University of Memphis Athletics
Post Game Quotes
Mar 22, 2010 | Women's Basketball
March 22, 2010
Head Coach Melissa McFerrin
"That is a team that is capable of extending extreme amounts of defensive pressure and that's what they did. I thought we got loose in the floor a little bit, LaToya Bullard got loose a little bit, breaking their pressure, but we got to the other end and we turned the ball over. We had a couple go through Savannah's hands and a couple go through AQs hands and I thought those were the critical baskets where we could have stretched the lead and deflated their energy just a little bit, but in reality it kind of energized them because we were turning it over.
I thought they out-toughed us at times. They came over our back on offensive rebounds, they were busting us off cuts, they got to the offensive glass, I was just disappointed at the half. The game they played prior to this, we had seen the video tape and they were two completely different teams. They were kind of soft in the lanes the first half and in the second half, they kicked it up and that's the way they played this evening. Fortunately our players had seen that and I think they accepted responsibility for that and I thought we came back and had a very, very good second half. We had contributions from a lot of different people - offensively, defensively, rebounding, I couldn't be more proud of this team. It's a tough time of year, but it's a great time of year. We've played 32 games and the fatigue level is really, really high right now and for our kids to play with the energy level they did throughout the entire game, my hat is completely off to them because they came here to win a game.
We have some strange lineups right now due to injuries. But Star Luellen continues to get better and better. I thought she made some really good plays today and I thought Chatia Kelsey was huge today defensively. She did as good a job guarding that kid on the ball as anybody I've seen on tape and just a really good team effort.
Put Alex in a couple of trigger spots and she was even surprised. She said coach, you want me running that and I said yeah I do. She's been hot and they were sliding under ball screens and I thought she could get a good look at a three and I also think she does a nice job of throwing back to pick and pops to Nicole Dickson and we were trying to keep the ball in our scorers' hands and Alex had a very, very good night this evening.
