Players Mentioned
Colorado-Missouri State Quotes
November 28, 2014 | Women's Basketball
Colorado Head Coach Linda Lappe
General
"I really liked our effort tonight, I thought we played a complete game, both offensively and defensively. Had great production from our starters, had great production from our bench. I thought that the players coming off our bench provided a spark for us tonight. We were able to utilize a lot of different combinations, and didn't really have any combinations where it was a let down. It was good to see, I liked the fact that we rebounded the basketball much better. This was the best rebounding game we've played thus far, and also best in terms of taking care of the basketball, getting great shots out of the offense and holding Missouri State to some tough shots."
On Avoiding A Let-Down
"It's been great. We've talked a lot about playing harder, rebounding the ball better, and just getting better. Sometimes, Thanksgiving is great because we don't have school and all the kids' parents get to come which I think is great because it gives our players a little bit of extra energy as they get to be around family and friends. I've enjoyed how they've come to practice, they've had great attitudes, working really, really hard. When that is the case, this is what happens, there's some great things that come out of it. We're proud to be in the championship game tomorrow night."
On Haley Smith
"Being aggressive, looking for her shot. She's scoring in a few different ways. I thought she was a beast on the offensive glass tonight, getting us a few extra possessions, even if she didn't finish them she got our team extra possessions. I think she has done a good job running the floor, I feel like Lexy is hitting her at the right time where she can get into her pull up jumper. Also just finding open gaps and her teammates are doing a nice job of hitting her. And she takes shots that she takes every day in practice, the shots that she's making she works on all the time, so it's really just fun to see all her hard work paying off."
On Playing Rival Colorado State In The Championship Game
"We're excited to get to play them. We play them every year, and they have a great team, they are very well coached and have nice players and keep getting better every single year. They'll give us some good looks, but we're excited. We really hope that it will be a great crowd, hopefully the best one we've had this year. We want the energy in this place to be fantastic, and hopefully some CSU fans will come down as well. That's one of the reasons why we thought it would be great to have them in the tournament, to really increase the atmosphere of the Omni Classic."
Colorado PlayersÂ
Lexy Kresl, Sr., G
On Having A Strong Finish To The First Half
"That's really big in any game, just ending the half with momentum. Then the other team goes into the locker room kind of doubting themselves. The last four minutes of the first half and first four minutes of the second half are really big."
On G/F Haley Smith's Great Play
"Haley deserves everything she's getting. I see her shooting every day in the gym. That shot that you see her hit 7 out of 8 in the game, she hits them in practice and shoots them every day. We are trying to figure out when someone is going to start guarding her, but that's ok with us. She is doing great and she's been a great asset to this team so far this year."
On Having Offensive Success Early In The Season
"I think it's just our offense in general. The coaches did a really great job teaching it to us. And letting us know what options we have. We just breakdown the parts we struggled with that past week. And we learn how to perfect it. Plus it doesn't hurt that we are hitting shots."
Haley Smith, So., G/F
On Missouri State Playing A Similar Game To DU (Denver University)
"I just think in preparing for this game, we took a lot of the same things we practiced for when we played DU. They are very similar teams, this team (Missouri State) is a little bit bigger and played a more physical game. They are just really similar teams on both offense and defense. We were able to carry over a lot of things which really helped us in this game."
On Scoring Career High 18 Points
"It's really nice. Again my teammates are hitting me for open shots, I don't feel like I'm having to create really that many shots I'm just hitting the ones that are open. So it's really just finishing easy shots."
On Playing Rival Colorado State University
"I think it's really fun, they are a team that we enjoy to play, it's kind of a cross town rivalry. We are just going to study up on them but I feel as though it will be defensive game. We got to see them a little bit before we played tonight's game. But I think it will be about us playing CU basketball and the rest will come."