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Quotes: Duke 72, Army 61
11/22/2015 5:28:00 PM | Women's Basketball
Duke Head Coach Joanne P. McCallie
Opening Statement:
“Well it was just an interesting game, there were a team with a lot of seniors and a lot of experience and we didn't do the things we wanted to in the first half especially with number five who had 18 points. I thought in the second half our team did much better - if we had hit our free throws it would've been a completely different game. So holding number five to five points in the second half was critical. She is a really good guard and having a situation where we shot 51 percent and got to the foul line 27 times, where we only had 13 turnovers, so there are a lot of things we are going to take from this. Not having Haley [Gorecki] really hurt us, because she is player that could've busted that zone, and we were 3-of-17 from the three-point line, but her ankle has really been acting up so we are trying to get her better. I am very proud of Azurá [Stevens] and her fight. She is a silent killer out there, she did a lot of good things and I thought Becca [Greenwell] wasn't pleased with her game but really fought hard to do some things, and rebound more and some of the intangibles so we will learn from this and be heading out Tuesday morning.”
On dealing with Army's Kelsey Minato:
“I thought it was great team defense, and I didn't think our pressure was very good in the first half at all. I thought we played kind of average defense, and she took advantage as you saw. In the second half the team stepped it up and played their positions much more aggressively whether we were in man, match up, pressing - everything about the second half was better in terms of defensive pressure and play. Everything, holding her to five [in the second half], that's substantial, and I hope our team understands we can do that more and create such a low point performances.”
On offensive mismatches:
“I think you have to understand the fouls in this game and how they are being called is not conducive to enjoyable basketball right not. You saw how many fouls were called, and I don't mean that in a way like bad officiating. I mean that women's basketball is trying to find its way in terms of how to call the game because we are trying to clean it up. But in that game you saw how disjointed the game began, as the fouls were called on both sides of the ball it was a factor in the way that game played out. So I know we want to clean up the game, but boy we sure slowed it down. It was a slow game. They were trying to slow it down so that was in their favor but it was still a slow game in terms of how it was called. So we are still trying to find our way and you can't tell me that those calls are going to be happening in the NCAA Tournament. There is just no way.”
On team defense:
“Crystal [Primm] got two fouls in 45 seconds. She was basically DQ'ed to start the game, and then she had to come back. So I think we are not going to be able to handle that. We are going to have to go through it to be able to handle it. I'm sure she [Primm] couldn't wait to play in this game, and then she found herself on the bench so quickly. There were so many elements we were battling in the game, and yes number five was a significant element, but the overall foul situation, the stoppages in the game, obviously transition you saw in the second half when the tempo picked up, we picked up because we want to run and do some things. We have to really learn to play our own tempo no matter what is happening.”
On Lyneé Belton and Angela Salvadores:
“Angela plays with a great deal of confidence, and she is the only one I know who slows down to throw a behind the back pass to Becca, Angela does that. She is a competitor, she knows how to play the game and she is finally starting to get in her groove because with her injury it has taken some time to get where she needs to be. I was very proud of her and Lyneé. Lyneé is tough out there, and she is very confident offensively. She makes great moves and is a pure five. I just love when people love the block as much as Lyneé does. So she is going to be factoring in pretty quickly and hopefully we can be getting her more minutes .We have to be a little careful in getting her back up to speed, but we should be seeing more from her.”
Redshirt Sophomore Guard Rebecca Greenwell
On: Behind the back pass from Salvadores to Greenwell
“Yeah, I knew it was coming when she started slowing down. I just tried running behind her, and it was a great pass. Luckily, I finished it for her. Yeah, she is really fun to play with. Every time she has the ball I just try to trail her and get near her because I know she can find a way to get the ball to the open player. She is an excellent passer.”
On: Two-player chemistry with Salvadores
“I think it is really great. She is always talking to me out there, and she is always making eye contact with me because I know she is trying to get the ball to me. She is just a great player, and she is really coming along. I think she had a great game today.”
On: The crowd after the And One
“It was crazy. It was definitely a fun atmosphere out there today. I loved the energy and the students that showed up. I think it was just a great environment to play in.”
Sophomore Forward/Guard Azurá Stevens
On: Learning to demand the ball
“I mean, I think I just need to open up my mouth more and playing within the group of the team. When it is all focused on me, we tend to turn the ball over more. Angela is great at finding the open seams, and Kyra is as well. That will open up more things for Becca too. So, I think when we play more with a team mindset it helps everything out.”
On: Change of responsibilities since [Elizabeth Williams] player left
“I think all of the posts are trying to pull their weight. She was a really great player, and so we are all trying to do different things to add up to that.”
