Quotes: Duke 70, North Carolina 58

Duke Head Coach Joanne P. McCallie

Opening Statement:
“We had a hard working game with good defense and I was happy to see the rebounding margin grow a bit. Obviously we took care of the ball a little better and moved it better and I loved the input of the ladies up here. I thought Ducky [Leaonna Odom] was extremely aggressive, which is very important. Kendall [Cooper] did a great job rebounding for us as well. Lexie [Brown] was solid in working everything through. Kyra [Lambert] was also solid in working everything through and attacking the basket. We got better tonight which was good and hopefully we will grow a bit from this.”

On the second quarter:
“In the second quarter, we shut the gaps down. They gapped us pretty well in the first quarter. We started to pick it up and play better with one-on-one stops. There was better defensive tenacity and offensively, we were more aggressive.”

On not starting Oderah Chidom:
“We rotate that position. Kendall has worked hard. I liked her attitude last game and it wasn't a brilliant last game but she had a great attitude. She's been playing hard and aggressive. Another thing I like about Kendall is she is vocal and frankly, she motivates me. She's yelling something and I think that is really positive. Oderah did really well tonight so we have different people, but that one spot seems to rotate and we will see how that goes.”

On Faith Suggs:
“Faith is a special person. She is always upbeat, vocal and a philosophy leader. She always understands what is going on and gets on her teammates and stays intense. I can't ask anything more than that because her minutes are obviously reduced but she makes the most of them. She has earned a lot of respect and earned it by playing hard every day in practice. She is not moody and ready to play all the time.”

On having many weapons:
“We have a lot of different options. I wouldn't classify Leaonna [Odom] as a big but rather a 1-4. She has to learn that. She isn't playing point right now but she can. For someone like Leaonna, her talents are wide and vast so she is just taking it one step at a time and doing a great job at it. But I am always happy to play three posts at a time because it gives us a different look. Obviously we have a size advantage to some extent and I think we took advantage. I like all the different combinations our team can present.”

On increased confidence for Kendall Cooper and Erin Mathias:
“The key is balance. When you are balanced, you can do a lot of different things. Erin took her time before that wide open shot to make sure she was balanced and Kendall does the same thing. The key is to move the basketball, generate some offensive flow and just step and take what is yours. They both did that today and did what they were supposed to do. That is how we are trying to move as a team. To highlight what everyone can do and pull it together.”

On a 3-1 start in ACC:
“Honestly for us, it isn't like that. Every game is hard. We look at one game at a time. We don't look at the composite like some teams do. The reality is we are all eager to get better. What I really like about this team is they're happy about things they did but also dissatisfied about things they didn't do and always want to get better. We will try to play better on Sunday.”

North Carolina Head Coach Sylvia Hatchell:

Opening statement:
“Thank you all for being here. The second quarter was the thing that made the difference. I see two things that made the difference, and the second quarter was really the big thing. Our three-point shooting, we've been knocking down some threes. Stephanie [Watts] and Jamie [Cherry] and Destinee [Walker], they're all really good three-point shooters. We were 4-for-26, so if we had knocked down a few of those threes, then we would be real happy right now. We matched them pretty good. There's a big difference in size, so we did a decent job on the boards because second-chance points: they got 16, we got 13, so that wasn't that drastic of a difference, but inside in the paint was the difference. We had to knock down some threes to counter that, but I thought we did some good things defensively. Rebecca Greenwell is such a good player, and I know she's on all the lists for different things, but we held her to six points and 0-for-8 in the threes, and 3-for-14 in shooting, so I thought that we did a pretty good job there. We did some nice things, but the biggest thing is we could have knocked down some threes, and we could be real happy right now. You see, we're very young. [Hillary] Fuller is our only senior, and she's got a knee-brace on, and Jamie is our only junior, and we've got eight freshmen and three sophomores. We're going to continue to just get better and better, and we've got some good kids coming in next year. I'm excited about these kids because I think we're going to make some noise because we're going to continue to get better as we move on. On days when we are making these threes, we will be pretty tough. They're great kids, and Paris, I kept telling everybody she was the real deal, and she is without a doubt. Paris had a really good game, and she's tough out there. I though we fought hard, and we're going to get ready to play at Pittsburgh on Sunday at 2:00.”

