Oregon State Quotes vs. Washington State
Oregon State Quotes vs. Washington State
Head Coach Scott Rueck
Opening Statement…
“I was just so proud of the team tonight for the way they handled this gut check. I’m proud of Beaver Nation. That home court was an incredible advantage tonight, we needed it and I thought it carried us. We had to play people long minutes tonight and it was just a continuation of our Civil War crowd a week ago. They were into the game, every dribble, and they played an important role in the second half by creating a great home court advantage. Really proud of this team because Washington State came to play tonight. That is a very good basketball team, they can score in a variety of ways, they have huge hearts, they came in here fearless and they just came to win. I thought they controlled the game, unfortunately, for probably over half of it tempo wise. Then our hearts go out to Dheensaw, I don’t know what the extent of her injury was, but nobody wants to see that for sure. She’s having a phenomenal year. Hats off to Washington State for a great game and I’m just really proud that we were able to find a way to come up with a W today.”
On Ruth Hamblin’s performance tonight…
“I loved it. There were a couple of possessions where I thought she went a little quick, wasn’t quite on her spots like I thought we needed early, and then just told her ‘hey go to YOUR game.’ I thought the team did a great job getting her the ball on time and getting deep position. I thought she did a great job just keeping her game simple. They choose to defend her one-on-one and just protect the perimeter and that’s what they gave us. Ruth made them pay for that.”
On Washington State playing tough and the team they are…
“They’re a really good team. That team beat Maryland earlier this year, took Stanford to overtime and almost beat them, so they can play with anybody, they’ve proven that. We knew it was going to be a war and it was truly that, it took everything to get back in that game. It was that gut check. When games like this come you hope you survive it with a win and it’s one you can really learn from. We realize that when you are ranked you have a target on you, we’ve had that all year and tonight we really felt it. They really wanted it tonight, they wanted this game bad and I thought they wanted it more than use the first half and then I thought that changed in the second half.”
Junior Ruth Hamblin
On how big it was to come back from the huge deficit...
"I think its huge because we haven't really been tested like that yet this year. We really had to rally and I think we did a great job of just remaining calm and making the plays that we needed to in order to get the win.”
Junior Jamie Weisner
On what allowed them to make the comeback...
"We knew we had to go out there and lock them up defensively and that our offense was able to come through from there. At one point in a huddle we all looked at each other and said we're not losing this game. Everyone was able to rally around that and come together."
On how they were able to clean up the turnovers in the second half...
"I think we just got more used to the way their defense was playing us and were able to exploit with their weaknesses. Definitely getting the stops on defense were what calmed our nerves and helped us offensively."
