Players Mentioned
Colorado-Illinois Quotes
December 07, 2013 | Women's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Linda Lappe
General
“I thought that was a great win for our team. Illinois is athletic; they're quick. They showed us a lot of different things tonight that we had to scheme against, both offensively and defensively, and I like how our players responded. There were a lot of different obstacles and adversities through the game; not having normal warm up time, having a fire alarm, so it was great for our players to be able to withstand the adversity. I liked how we came out of being in the locker room for 15 minutes and got back into it. So, there were a lot of positives to take out of it [the game]. I liked our defense. We were able to get our defensive presence back, that's what we're known for. We want to be known for defense and rebounding, and we really came through in those areas tonight.”
On G Brittany Wilson Rebounding Performance
“She was guarding, usually, a non-scoring threat. So, she was in the right place at the right time. I like when she hunts the ball like she did tonight. She didn't necessarily always have to box out, which was beneficial for her. A lot of times she's on her heels when it comes down to rebounding, and we talked to her about being on her toes, finding the ball and pursuing the ball. She's so quick and she's got a great nose for the ball when she's in that mindset. Tonight, she wanted the ball and she went up and got it a lot of the times.”
On What Was Said To Team During Fire Alarm Delay
“Well, we went into the locker room and talked about some of their play calls that we were able to get. We did a lot of mental stuff, making sure that our players stayed mentally ready. Physically, it's a little bit harder, and we had some time to warm up beforehand, which was good. Overall, it was just being able to make adjustments. At that point in the game, we had seen 12 minutes of basketball and we were able to make a couple adjustments both offensively and defensively. Really, at that point, you just have to keep the players engaged, not get upset and look at in a positive way. I knew we were mentally tough and we responded pretty well.”
On How Colorado Handled Illinois's “Buzz” Defense
“Good, at times, and not so good at other times. We had that one segment in the second half where we had about five turnovers in a row. We were seeing openings, we had a lot of openings and we just weren't completing passes for whatever reason, too much ball pressure, not seeing, not being quite sure if the pass was going to be open. We have to get a little bit sharper with the ball, crisper with the ball, but overall, we got a lot of lay-ups out of it [our passing], which was good. We also got a couple 3's and other plays out of it. When you do that, they [Illinois] don't want to stay in it the whole game.”
On Overall Team Rebounding Performance
“We've spent a lot of time working on rebounding. It's something that has not been one of our strong suits up until this point, so we focused a lot on it and I like our aggressiveness and attitude towards getting rebounds. We knew it was going to be a huge stat in winning the basketball game. They were going to crash, and we knew we needed to crash the offensive glass and get extra shots. In terms of grabbing the defensive rebound, we did that because we didn't have to over-help on defense. We were guarding everybody one-on-one, which is probably the best that we've done thus far. We were staying between them and the basket and it was an easy, quick turn-and-box-out, making it a lot easier to get rebounds.”
Colorado Players
Brittany Wilson, Senior, Guard
On the Rough Start
“We just didn't have our hands up. She [Amber Moore] hit two threes. That's what she does.”
On the Pressure
“I think we handled it okay. At times we could have done a little bit better. They turned teams over 26 times a game, I think we had 21. You don't want to have 21 turnovers a game, but we won so, hey.”
On Her Thirteen Rebounds and Eight Assists
“It felt good. The ball just kept falling in my hands I guess, and I just jumped up for rebounds and pushed the ball down the floor. I found open teammates, one being Jen Reese. I always tell Jen, when you're open in the wing, I hate it when she doesn't hit a three, and she knows it. So every time she's open, she knows she'd better hit the three or I'm going to get in her butt.”
On How She Got The Offense Going
“They're drivers. We knew that 34 [Jacqui Grant] and 42 [Amber Moore] are their only two shooters. Our plan was to short close them out. We did it, they drove, we were there all the time.”
On Patience
“Well there's no secret I'm like a Tasmanian devil. I like up tempo play, I love it. I'm fast, I'm quick. That's the type of play. But our main thing is patience. They're going to press us and the thing you don't want to do is speed up. This time I had to take a step back and pull it out in time before we took to many quick shots. [We] read the floor when they're in there, buzz. And when they were full court trapping us, see the open pass, see the open floor. When you have patience, it's like looking at the Pacific Ocean. That's exactly what us and everyone else passing saw.”
Jen Reese, Junior, Forward
On Her First Shot
“It was good to get the confidence up. Even if I did miss it, it's short memory. But it was good to come back and it felt good.”
On The Team's Balance and Double Digit Scorers
“Yeah, everyone can score in different ways. We say this all the time. We're so versatile and that's the one thing about this team is that we're versatile and people can score in different ways and if someone isn't having a good night, someone will step up for that person and fill their shoes.”
On What The Difference Is This Season
“Just confidence in myself and teammates as well. Getting up the extra shots and making sure it feels good and if something is wrong with it, fix it right away, and if I miss a shot, don't worry about it. Go to defense and the offense will come.”
Illinois Associate Head Coach Mike Divilbiss
General
“We did not shoot the ball very well. We shot 20 percent from the floor in the second half, which was a little disappointing. We didn't finish some layups. We're beating ourselves. First of all, I have to give Colorado credit. Linda [Lappe] has done a great job with this program. They've really improved in the four years she has been here. They have highly skilled kids and they play the game extremely well. I give them a lot of credit. They were very good. We feel like we played against a very good team tonight.”
On the team's performance
“We didn't convert turnovers into baskets. We had opportunities and we didn't convert them. Some of them were layups, some of them were open threes. I don't think we took too many bad shots tonight. We didn't take rush shots, so we did a great job of not doing that. On offense, I think our choices were a lot better.”
On the fire alarm delaying the game in the first half
“There's not much you can say in that situation. I told them to go out and play. You warm up a little bit, and then you go back out there and play. We're a young team and it's just one of those things – you just have to learn to get past the environment. No matter what happens, who you're playing or what's going on in the stands. That's all the environment and that's a growth thing. You have to learn to get past the environment.”