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Women's Basketball
vs Countdown to Craziness
Quotes: Duke 98, Maine 31
11/16/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Duke Head Coach Joanne P. McCallie
On her overall impression of Duke's play against Maine:
“What was important about this game for us was to maintain great intensity throughout, regardless of who played. I thought our team played very, very hard, and learned a lot and looked for each other. We made a lot of great plays together, and we worked on various defenses as well. It's been a very productive home weekend, in terms of being challenged and growing as a team, and that's really the most important thing right now. Now, we'll take it on the road to test ourselves on the road a little bit.”
On the importance of being able to get everyone into the game:
“It's always great when you can go deep into your bench and give everyone some real positive experiences. But it's one thing to give positive experiences, and it's another for people to take full advantage of it. Looking at the statistics and the rebounds that Bridgette (Mitchell), Kathleen (Scheer) and Krystal (Thomas) created ? it's one thing to just get some playing time, and it's another to be extremely productive and very intense during your time on the floor. I though this group really did a super job of attacking. The combination of Chelsea (Hopkins) coming off the bench, too, provides us with a great deal of spark and quickness along with the heady game that Chelsea possesses. Without question, we became a deeper team this weekend.”
On what Duke has to do to take that next step:
“To be a special team is just so hard in this day and age, because it takes so much mental focus to get that done. For us, it's a process of maintaining our intensity and urgency and the things that we need to do, and you work on it by playing in the moment and being very intense in the moment of the game. Your motivation can't come from the opponent or the score ? it's got to come from something inside. I think we're getting to that point that point of understanding that it's got to come from within if we're going to be a very special team.”
On what she is looking for out of the point guard position:
“You want leadership, you want a person who can vocalize, lead the team and demand effort from the team. You want somebody who can create ? and Chelsea (Hopkins) is excellent at it ? and has the timing to penetrate and kick. And you also want people to be able to score form that position as well. It's a combination position, and there's a lot of things that go into it, but the more people you have that act like a point guard and can take charge, you increase the IQ of the team if everybody thinks like that. It's ok for Chante (Black) to think like a point guard ? not that she has to play it ? but to be aware in the game is so important, to have that IQ and have everybody understand what's going on.”
On coaching against her former play, Maine head coach Cindy Blodgett:
“I had a great chance to talk to Cindy and her staff before the game, and I look forward to talking to them after. During the game, you don't really look down (to the opposing bench) very much, though. You're very focused on your team. But I'm just very proud of Cindy, as a person who's rebuilding the Maine program. She played for that program when it was very, very strong, and she understands what it takes. I think her team can learn a great deal from this game, and I'm just very proud of her. She's a great gal, very committed, and was a pleasure to recruit and coach. She'll do some really good things there.”
Duke Freshman Chelsea Hopkins
On her level of comfort and what she hoped to accomplish during the game:
“I just wanted to make a difference. I knew I was coming into the game and I knew that I could be that extra spark or that energy that we can get off the bench. I just wanted to come in, bring some more intensity than we already had and just keep that up-tempo of the game. I felt really good on the court. I felt like I was relaxed, and that's how I'm usually playing. I'm really calm and patient, so I felt good about what was going on.”
On the connection with her teammates:
“In practice, I love to create for my teammates, so it's definitely something that I think that they look forward to. They know exactly how my game is. If I'm going to look away, they know the ball's coming to them so I think that they were pretty prepared and they were ready for the passes that I was throwing to them.”
Duke Senior Chante Black
On scoring her 1000th career point:
“I didn't realize it until Lindy [Brown] announced it on the last media day, but I didn't even think about it today until the announcers came on. I thought ?I'm being recognized for a point.' Fifth year, hopefully I would've made it.”
On improving her offense:
“Coming in recruited, I was mostly a defensive threat. Shot blocking and rebounding were the main things I was pretty excellent in. I've improved on positioning, which is taking charges and things like that, so I continue to work on defense, but offensively I've grown a lot since freshman year. It's still a growing process for me.”
Goal for shot blocking per game:
“Average over two per game. I think I'm usually around 2.5, so I definitely want to get around three.”
On moving the ball around and finding open players:
“Mainly teams focus on clogging up the middle so that I can't have freedom to run around on the inside, but my teammates do a great job of moving and positioning themselves on the outside. I just need to keep my head up and make sure I can find those players and then hopefully knock down a shot or get it back inside to create space.”
On being on the ACC All-Time Top 10 list for shot blocks:
“That's great. I still try to average three a game. Hopefully I'll stay up there.”
Maine Head Coach Cindy Blodgett
On the emotions of playing her former college coach:
“I think so much of this game, in terms of back home the media found this to be a very intriguing story, and it is to a certain degree, but really Coach Palombo [McCallie] and my relationship is far more than on the basketball court and I'm just thankful she gave us the opportunity to come out here and play Duke and allow us to have this opportunity to play a team in the top 10.”
On how this game will affect future games:
“I think what this does big-picture-wise is exposes all of our weaknesses. I think sometimes if you play teams not quite as good as you or maybe one notch better than you, you can still get away with not executing defensively or offensively, especially when you go against a team that pretty much out-mans you in every position. It really exposes our weaknesses, but it provides a great opportunity for the team watching film. They hear us on a daily basis talking about how to counteract deny defense, and to actually have them feel it, and now I can actually show it to them is going to be really effective.”
On positives from the team:
“I feel for them to a certain degree and we're a very young team and we have one senior and that's certainly by no means an excuse, but this team has never experienced this kind of atmosphere. I think this is certainly going to pay dividends for us in the long run, and I think our two freshmen Jasmine Rush and Sam Baranowski were embracing the stage and they certainly didn't back away, and I think it's also good for our returning players to see that, so I think that was definitely positive for us.”
On keeping players motivated despite the large score deficit:
“You talk a lot about pride, try to get them not to focus so much on the scoreboard and we were trying to think more about four-minute segments and then we pushed it down to two-minute segments. We tried to use some different lineups, do a few things a little differently, but for us we're going to take this back and luckily we have a game on Thursday so we're going to be able to use not only the film but the experience to push us along through the rest of the season.”
Players Mentioned
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