Lady Mocs Basketball - Postgame Quotes vs. Wofford
1/2/2011 1:58:00 PM | Women's Basketball
Lady Mocs Basketball - Postgame Quotes vs. Wofford
Wofford at Chattanooga
Chattanooga, Tenn. - The McKenzie Arena
Jan. 2, 2011
Head Coach Wes Moore
On the game:
"I am proud of the effort. Obviously, we dug a big hole. It would have been easy for the kids to hang their heads and throw in the towel, but they kept battling. It seemed like forever before we took the lead, but I am proud of the effort. We scored a lot of points off second chance points and off of turnovers. That tells me that we were hustling and playing hard, but we have to find a way to play better defense. You can't give up 88 points and win night-in and night-out. That puts too much pressure on your offense. You are not going to get 40 points out of Whitney Hood every night. It was good she stepped up, and we had three other players get double figures. We have been wanting to have Kylie [Lambert] come through as a fourth scorer. Kayla [Christopher] and Tenisha [Townsend] have been consistent for us. It was a good come from behind win, and we will enjoy it for a few hours, but we need to find a way to guard people better. You have to give Wofford a lot of credit too. They shot 82% from the three-point line [in the first half]. Yes, maybe we broke down defensively and gave them some open looks, but I don't care if you are locked in the gym by yourself, 82% from the three point line is pretty impressive."
On Whitney Hood:
"I was proud of Whitney. I was a little disappointed in stretches of her defense. She has a tendency to relax to lose her mind and focus. I kind of had a come to Jesus meeting with her during one the timeouts. We are playing her a lot of minutes. These games where every position is critical it is hard to take her off the floor. I know we have to find a way to do it. She was a warrior out their tonight. You got to give her credit."
On Kylie Lambert's jump shot:
"That wasn't what I was expecting. As a coach, you are saying, 'No, no, no, great shot. Way to go.' Coaches are kind of fickle on what determines a good shot, and that is when the ball goes through that cylinder. That was a big bucket, and gave us a lot of momentum. That was a gusty play and you have to give her credit for that."
On Tenisha Townsend's shot at the end of the first half:
"Tenisha's shot at the buzz was big. It gives you a little glimmer of hope. Know you feel like you can get back in this thing."
On the team's defense:
"Sometimes it lapses. We try to mix up how we play the pick on the ball, because they were having a lot of success against that. You then have one-person breakdown and not do their job. The team needs to be a little more focused. They tend to not listen at times. We don't have a margin of error to get a way with it. Every position is critical, and we haven't had a breather yet. We are going to have to find a way to do the little things to win."
On how Wofford guarded Hood:
"When she gets it down on the block she is hard to stop. If you back off of her she can hit the turn around. If you get in her face she can go around them and she can go up with contact. We just wait to see how other teams are going to play us. They pretty much allowed her to go one-on-one and take away the three from us. For the most part it worked, but she was able to put up enough points for us to win."
Junior Forward Whitney Hood
On how tired you are after scoring 40:
"I am physically and mentally."
On the difference in the second half:
"I think in the second half we had a lot of heart. Coach Moore told us to keep fighting and we kept fighting. We had a couple stops and they missed some shots. We scored on the other end."
On them answering the challenge after you took the lead:
"We just basically kept playing the game. They are going to score some. We are going to score some. Coach Moore just wants us to keep working on defense because we can only get better at it."
On scoring 40 points:
"I really did not know. I just kept playing. It is very impressive."
On rebounding your own shot after a couple misses and finally making a basket along with a foul to take the lead 86-85:
"I think I wanted it more than them. I knew that we were down one. I just kept going after my rebound, put it up and got fouled."
On the Belmont win helping the team pull out the victory tonight:
"I think it helped us a lot. We know that we are a good team. We just need to keep working on the small stuff. Eventually as we keep playing, those things are going to come."
On shooting the ball 32 times tonight:
"I have not do that before. They just kept telling me to attack and I would get fouled. I just kept attacking because it was one-on-one and nobody doubled. I pretty much just attacked and went towards the basket."
On Mahagony Williams fouling out opening up space in the paint:
"It definitely did. She is a strong girl. Outside of her, their other post players are not as strong, so it was easier to attack those other post girls."
On thinking the Wofford would cool off from the three-point line after halftime:
"I thought that they could have come back out and shot well. Coach Moore made some adjustments on the screen on ball and we just defended better."
Sophomore Guard Kylie Lambert
On being surprised by earning the win after how the first half played out:
"I have to give it to them. They were not missing and shooting 82 percent from the field. I knew that we could fight back and we ended up pulling it out."
On the difference in the second half:
"We cut down our turnovers. We only had three in the second half, while we had eight in the first."
On them answering the challenge after you took the lead:
"It was tough. They did answer."
On the pull up jumper to take a three-point lead:
"Coach [Moore] was telling me that there was somebody behind me, so I just pulled up and shot it."
On the Belmont win helping you pull out the victory tonight:
"It has helped us get some confidence."
On thinking the Wofford would cool off from the three-point line after halftime:
"At halftime, yes, I did not think that they would come back out and shoot that well. They still seemed to shoot well, but not as good as the first half."