On: Playing consistently through both halves
“I think conditioning is a big part of it just being able to attack the entire game and not just one quarter, or one half, but both halves.”
Army head coach Dave Magarity:
Opening statement:
“I am awfully proud of our kids. We had a tall task coming in here, figuratively and literally. We got some great production out of a couple kids that really hadn't played a lot. Number 13, [Lena] Hicks, hasn't played a lot in her career and I'm really pleased with the way she came out. We just didn't have an answer for [Azurá] Stevens. She just is a really special player. I feel like we didn't do a good job creating more opportunities for Kelsey Minato here. Obviously she gave us the lead at halftime and did a terrific job finding some openings in their defense and I thought we were a lot more aggressive. That third quarter just really hurt us. We just didn't have an answer for them on a number of possessions and we couldn't end possessions. I think their offensive rebounding in the second half really took its toll on us, but I felt good going into the last few minutes when we made it a two possession game and we cut it to four. But they're just a very very good offensive team and I think if we could find one more consistent score to go with this young lady we will obviously be better for it as the year goes on.”
On Kelsey playing against Duke's caliber of backcourt:
“She has done that her whole career. I think she is a special player, if you look at her resume throughout her career. Against Maryland in the NCAA tournament last year she had 27, 28 against Ohio State. In big games she is going to perform at that level and I think the difference this year is that in her freshman, sophomore, even junior year, we had a little bit stronger supporting cast. And not so much stronger, but more experienced. Right now as soon as we got to the bench we are going to some really young inexperienced kids and there are so many times where the timing of the specials that we run for her, we run a lot of things for her, rely on a kid being able to make the read and get her the ball when she is open. There were three or four times tonight I looked out there, we ran a special for her, and she was wide open coming off of a flare screen and I got a freshman or sophomore with the ball and she was just like a deer in the headlights. It's early. It's game four. We come in here 3-0. The thing about being 3-0, I'm sure nobody here really understands, we just beat a team, Quinnipiac, who won 31 games last year and won their league, and then we beat Central Connecticut who won their conference. All teams who played in the postseason last year, and we beat a pretty athletic Pepperdine team earlier in the season. I walk out of here feeling pretty good where we are at being 3-1, but I would have loved to find a way to play a little better than we played today. As we move forward, we've got some tough games, we got Albany coming up, I know they were down here recently and they're tough. We are challenging our kids with some really tough non-conference games and our league is pretty good. We've got some pretty tough teams, Holy Cross and Bucknell and American so we will have our hands full as the year moves on.
On potentially being a top 25 team:
“If some of the kids, if [No.] 13 [Lena Hicks] continues to develop because she's got a lot of talent. I'm hoping that wasn't a flash in the pan. We didn't get a whole lot out of our starting center, [No. ] 33 [Aimee Oertner]. She has been more productive, she is our second leading scorer. Our front line needs to be a little more productive. The addition of [Lena Hicks'] production tonight helps but if our starters don't score more than three field goals it's too much pressure on Kelsey [Minato]. She has to do this night in and night out. She came in averaging 27 and 26, I believe, and she has to work for every single point. We obviously have to keep her healthy and she has to stay mentally conditioned for all this because she sees these defenses every night. It is only going to get harder for her because our league knows her inside and out. We are talking about defenses that they designed just for her. They will let anyone else shoot, they don't care. You saw what happened tonight down the stretch. I'm pointing out kids taking wide open shots when they shouldn't be. The one thing I'm impressed with about Duke is that they all know their roles. Their shooters shoot the ball, and to me that is just an incredible tribute to a team understanding what it takes to be good. For us we need to find somebody else who can make those shots.”
Senior Guard Kelsey Minato:
On Duke's defense focusing on her in the second half:
“They definitely made some adjustments at halftime and made my shot attempts a lot more difficult. So for me, I just tried to stay aggressive and to stay looking for my shot. I went a little bit cold in the third quarter, and I was missing shots I was making in the first half, but I still wanted to stay aggressive and still wanted to get my teammates involved and keep attacking and doing what worked in the first half and continuing to do that in the second half. I think, collectively those shots just weren't falling for us and that's what got us into that hole and it was a little difficult to dig ourselves out of that.”
On her own performance:
“Obviously I feel like I should have played better, especially in the second half. I think there are a lot of positives we can take away from this game and a lot of girls got playing time and good experience in this kind of environment against this caliber team. There is a lot we can take away from it and building upon that and taking it each day and taking what we did poorly in this game and making that into our strengths.”
Players Mentioned
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