North Carolina State University Athletics
Postgame Quotes
1/30/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 30, 2004
Recap | Box Score | Notes
Duke Head Coach Gail Goestenkors
"I give N.C. State a lot of credit. Their first half was incredible. We knew they had a lot of confidence and we knew that they were playing their best basketball. They came in with a great game plan. They did an unbelievable job on the boards and really took it to us. I was really disappointed with our first half effort. I thought we were a half step slow until the end of the first half. I knew that defensively we needed to make some adjustments going into half time. I'm really proud of the way we played in the second half. We can't afford to have a half like we did tonight."
"At half time, I told them I felt that N.C. State was playing harder than we were and that they were playing with passion. They were outhustling us, but there is no excuse for that. Sometimes you aren't going to make your shots and that's ok, but there is no excuse for getting outhustled the way we were outhustled in the first half."
"We are very fortunate to have players who are so versatile. It allows us to give teams a lot of different looks. Tonight, it worked to our benefit. We needed them all."
On poor three-point shooting:
"It is something that we work on. We are getting open looks. It is just
a matter of time before we start putting those shots down."
On Alana Beard in the second half:
"She is a perimeter player, but when they got the 10-point lead we had
to go to a smaller line-up, so she had to be a post player for us, which
allowed her to be more effective. She is tough to defend. Other post
players cannot really defend her."
On Beard's injuries:
"I think she felt good going into the game, but she took a couple of
hard knocks. She did end up being in a lot of pain."
Duke Senior Iciss Tillis
On the change of pace in the last 25 minutes:
"We picked up our intensity. We were able to get to a lot more loose
balls. I think a lot of it has to do with our traps. We were trapping on
the wing, which we have been working on a lot lately. [Kendra] Bell is
kind of small so she couldn't see over the traps. We got a lot of steals
off the trap. We were switching our zone defenses up a lot, and were
trapping out of our zone."
"I think when you play against tough players like [Chones] if you get around in front of them, the guards stop thinking about them as much because they can't see them, so that is what we tried to do. We would double-team her, and she only scored when we fouled her in the second half."
On the attempted dunk:
"After I missed the lay-up, I kind of got in trouble. Coach said 'either
you make it or you dunk it.' I don't know what I was thinking, because
it is not a high percentage shot, and I don't always make them. I just
decided to go for it. I just get so high sometimes,
that it's just a matter of going and putting it in. I just thought I
would try. In my mind it was a dunk."
On confidence level:
"My defense has been the only thing that has been holding me together.
If I didn't have that, then I'd be in trouble. I have been relying on my
defense to sort of pull me through. Each game I have been making more
and more shots that I had been missing."
Duke Sophomore Mistie Bass
On Coach Goestenkors at half time:
"We weren't playing Duke basketball in the first half. She basically
came in and told us that during half time. We needed to step it back up
to the intensity that we usually have."
On Tennessee:
"I don't think there was anything left over from that game. You just
take the loss and learn from it. You forget about it, and hopefully we
will meet them in the long run."
N.C. State Head Coach Kay Yow
"Well, we came out full of energy and really sharp and really attacking and playing with a lot of confidence in the first half. That was obviously a great half for us. Second half, I think a number of things. We couldn't keep up the pace; we ran out of steam; we weren't nearly as sharp at either end of the floor. The turnovers just really killed us. Coming into the game we knew that we couldn't turn the ball over a lot. We had to have great defensive stops; they're a great offensive team. We still did a good job on the boards. We knew we had to score. Those are the key things for us. We were attacking so much better in the first half. It really slowed down, became more hesitant."
"With credit, Duke on the other hand, picked it up. They got more aggressive with some traps here and there, just went after the loose balls and beat us to some rebounds when we had inside position. They just outplayed us the second half. It was a disappointing second half for us because I do think we can play better than we did the second half, than we did tonight. I just wish we could play two halves like that against anybody. With that kind of intensity and movement and the aggressiveness we showed, I would really like to see two halves like that."
On getting the ball down low to Kaayla Chones:
"I definitely think we missed getting the ball there a number of times.
One of the things that threw the timing off the perimeter was the traps
and then they had to move back wider to get the pass out of the traps.
And so our timing for posting it, it changed. We were at least 10 or 15
feet closer in the first half and we were ready for the pass. Now we had
to get closer to make the pass and by the time we got there the defense
had come around. That's to Duke's credit. It was something we will
hopefully learn a lot from and something that can help us in the next
game that we face."
On Duke's traps:
"It put an extra burden on our guards handling their guards. Hopefully,
if we keep working on it in practice, we can have a couple of people
come in and help us."
On noticing Beard's injuries:
"She's such a competitor, and it's hard to tell on people like that. She
looked pretty strong out there to me tonight. She might have been a step
slower here or there. She's aggressive and makes up for it."
N.C. State Senior Kaayla Chones
On Duke's second half comeback:
"We played the first half great, but in the second half we just didn't
match their intensity. They went in at the half and picked it up and we
didn't."
"When we went in (at halftime) we still had the lead, although they were coming back. We wanted to try and maintain the same intensity that we had in the first half and carry that over into the second. I don't think that we felt that fatigued, we have a pretty deep bench."
