Oregon State-Oregon Post-Game Quotes
January 09, 2010 | Women's Basketball
Jan. 9, 2010
Oregon State Head Coach LaVonda Wagner
On the game …
“I thought it was a really good basketball game tonight. For the most part, Oregon State women's basketball played pretty well. For the other 10 minutes of the game, we got away from our game and that really hurt us. In the first five minutes of the second half we came out with a lack of intensity, and we did not have a sense of urgency and they knocked down their shots. In the first half, they were able to hit some big threes and transitioned which made it a two-possession game. The second half, when they were able to get away from us, they made their run, which we knew they would. We need to be able to stick with our game plan and play our type of basketball."
On factors of a slow start in the 2nd half...
"We came out and it was a game of mentally and physical intensity. Once we came back out, we were on our heels a little bit. We have to remain in our game and in our mode that we can execute offensively and execute defensively."
On UO's transition compared to scouting tapes ...
"I don't think it looked fast on film. We did a great job of really jamming up that point guard until we got every body matched up. In the second half, we got away in the first five minutes, obviously. Looking at the stat sheet, they hit right around all of their averages. We turned the ball around 20 times, but we also gave back 20 possessions. For the most part, we were able to really slow it down and we were able to run some baskets."
Oregon State Guard Talisa Rhea
On her great shooting, and Oregon answering to that…
"I thought that every time we hit a shot, they came right back down and ran the ball back down the court. If they hit a three, then transitioned, then they were able to match it. We knew we couldn't trade baskets with them, but we ere going to have to get matched up, get out of transition and take away the three-point shot. There were times when we did that, but there were times when we didn't do that. When we did that, we were trying to make a run back in the game. We struggled with getting stops when we needed to."
Oregon State Guard Haiden Palmer
On thoughts of pace of the game…
"We were just trying to follow the game plan. The first half, I felt like we came out connected, and we went at our pace but the second half we kind of fell off."
Oregon Head Coach Paul Westhead
On the overall game…
“I think, overall, our defensive pressure helped us create some offense. We got a terrific game from some of our players; Amanda Johnson stepped up in the second half when things could have gone the other way. Taylor Liley and Micaela Cocks just played like true veterans. If I'm going to compliment our team I'd say that they're beginning to play like they can win.”
On Talisa Rhea…
“I looked at a lot of films and we tried to do our best to stop Talisa Rhea, and whatever we tried didn't work. She was better than I thought. I thought she was a handful and she was more than a handful. She's an excellent basketball player.”
On Oregon's play action…
“We did not run a lot of play action today, not that we have a lot of play action. We have 10 plays, you know, and seven of them didn't come out. We ran a couple little, what we call drags, which are just like screens off the flow of the game and not really a called play. And our players responded really well to that.”
Oregon Guard Taylor Liley
On being competitive about having a good game…
“If she hits a shot and your competitive juices get flowing, it does get to you. Then once you keep moving the ball around you settle down because it's really not about that. I mean as long as we make that next shot we're fine.
On Oregon's running game…
“For us it's a lot of fun out there. We don't see it as a marathon or as 'Oh my gosh we have to run a whole game'. It's such the opposite. It's all about going out there and being able to be aggressive and putting it on our opponent and being the ones on the front foot.”
Oregon Guard Micaela Cocks
On building confidence as a team…
“Earlier in the season, he always said that he wants to make winning a habit, and he's starting to see that pattern. He's [Coach Westhead] starting to see that we're becoming that winning team with a winning mentality and he's happy with that.”
On the overall pace of the game…
“I felt like we were in control of the pace. When they did bring it down we kept trapping to create that momentum. A couple of times they tried to throw the pass over our heads and that might look bad but it's actually kind of good because it was creating our type of game.”
