Pittsburgh - Baylor Post Game Quotes
3/25/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 24, 2008
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NCAA Basketball - First and Second Rounds
Bob King Court/The Pit, Albuquerque, N.M.
Pittsburgh vs. Baylor - March 24, 2008
Game 1 Quotes
Pittsburgh Head Coach: Agnus Berenato
Opening Statement:
"We're going to the Sweet Sixteen and we are really excited. We are excited for the University, Chancellor Mark Nordenberg, our athletic director Steve Pederson and just for the women's basketball program. One of our former alumni came -- she really took a risk and flew out here -- Debbie Lewis and she just said, `I have waited 25 years for this.' These kids aren't that old, so they don't know what it's like but I want them to enjoy it. It is just a great feeling to know you are going to the Sweet Sixteen and to know that we played a tremendous Baylor team. I have all the respect in the world for Kim Mulkey. Like I said yesterday, I've watched Kim since she was a player at LA Tech and I was a coach then. I am a lot older than her, but I respect her. I respect her program and we are just delighted. I thought our team played with heart and soul. I thought the last four minutes they really buckled down and they got after it defensively. `Big Girl' (Marcedes Walker) fouled out and we went with five guards. I think you saw the heart of a lion out there. You saw a team that was not going to be denied. Losing was not an option for us today. We were going to the Sweet Sixteen. I am just really proud. I am really proud and happy for our seniors Mallorie Winn, Karlyle Lim and Marcedes Walker. They are three winners. For this program to be able to get to the Sweet Sixteen is tremendous for them. But what they have done for our program, they've changed it. I just want to thank them on behalf of Chancellor Nordenberg and Steve Pederson. The game was an awesome game and I am just really excited."
Their post, Danielle Wilson, had 15 points and six rebounds at the half. What did you do at halftime to take her out of the game? I don't think she had anything at the second half.
"We were upset at the half because she only averages nine and six and she had 15 and six and we felt that she got them on some slips from our trapping and she also got two baskets on transition. We were upset with that. It wasn't like she was just pounding us inside. We had to do a better job at our transition game and when we trapped, and I felt our traps really hurt them. We did a great job on the first and second pass, but the people making the trap weren't sprinting back. I think we made that halftime adjustment and I felt that adjustment was really big for us to make at halftime. Also, when we did get in severe foul trouble we went zone. I felt that we really practiced hard on our rotations and on just our movement. I thought that that was key for us. I thought Sophronia (Sallard) came up big with some really big rebounds. It worried me when we only played five guards that they would just pound it inside. But the kids just played bigger than what they were."
You have often talked about certain wins being program defining or program making wins. Baylor has obviously won a national championship a couple years ago. Can you talk about the magnitude of this win for your program on a grander scale than just going to the Sweet Sixteen?
"Again, I feel like, and I keep saying it, but I really respect Baylor and Kim. I respect that she won a national championship. I feel like she does it all. Baylor, they are always in the Sweet Sixteen or the Elite Eight constantly. I think that our team being from the east, in Pittsburgh, I don't know if they were intimidated as much with Baylor as they would be with Connecticut or Tennessee. Now the staff, we know basketball, but I was really confident we were going to the Sweet Sixteen. Kim has a great, great program. I think she had a huge injury to her team. Her team is not the same since they lost the kid to the ACL. We all know about ACL's and we all know that that can really destruct a team. At the same time we had severe setbacks and we weathered the storm so we take it as definitely a win. This is a program changing win. Notre Dame, when they were ranked ninth in the country that is a program changer. DePaul ranked fifteenth in the country, go up to their place and beating them by 30 that is a program changer. I still won't get over that we lost to Duke by two but that would have been a program changer. Slowly we are making some impacts and now everybody else besides the Big East will think - Pitt, wow they are really paying attention to their women's basketball program and they are going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future.
Pittsburgh Players:
Shavonte Zellous
Marcedes Walker
Marcedes (Walker), you've often talked about when Agnus (Berenato) came to recruit you and how she was kind of selling you on a dream compared to some of the other programs that were recruiting you. Can you talk about how you are obviously not done. This has to be a step where you kind of feel like that dream is being fulfilled right now?
Marcedes: "It's exciting. You know being Coach B (Agnus Berenato) recruiting saying that she was going to build the program around me and I am so happy to have Shavonte (Zellous) and Mallorie (Winn) and Xenia (Stewart) and just my whole team because now I don't have to do it on my own. Now I can rely on them and tell them to shoot and I go get their rebound and it just means so much because I know we are okay. Shavonte (Zellous) grabbed me and she was like `I got you big girl. I got you' and it just means so much because freshman year if it came down to me fouling, we were done. Now I can rely on people. That's what you need. You need a team. It's not an individual game and to have the supporting cast that I have, and I'm a supporting cast for them as well. It just means so much to me."
Shavonte (Zellous), can you talk about what it was like to see Marcedes (Walker) go out with more than five minutes remaining and the game getting closer at that point? What did it take for you to pull out that victory?
Shavonte: "Like Marcedes (Walker) said it was a team win. When Marcedes got her fifth foul like she said I came over to her and said `Big girl we got you, we got you'. This isn't the first; Marcedes has fouled out in a couple games and us being a team coming out and pulling out this victory, that's what we had to do today.
Was there a point early in the game where you guys figured out that you might even be better than this team? Was there a point where you felt like you deserve to be here?
Marcedes: "Well, all the time we feel like we are better than the other team. We can't go out thinking we are going to lose Paul, come on man. But we knew, in the beginning of the game we just wanted to run our game plan and in the beginning we started running our game and we let them catch back up and they took the lead. When we went into half time coach really emphasized on that, play our game inside outside game. That's what we did and we just toughed it out in the last four minutes when I fouled out and got big rebounds and made some big free throws and that's what it takes to win games."
Shavonte (Zellous), can you talk about what it was like to play in a game where so many fouls were called and so many players had several fouls and you had to worry about that while stopping a good team defensively?
Shavonte: "I really don't like to comment on the officials, but it was kind of frustrating because Marcedes (Walker) had two fouls, I had two fouls, Mal (Mallorie Winn) had two fouls, Z (Xenia Stewart) had two fouls so, it was kind of frustrating, but we all came together as a team and by us having a bench. I think Taneisha (Harrison), Karlyle (Lim), and Chelsea (Cole) came in and stepped up and they helped us out.