Quotes: Duke 110, Arkansas State 56

Head Coach Gail Goestenkors

Opening Statement
“I'm very pleased with our overall effort. I thought we had good intensity on the defensive end of the floor. Arkansas State is just a very good team. They had a great season last year. They've got a lot of returners. I have great respect for them. They do a good job with their motion. I thought it would be a challenge for us because all five of their players can shoot the three, and I really thought we took them out of any rhythm that they might have and caused some problems. Overall, I was very pleased with our defense. And then obviously offensively when you shoot 68 percent and you score over 100 points, I really thought everybody contributed and everybody was ready to play. I'm just pleased with the effort and understand also that we're going to need to have an even better effort tomorrow against a very good Auburn team.”

On what the return of junior Lindsey Harding has done for the team
“[It's] made my life easier. She does a great job. She pushes the ball very well in transition. She understands so much what I want and what I need from that point position. I think sitting out last year really helped her, hearing us on the sidelines, knowing what we wanted and what we expected. I find so many times now I'm getting ready to call a play and she's already making the same call. She knows what I want. That just means the world. Teams have tried to press us now just a couple of times and we end up getting lay-ups and last year that was a primary concern for us, when teams pressed us, because we just didn't really have the ballhandlers necessary.”

On figuring out the team's rotations
“I think we feel good about where we are as far as who's playing well together. It's still a process in different situations whether it's a zone or whether it's pressure man or sagging man, who plays well together. So, we're still in the process but I feel like we've got a much better feel for it than we had before we started playing games.”

On the key to the game
“I think our size, initially, because we went right inside to begin the game with, our high-low, and we really attacked their four player who was on Mistie [Williams]. She's really a guard, a six-foot guard, and Mistie did a great job sealing down low and we got her the ball with some high-low. So I think initially it was our size and then they really only play seven people major minutes, so I think then our depth became a factor as the game wore on.”

On the play of sophomore forward Laura Kurz
“I'm really proud of Laura. She's in a tough position because she's really a perimeter player but we've moved her into the post some this year and she doesn't have a body to play the post, but we felt like she's a three-point shooter so she can take advantage of her quickness and her shot at that position. And then we also play her at the wing when we need her out there, so it's a tough situation for her because she's got to play both positions, know all the positions and I thought she came in and she played both positions really, really well. She was focused and did a good job. And sometimes she's the last person off the bench, but she stays positive and makes the most of her minutes.”

Lindsey Harding

On being back after a year off
“I feel like I'm more experienced, like what coach said, listening to her on the bench and knowing what to call. It's more comfortable to me, I'm not panicking, and I'm not in a rush or anything.”

On looking for her shot more
“I looked at different film from years before past that I played and I just had so many shots that I just passed up. This year I'm definitely looking for my shot a lot more, especially when I'm open.”

On the depth of the team
“We have two people coming off the bench who started last year. It's just comfortable and we don't ever drop. Like Coach G said in the locker room, our intensity never dropped. I feel we are very deep.”

On factors that lead to quick lead
“I think that we played good defense, good help-side defense, and forced them to throw up shots they didn't want to take. We just got out on the break, but we could have run more than we did. I feel that it was that we were pushing it up and looking inside.”

Carrem Gay

On connecting well with the guards
“Coach told me to run the floor, so I guess it started in practice. I'd just get down the floor and look for the guards; they know where I am.”

Head Coach Brian Boyer

Opening Statement
“If you've had a chance to look at our non-conference schedule, we've obviously strengthened it drastically for a reason to try to improve our chances for a postseason, to get ready for Sunbelt, and this is a great chance for our team. We really evaluate things possession by possession on performance, not outcome. We had good possessions, we had bad possessions. We need to build on the good and learn from the bad possessions.”

On Duke's biggest physical advantage
“It's all of it. This is my 11th year, and this is the best I've seen firsthand. Certainly the size is a huge issue. The size is something we do not see and probably won't see. We go to Purdue Tuesday, so maybe, but across the board we won't see that type of size. It is complemented very well with the speed. I think that's the other thing. With that size, how quickly they get up and down the floor constantly puts pressure on you.”

On freshman Caroline Starr
“I thought she was certainly very aggressive. She shot 50 percent. I thought she was very aggressive in the second half. She did good things. I thought Adrianne Davie too ? 26 minutes, 13 points. Adrianne's the real deal. Part of the opportunities to face Dukes and as we go through the year, the Purdues and Notre Dames, is to try to continue to get her more exposure. This young lady doesn't back down to anybody, and even tonight, I didn't feel like she backed down. She was, out of all of them, the most aggressive and the most competitive out there, and for a junior, I thought she did. Once again, she showed some really good things out there.”

On best team he has coached against
“This is it. During my time as a head coach, this is as good a team as I've seen. We faced Duke about five years ago, and they were good, but they were young. That was back I think when maybe Alana Beard and Iciss Tillis and that group were freshmen or sophomores. Very talented, you could see the future, but they were green. This team is awfully good. It's hard to find a weakness in them. They shoot it well, they pass it extremely well, they've got great size and they've got great depth. I joked before the game when somebody asked me if I'd found a weakness, that they don't get very many offensive rebounds. Of course, when you're shooting 70 percent from the field, you don't get many chances.”

On Duke's Lindsey Harding
“I really like her. She's a great athlete, and maybe to answer it a little bit, I don't think we saw her best, but on another scale, my point guard Rudy Sims is a similar-type player on another scale, and Harding is a rare combination, very, very quick but always under control. That's a rare thing to find in point guards. She can blow by you, but she never gets out of control. She is very steady, doesn't necessarily always look to score, but when she does, she's going to take it and knock it down."

Adrianne Davie

On first half
“I think we just came out a little timid at first, maybe some nerves. That's not like us to come out that shy, so I think we just let them get away with it. We never meant to stop when we needed them. We should have done better on defense for sure in the first half. Our ball pressure probably wasn't very well at the top of the key. They were hitting a lot, they were getting in to the post inside. We just weren't pressuring on defense, so they were getting easy looks.”

On Duke's height being a factor
“I don't know if it was the height. This is the No. 1 team in the nation we're going against, and it's a great opportunity for our team. We came out in the second half ready to play, and I think we did a lot better. The first half, we just weren't ready as a whole, as a team.”

On most challenging aspect of Duke's team
“I think we were outmatched size-wise for sure. They were stronger, they were taller, so we knew that coming into the game. They also pushed in transition quite a bit, but we expected that. We knew that they would be bigger, so we were trying to pressure on defense to match that size.”