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1 p.m.
Women's Basketball
vs Holy Cross
Quotes: Duke 69, Georgia Southern 42
11/19/2009 10:00:00 PM | Women's Basketball
Duke Head Coach Joanne P. McCallie
Opening Statement:
"Just a good game to work on things and test ourselves and get better. I though KJ [Keturah Jackson's] energy was exceptional. I'm so amazed at KJ [Keturah Jackson], really. She's not supposed to be playing right now if you're anybody who's been through what she's been through. I really don't think enough has been said about that. There's sort of this assumption because KJ [Keturah Jackson] has gotten back so fast. You know this is somebody who has been out for seven to eight months, somebody who hasn't practice, who has had to get through a very difficult surgery and recovery and yet she's doing all sorts of things that you saw on the floor. So, I can't say enough about that for KJ [Keturah Jackson] and what that means for our team because she has so much energy. And [Jasmine Thomas] has as well. We need that; a lot of energy on the floor, a lot of leadership. What I enjoy is the different combinations that we can throw out there. We did a lot of different things tonight to get better, and [Jasmine Thomas] did a great job there as well."
On the balanced scoring:
"And, I like the rebounds. [Jasmine Thomas] had seven and Bridgette Mitchell had eight. But, I agree with you. The balanced scoring is something I think that works in our favor, I think we can do a lot more there. I think we're quite capable; you see some of the shooting percentage is not so hot there. We can do a lot better. But, I think the offense comes from your defense and I think that we're just really settling into getting the defense where it needs to be in terms of the execution. I think the offense can keep flowing from that."
On getting good shots against the zone defense:
"Are we getting good shots against the zone? Sometimes. If you look in the first half with the high-low we got, we got a lot of paint shots against the zone. KT [Krystal Thomas] put them down as well as Allison [Vernerey] put a few. So, we attacked the paint a little bit. Second half it was launch city. I mean, everything was a three; some were good, some weren't good. We're working on our patience, our ball movement, our spacing. There's no doubt that their zone slowed us down in terms of our ability to put points on the board. We have to continue to be relentless about getting paint points, more offensive rebounds, more put backs, and more attack in the paint. Just because somebody plays the zone doesn't mean that you have to fire. Our percentage from three-point range was terrible, and we shouldn't have shot so many. Just move the ball and do something different."
On improvement in practice after the loss to Texas A&M on Sunday:
"I can say a little bit, not as much as I'd like. Monday's practice was very strong. Actually Monday's practice-and I don't like to say this because we're coming off a loss-should be the way our practices always are. It was very, very strong. Now, we worked on a lot of defense as you would imagine, giving up 95 points. We had the day off on Tuesday. And Wednesday's practice was so-so, not as good. So for us, we're all motivated. We didn't like some of the things we did against Texas A&M, in particular, but we're still getting to the point of understanding the kind of energy to maintain in a practice as well as through a game. So, we're getting there. We're getting better, but it's a process. It's not as good as it needs to be. You can't be motivated by outcome as much as you're motivated by how you are when you hit the floor, so we're working on that."
On starting Keturah Jackson over Karima Christmas:
"I think for me, having two point guards on the floor, especially KJ [Keturah Jackson], at the same time, I like that. I've always been a two or three point guard kind of guard coach. I like the fact that KJ [Keturah Jackson] can run the one and the two; immediately we can have some variability in terms of where people go. Just making sure she was okay and ready to go full. Obviously evidence by today she's ready to be full. KJ earned that. She's been injured. She probably got back in the lineup faster than most would. In fact, I know that. Most people wouldn't be able to do that yet."
On Shay Selby's readiness:
"It's been hard for her to earn minutes because she's sometimes in-and-out of practice. She's still working her way back. She's doing a good job. But, she's got to be full to get real minutes because too many other players are in practice going full. And she's got to be full so that she can compete with everybody. It's frustrating, I know, for her because it's been a long haul back. But, she's keeping a good spirit. She's working harder and everyday I think she gets a little bit better. So, she's not quite in the rotation yet, but we're hopeful. We'd like to keep our 11 and work with that group."