On Taylor Koenen's progression throughout the game:
“Well that's the first time Taylor played that position was tonight. I thought she did a pretty good job, too. I thought because we tried Liz [Alyssa Okoene], another freshman, and she just couldn't hold her own in there against the size, so I just put Taylor in there, and I thought she did a really good job. That's probably something we will do. I learned a lot. I learned more about you all tonight, and that's one thing that I learned there, because Taylor is smart, and she can rebound, and she does some nice things in there. She got more comfortable as the game went along, and I'm sure we will be playing her there a lot more often. We're not that big, but whenever the guards are clicking out there and we're making some shots, we can be pretty tough out there. The biggest thing is some good looks. I thought we should have probably penetrated a few more times, and sometimes we were driving too deep, and we were driving deep enough to let them block the shots instead of going into the mid-range. We'll learn from that. I thought the beginning of the game, Paris was just tearing it up inside. As long as we could get it in there, and she was doing a really nice job. I thought, okay if we can just start knocking down some threes, that's going to really give us a good balance and blend there, but we didn't do that.”

On UNC's transition from the first to the second Quarter, and on anything that changed:
“Well after I watch the film later on, I can tell you that. I've got to look at that second quarter and see what made the difference there. Was it a change in defense, or just that we didn't make some shots? I thought they got some transition buckets during that time which sort of broke us down a little bit, and everything. And got a couple put-backs. I know they got a couple second-chance points that one time right there before half-time, and we didn't box off the basket. A couple of those hurt us pretty bad. I think it was just a combination of some things, but if we could have just made a couple baskets, and maybe instead of letting them go out there and just run an offense and actually run some sets and read off of it, that I should have given them a bit more structure and run a couple things for certain shots. I hate to do that, but maybe that's what we need to do is just tone down a bit and take more control over who took the shot during that time. We were moving along and clicking so good, I hated to do that. I held up on the time-outs, because I was waiting for the media time-out. I'll go back and look at it, and we'll learn from it.”

On the second quarter time-out:
“We gave up some transition buckets, and I thought we took a couple bad shots that led to long rebounds that allowed them to go down and get some easy buckets. We went through a spell there where we either took too-quick shots or not good shots. Some of that is how young we are. They're still learning to play with each other out there. Some of it is maturity, but I like to let them go out there and let them play, but maybe I should have reeled them in and settled them down to get a bit more structure. They'll figure it out and they'll get it.”

Redshirt Sophomore Guard Paris Kea

On the change after the first quarter:
“They definitely changed their defense. They clogged the middle a lot more. Instead of having two at the top, it seemed like they had three and the top person would just sink back and somebody was on me the whole time in the middle.”

On the rivalry:
“Oh yeah, definitely. I've been wanting to play here since I was little, so I had to come out. Well, I had a whole bunch of energy building up. It felt great. It was amazing.”

On preparing differently to play against Duke:
“I would say no. I guess you just have more energy and more motivation, but mentally preparing no. Playing against the loud noise, you just have to prepare yourself for that.”

Sophomore Guard Stephanie Watts

On the team's chemistry:
“I think it's coming along really well. Obviously we struggled tonight a little bit, but just our new pieces to the team, I'm really excited about where we are headed. Of course I've been talking about Paris [Kea] since she first got here and of course she started off like that so everyone sees what I'm talking about. Paris started off so great for us and just then just such a great key for us. We knew when they were playing zone that Paris could easily explode this game because that is kind of her game, mid range, but when they started collapsing in on her and we weren't making outside shots that made it tough for her to keep scoring. Taylor [Koenen] also played really well for us which was a good piece. I think that's a good addition for us and I think we're going to get better as the season goes on.”

On the rivalry:
“100 percent. 100 percent. You can only be but so upset just because our shots weren't falling. We could have controlled that game a lot more than we did. They didn't control the game, we did and we didn't make open shots. So I think we will next time.”

On the collision during the game:
“I was just looking back at the ball and she kind of, smart play, snuck in front of me and I just kind of got the wind knocked out of me. I couldn't really breathe for a second, but just for a couple of seconds.”

On preparing differently to play against Duke:
“I would agree. We prepare for every game. I mean, mentally, I would say it might be just a little different just because it is Duke. At practice we'll have on different stuff that we normally do, 'Beat Duke,' things like that. This game is our rivalry game so we do mentally prepare just a drop differently just because it is our rival we want to come out and win so we come out with a lot more energy.”