Pitt vs. Marquette Quotes
1/9/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 9, 2007
PITTSBURGH - Pitt vs. Marquette Quotes
Pitt head coach Angus Berenato opening statement:
"I'm really proud of our team tonight. We never lost faith in each other. Even though some doubted us, our staff and those close to us continued to believe in us and tonight's victory was a tremendous team effort. The staff did an awesome job scouting for us. They really had it down to a T. This win is great for the program. We just beat a really good, top 25 team. Marquette came into tonight ranked No. 16 in the country with 14 straight wins. We have three big players that performed tonight, all scoring in double digits. Without any one of their points, we don't go into overtime. Our freshmen are really improving as well and doing a great job. I kept telling the team all week, you play like you practice. All-in-all, tonight's victory was great for our program."
On Christina Quaye and Krystal Ellis:
"I kept telling our team towards the end of regulation, every dribble is another tick off the clock. We want them to have to dribble. Something we've been working on as a team is our transition and I thought we did a great job with that tonight. [Christina] Quaye and [Krystal] Ellis are both great players and they show up in big games. Big players show up in big games. They had a combined 60 points between them. Our three big players had 70 [points]. That's your difference in the game right there. This was a great game for women's basketball."
On the team being poised going into overtime:
"I thought we did a really good job at the end of regulation, but when they [Marquette] scored at the end there, I didn't like how our team looked. I said `We're champions and we're going to win or lose like champions.' We had five extra minutes to finish it up and change the outcome. What we needed to do at the end of regulation was draw one more dribble. One more dribble would've been one more tick in regulation and she [Krystal Ellis] would not have been able to take that shot. There was only 0.4 seconds left on the clock after she shot. It's a lesson I think our team learned tonight and we'll apply that lesson in the future."
Shavonte Zellous on being a top 25 team:
"Last year, Marquette knocked us out of being in the WNIT Tournament, so tonight's game had a lot of revenge built into it. We are a top 25 team now, too and we said we have to protect our house and we did a good job protecting our house tonight."
Marcedes Walker on beating Marquette after last year's loss:
"I've been waiting for this game to come. I knew I'd have my teammates there to help me out this time around if I got stuck. If they started playing me tough, I had my teammates to kick the ball out to and let them shoot. This year the game was a lot different."
Xenia Stewart on how the team got back on a winning track:
"It was the constant yelling from our coaches that got us back where we needed to be. We knew we wanted to be good. We've been playing high caliber teams and we knew we were a high caliber team, we just had to show that. We needed to make our foul shots and layups and get our rebounds if we wanted to be our best and we did that tonight."
Quoting Marquette's Head Coach Terri Mitchell:
On this being a "revenge" game for Pitt:
"It's human nature to remember who beat you. I give all the credit in the world to Pitt, but we didn't play the kind of first half that we're capable of. Life in the Big East is that you can't play a half like that and expect to win. To get the game into overtime showed great character on our behalf, but Pitt came out ready to play and we couldn't match that in the first 20 minutes."
On the play of Marquette:
"To force overtime showed a lot of resiliency on our part, and I'm not sure where that effort and intensity were in the first half. We're just going to take this experience and learn from it and try to get better. We have a very tough game up next against Villanova, and we have to start getting some more of our players involved."
On the play of Pitt:
"They're a great team; they're very aggressive on both ends and play hard the entire time. What makes them really good is that they have great outside jump shooters as well as threats inside the paint. When you have so many weapons, you make other teams have to pick how they want you to beat them."
On overcoming this loss:
"We'll get back into it with healthy practices and a lot of film study. Whether you win or lose in this game, there are always ways you can keep working to get better and improve. We'll focus on correcting our mistakes first, and then start to worry about Villanova. We have a very disappointed, but very hungry locker room right now, and I'm sure we'll bounce back fine."
Quoting Marquette's Christina Quaye:
On Marquette's defense:
"We need to talk and communicate a lot better than we did out there tonight. We have to bring more cohesion to the court if we're going to stop teams from scoring like that."