Junior, Jasmine Thomas
On playing against zone defense for 40 minutes and playing more aggressively in the first half:
"I mean it's not frustrating having a team play zone against you for forty minutes. I mean, you take everything on as a challenge and playing against zone is something we have to get better at so we just like to take it on and work on it, we work on it a lot in practice so we just try to execute those things in the game. We were aggressive in the first half, we would've like to been more aggressive in the second half and keep our energy up so that's something that we're going to have to work on."
On the team's balance in scoring:
"It's always good when everyone contributes. That's something we know the team is capable of is having people put numbers on the board. It's not something we emphasize, it's something we expect."
On the team's lack of energy during the second half:
"Um, we did towards the end there, we got a little slow, a little late on our rotations on defense and stuff but that's just something we control, we control our energy. Next game we know we have to kick it up."
Fifth Year Senior, Keturah Jackson
On her inspiration when she came on the floor:
"Well, I just wanted to step and be a leader being that I'm a fifth year senior, I feel like I owe it to the team to always be aggressive no matter what side of the court I'm playing on. So coming to the game I just want to focus first on just being aggressive on defense and when I get it going on defense it kind of feeds into my offense. So it's all things that we've practiced and it's all things I know I can do because we've done it in practice so in the game it's just natural."
On her improved ball handling skills:
"Always, you can always get better. I'm more comfortable because over the past summers I've had time to focus on being a ball handler. So I definitely can always improve but I feel much more comfortable than I did."
On what she can improve on:
"Ball quickness, just making sure I see the floor, making sure I'm aware of the kind of situation and getting everyone where they need to be. Just basic point guard stuff."
Georgia Southern Head Coach Rusty Cram
On handling the Duke press:
"Well, we knew they press. We felt like we could handle their press. I mean you can keep up with the size and quickness they have when you are still our size. I mean we knew that was going to be a factor so we knew we would turn it over some, but we just wanted to try some more inside and backside kind of stuff and make them double up and then rush the backside to go inside. I was proud of the fact we didn't let it wear us down. They certainly got some steals to slow the pace down, but we were going to play a slower pace anyway because we knew we couldn't run with them. So I thought the press played to our advantage and we worked on it for about three days, so I felt like we handled it okay."
On the teams' patience on offense:
"We know that they are averaging 90 points a game and that they can score prolifically; we did not want to run with them. I was very frustrated in the first four or five minutes when the first buckets were in the lane off a break and that was not our game plan. We wanted to work the clock down as much as we possibly could and I think that's one of the reasons that they went to a zone because they wanted to get more touches on the ball because you cannot work the clock as much against the zone as you can with the motion offense or the flex that we run. That was our goal going in, basically using offense as our defense is what we were trying to do and take a shot inside that last ten seconds. If they don't get as many touches on the ball then it's certainly going to pull their score down some because we knew that we could not out rebound them and we knew their size would eventually get to us anyway. The only chance we had was to keep the ball out of their hands as much as possible and we like to do that through our offense."
On Duke's balanced offense:
"Oh yeah. They are real balanced. You cannot prepare for just one person. They did a great job. We knew the tendencies of two or three players through scout reports, but how do you match up with size? You've just got to take some chances when you're small. Their guards have to penetrate some and they do great high/lows and misdirection stuff so my hat is off to them. You can't prepare for one or two people. They are just too well balanced."
About a positive learning experience:
"Oh no question. I feel better leaving here tonight than I did coming in. We gave the kids about six or seven goals for us and we obtained five of those goals. From a coach's perspective, we break the game down into four minute games and there are ten of them a game, five a half. We lost all five of them the first half and that was disappointing. We wanted to win at least one if not two of them, so we challenged them at halftime to do a better job and we won two of the five and tied one in the second half. For one stretch there I think it was the next to last media time out, they went from media [timeout] to media [timeout] without scoring a bucket, four and half or five minutes. We won that one too. We broke the game down into smaller segments so we can get better. Eleven of our kids are sophomores, so it is a huge learning experience coming in on their floor. I felt like we did a good job with that for what we had."
On frustration over their defense:
"We did. They are just so tall that they are going to get their looks in there, but they are not shooting the ball well from the perimeter right now. That is obvious if you look at the stats, and we felt like we had to make it an outside game and if they were hitting then we would make adjustments. We didn't feel like they hit enough that we had to come out of our zone the second half and I actually made some adjustments in that 2-3 zone that we were running."
Players Mentioned
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