game. To beat a team like that who has been to Final Fours and to championship games and has five or six McDonald’s All-Americans on their team was a huge win for us. I thought out kids just came out and executed our game plan. We put a game plan in place and I told our kids before the game, ‘I don’t go into games expecting things to go wrong, I go into things expecting to win. So expect to win, don’t expect something to go wrong.’ That’s what we did. I preached to them before the game, ‘Expect things to go right. Don’t go through life expecting things to go wrong.’ Even when we got behind I wasn’t worried about it because we’ve fought from behind and won. We’re 7-1 when we’ve been behind.
“We just played well. We rebounded the ball and took care of the ball. We got a little sloppy down the stretch with their press. That was self-inflicting rather than them throwing something on us that we weren’t prepared for. We worked on going to the long corner and went to the short corner twice and got in trouble. When we got settled down with the long corner then we were able to attack them and get to the rim and score. We were able to get the ball off the rim weak side and pull it back out. We just played a masterful game. We always talk about and work on situations in practice. This was a situation we work on a couple times a week in practice and obviously it paid off.”
On when he considers that Syracuse is pulling away in the game:
"Once the game is over. I was talking to our team at the end of the game and told them to keep running our stuff, keep executing, and keep attacking and keep doing the things that we do. That situation happened to us at St. Bonaventure where we threw the ball long and Juanita [Ward] shot it. This time we threw the ball long and had a wide open layup and pulled it back out. It was good. One time we threw it and Chandrea [Jones] got a little cute. I was getting a little nervous, but she ended up pulling it back out. I think our preparation and us sitting down and talking about situations really paid off tonight.”
On how pleased he was with the team’s patience:
"Unbelievable patience. Once we executed our press-break and went long corner, we could throw the ball up the sideline and really attack it. It’s actually similar to the press that we run so we have an idea of how to break it. We break it a lot in practice shooting layups. It was a good situation for us. We were able to get the ball to the long corner by throwing the ball up the sideline. We could shoot it and attack weak side and rebound the ball. I thought we did a good job of handling it.”
On the play of Rutgers’ Epiphanny Prince:
"Epiphanny is a great player. She’s probably one of the top three offensive players in the country. She’s just going to keep attacking. She’s very fearless. Nicole [Michael] and Erica [Morrow] played with her on the same AAU team, so I’ve seen Epiphanny play since she was in eighth and ninth grade. That was one person we talked about. We had to keep her reasonable. For her, 23 is reasonable because she can get 37 and even 40. I thought 27 would be out of control and for me, 23 is reasonable.”
On how big Epiphanny Prince was about of the Syracuse game plan:
"We had two things we wanted to do. We wanted to make sure that we kept Piph reasonable and we wanted to make sure that Kia Vaughan came down the lane that we had a body on her. To keep her to five rebounds is a remarkable job by Vionca [Murray], Troya [Berry] Nicole. Juanita did a good job of laying body on her. I thought that, overall, we executed our game plan to perfection.”
On where this win ranks given the opponent:
"It is a big win for our program. We want to beat ranked teams. Just a year ago around this time, we were ranked. We don’t view this win as a do-all, be-all, but we’re not going to diminish how huge this win is for this program and our kid. This is a big win for Nicole, Erica and Tasha. Now they can go home and go to Rutgers Park for summer league and not go down there always losing. It’s a big deal. Next time we play them the stakes will be higher. It’ll be in the BIG EAST Tournament. It’s a huge win for our program. I’m just really happy for the Syracuse basketball community that’s been sticking by this program and cheering us on in to play these tough games at home and win them. We’re really tough at home and not too many people want to come play us here because we’ll get you at home.”