Mizzou-SC Postgame Quotes
1/15/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Box Score
Opening Statement...
"Thanks for coming everyone. I'm really proud of our kids. I thought we really battled and had some opportunities there. We had some big stops at key times. We came down and maybe didn't have the poise that we needed to for 40 minutes, but I thought we played with great toughness and great grit for 40 minutes. I thought we played our tails off. We were certainly undersized and saw a great team in South Carolina and I thought our kids really battled hard."
On tonight's game plan against South Carolina...
"I felt going into the game that I really liked where our players were at. I've been saying that for a while and we keep getting better. I see it because I'm in the locker room, practice, and film sessions with them and it doesn't always show up on the court. I felt really good about the growth that I've seen and continue to see in my players. I'm not surprised that it got to 44-41. I felt like we had a great game plan going into tonight. I told our girls before we started that you've got to play hard. You have got to go out and play with passion, toughness and grit. Typically when you do that then things will happen for you. I felt in the first half we were trying to play so hard and somewhat angry on defense. We were playing physical. On the offense though, we had to take a deep breath and have some poise. It's hard to make that adjustment from that aggression you have to play with defensively. Offensively, I thought that we had some good looks in the first half and weren't able to knock them down. I thought we settled in a little bit in the second half and had some looks that we didn't finish. Down the stretch we cut it to three points, twice. We got some stops then we had bad turnovers. It was a frantic pace there back and forth for a little bit. I thought our guards did a great job. That's really hard to guard. There are certainly some positives there. I'm not surprised we were in the game at the end there. That is what we are playing for."
On rolling the dice with South Carolina...
"Statistics are statistics and when you look at game prep, you try to look at strengths, weaknesses and tenancies. Certainly sometimes people hit shots that aren't supposed to hit shots, but overall I thought our girls were really assignment correct in what we thought was the best possible position to put ourselves in and I thought we guarded that pretty well. We got a little soft on (Tiffany) Mitchell a couple times and we talked about that at halftime. She would be a kid that would get them going there. We also talked at halftime that we wanted to make sure that we were the aggressors coming out at half. We wanted them to call the first timeout in the second half, be the aggressors and I thought we did a really good job. We just didn't make enough shots to be honest."
Sophomore guard Sierra Michaelis
On the team's defensive strategy...
"I think, personally, it was really fun for me. I had [South Carolina guard Khadijah Sessions] and we were playing different rules with her. It was kind of different because she's not a great shooter. I was in the paint a lot more helping out with the post because they were a lot bigger than we were."
On the team's impressive showing vs. the No. 1 ranked team...
"I mean, they are the No. 1 team in the country. Our team just came and showed up for the game. We need to do that consistently, and me, personally, too."
On playing against taller opponents...
"You look at times where we got to the paint, a lot of them were so athletic that they could jump really high and block shots. Sometimes it is really hard to finish and it's hard to go one-on-one; it's making sure we're working together to get open looks and being poised with the ball, having shot fakes and things like that."
On Sierra Michaelis' career-high 22-point performance...
"Sometimes there was a mismatch for her. She's very hard to guard so if she's on the perimeter and she has a big on her, she can rip it and get to the hole. Sometimes when there's a smaller, under sized guard on her, she can post her up. She's a very versatile player and she was very strong with the ball tonight, too; she made very good decisions."
South Carolina Head Coach Dawn Staley
On Mizzou's defense collapsing in the paint and double-teaming them...
"We've seen it quite a bit and we knew it would probably be the same way tonight. I thought our team did a really good job of keeping their composure and just playing through things. Post players have a tough job in the paint when they are collapsing and have two or three players hanging on them."
On being 17-0 and learning from tight games...
"For us, every time we take the floor we are learning. We have a lot of young players that need to see this action night-in and night-out so they know what to expect. I like the variations of how we are able to win; playing a lot of different styles of play whether it is collapsing, whether it's all out pressure like we saw against Kentucky. The different looks that we get allow us to equip ourselves with playing whatever style of play our opponents give us."
On veteran leaders Aleighsa Welch and Tiffany Mitchell...
"These are the players that have been here the longest; they understand what we want. They know how to execute in tight situations; they've played here, they've lost in this building before. They know what SEC play is all about. They set the example for how we want to play and how our young players need to follow their footsteps and get this knowledge. Aleighsa only has a few more months with us and Tiffany has one more year. Somebody has to do their job."
