Mizzou // Kentucky Post Game Quotes
Mizzou Women’s Basketball
Postgame Quotes
Mizzou 73, Kentucky 67
Mizzou head coach Robin Pingeton
Opening Statement
“Well as always just really appreciate you guys being here, really thankful for our fans. Great turnout tonight, not sure how that would work with a 6 o’clock game. They’ve been tremendous for us and we really just appreciate them. Really happy for our team. Kentucky has got a great squad, Matthew Mitchell is a great coach, they’ve got two of the best players I think in the league to go along with a really strong supporting cast. But I was really proud of the resiliency and the toughness that our kids played with. I thought we bent a couple of times but we never broke. Basketball is a game of runs and we had some mishaps but we just continued to battle away and it was a big win for us for a lot of reasons. Really excited for our seniors, this is the only SEC team that we haven’t beaten since joining the league so that was a lot of fun for another reason.”
On finishing the win down the stretch
“You know it's just playing on your home court you always want to protect it, we had a tough loss here and you’re not going to win all of them but you want to go down swinging and I just feel like we’ve grown so much this season and the poise in game situations is different than maybe it was earlier in the year. We talked a lot about how we didn’t want those early losses to be empty, we wanted to learn from them and grow from them and if we can do that it wouldn’t be a bad thing, and I think our kids have done that. I was really proud of them for just hanging in, stepped up the free throw line, hit a lot of big free throws down the stretch.”
On Amber Smith's production
“Yeah, you know I think that has been huge for us. After Christmas, I can't remember if it was right after the holiday or shortly after but we just talked about needing more offensive firepower and other kids be willing to step up. We talk a lot about being willing to take shots. And you know Amber is a kid you’d see her make moves in practice but maybe didn’t have the same assertiveness in games. And I think she really took it to heart. And she’s seen opportunities that she could take advantage of and just played a lot more aggressive. I think the thing about Amber is her court vision, her passing ability, and she's certainly a very unselfish player. But she has the ability to score points in a variety of ways, which are points that we have desperately needed.”
Mizzou sophomore forward Cierra Porter
On the loss against Kentucky earlier in the season giving the team an edge this time...
"If you guys remember from the first game, we had a pretty rough second quarter. We just talked before the game about putting 40 minutes together and taking it one foot at a time."
On the team's confidence at the free throw line…
"I think everybody just wants to be there. We all have the confidence to step up there and knock them down."
Mizzou senior guard Sierra Michaelis
On her shot when the shot clock hit zero…
"When the shot clock is running down, you just want it in your hands. So I was just in the right place at the right time, so I threw it up there."
Kentucky head coach Matthew Mitchell
Opening Statement…
“Well you have to give a lot of credit to Missouri tonight. They out-hustled us in every phase of the game and they looked like they really, really wanted to win tonight. You have to admire that. Our defense let us down. We got driven on relentlessly. We didn’t foul a lot in the first half and during halftime I guess they decided to drive the ball at us and we did not do a good job with it. Tough loss for us. We are disappointed, but we will have to learn from it and do better from it.”
On Mizzou’s breakdown of Kentucky’s defense
“I thought that whatever defense we were in they just really drove the ball. They were really, really aggressive. We were not there as a team tonight. You know too many times getting beat off the drive. Way too much off the initial drive. We just broke down in fundamentals. Didn’t take any charges in the second half. We really try not to let the drive in and Sophie just drove the baseline relentlessly. We were not just in a stance no matter what defense we were in. Tonight for us, our play was not our typical energy level against a really inspired Missouri team…really good team.”
On the road atmosphere…
“The road is difficult. We won three in a row on the road, so we handled it pretty well. You just have to give credit to the Tigers tonight. I don’t know if we would have beat them in Lexington tonight for the way they played tonight. They played an outstanding game. They attacked us and they were well prepared. You have to give them a lot of credit.”
