Chattanooga Basketball Postgame Quotes
Western Carolina at Chattanooga
McKenzie Arena – Chattanooga, Tenn.
Thursday – Feb. 11, 2021

Katie Burrows, Head Coach
On finishing out the back-to-back meetings strong.
"We have to put two together and finish out a series and that's exactly my message to the team. It's a great team win, but don't be complacent, don't be satisfied and don't relax. These are the moments that can come back to bite you because they are going to make those adjustments. We have to make sure to do a better job of collapsing and boxing out."
 
On the exceptional play at the end of the first half.
"I was really proud of that group that finished the second quarter. I felt like when we initially started subbing, we got stagnant and we weren't cutting hard, reversing the ball, we couldn't get in a flow. Those last four minutes we were really cutting hard, sharing the ball, doing the things we needed to do to pull away a little bit and give us a comfortable lead at the half. It allowed it to grow from there. We settled and took some quick shots when we didn't need to, but once we got back into that flow, it was smooth sailing from there. Holding them to just 45 points is tremendous on their part."
 
On the team's depth and stellar play from Anna Walker and Dena Jarrells off the bench tonight.
"It's important for the reasons you saw tonight. Even though Eboni [Williams] and Abbey [Cornelius] were in foul trouble, I was still able give them a breather. To be able to give them a break like that is helpful, but you can't do that if people aren't coming in and producing. But we did get that from them. That gives me confidence in them that they're going to get it done and it also gives them confidence that they can do it. I'm so thankful that they were rewarded in those efforts tonight because I felt like both of them were due for a game like this. I'm thankful that it happened for them."

Dena Jarrells, So.-G
On importance of successful second quarters.
"Earlier in the season, one of the things coach Katie and I discussed was me bringing that energy off the bench, bringing a little push. When I'm over on the bench I'm kind of just watching, seeing what me as a point guard can run and what we need to do to make an adjustment. I think it really helps me being over there [on the bench], and coming in. They don't really expect a change, and we're able to adjust. I feel that that gives us a boost."

On being locked in for the end of the season.
"The big key for us is to get these back-to-back game wins. We've had a rough start with playing consistently, making adjustments for the second game in conference play. Playing a team back-to-back is tough. We tend to not make adjustments when they do as players. They change how they guard us the second game and it takes us a second to realize it. When they make adjustments, we've got to make those too."

How tonight's game helps for Saturday.
"It helps, we had a rough week last week, even though we won one of those games. That one loss is tough, nobody likes to lose. Like I said, we've just got to make adjustments when they do. We've got to do whatever is working. We can't just come in and do exactly what we did tonight."

Anna Walker, Fr.-F
On contributing off the bench.
"Yeah, I feel like something me and Dena always focus on is to just bring energy. No matter what the score is. And I feel like that gives us a spark, definitely."
 
On the collegiate game starting to slow down.
"Yeah, I think at the beginning it was a hard transition because coming from high school to college it is a lot of a faster game, but now that I've gotten used to it, it's pretty much just normal to me now. I think it got just a little bit better in practice, that helped a lot. Just playing against the good girls we have here has really helped me transition."
 
On team's confidence toward end of season.
"Coach Katie has talked a lot on consistency with us. I think winning a game we needed to win will give us confidence for Saturday, and just to be able to carry over and basically know what we had to do to be able to win these two games and then go for next week."
 
On moving forward.
"We focused this week on not looking over anybody and none of our opponents either. I think we did really well on that just because it would be easy to just overlook somebody. But I think we did really well tonight and just knowing what we had to do and sticking to our fundamentals."