Pitt Women's Basketball Postgame Quotes
11/21/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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Pitt Head Coach Suzie McConnell-Serio
On Pitt’s success defensively in the second half:
“Coming into a game, we know we are going to play our matchup zone and we are going to play man-to-man defense. It is really what defense is working better on any given day, or any given time with the combination we have on the floor. Our players have gotten comfortable in our matchups. Certain lineups have been very good. Kauai Bradley has been very effective with her length and athleticism. It was really a difference for us tonight creating our offense from our defense. They [Loyola] started to make adjustments and started to get comfortable playing against it. Our players adjusted as well, and that was a key for tonight defensively. However, we did not come out and defend very well in the third quarter. We were missing shots and offensive rebounds. We just weren’t defending. We need to find answers and be able to score. That was a disappointing third quarter, and then we came back in the fourth quarter and responded.”
On forcing 19 turnovers in the game:
“Honestly, we prepare for each team the same. We watch clips of the personnel. So each player that is getting significant minutes on the stat sheet, each one of my assistant coaches takes a couple players and we divide the scouts up. They do the personnel clips so you get a feel on what the scouts do and they also do a scouting report. We watch their offensive sets and then we watch their defense, and their out-of-bounds plays. We move onto the court within those practices where we talk about what we are going to do against them and how they are going to defend us. We move on to how we are going to defend them. Coming into tonight’s game we were keying on [Bri] Betz-White. They saw clips on her, I watched whole games so I knew how effective she was coming off the screens and using her body. She is very good and very crafty. She is very good at getting off of the rim and creating her shot, but also creating for other people with her speed and her quickness. I thought our players responded well keying on her. Before the game your fear is spending so much energy focusing on her that you allow other players to step up to hit shots and make plays. It is our team buying into how we prepare, what we are looking for defensively, who we need to key on, and what teams are running. It is feeling confident that our players are confident when they come out on the court to play.
Pitt Forward Brenna Wise
On how defense can translate to offense:
“I think that if you play the defensive end, the offensive end is a little easier, but it’s not only a who can score, back-and-forth kind of game. It’s stop, score, stop. That’s what we do in practice and then we simulate it in the game as well.”
On the team’s performance today:
“I think we played great, but there’s always room for improvement. We got out-scored in the third quarter, which is nothing that we’d like to see. We want to continue to make progress and get better. We put 74 points on the board again, which is great. We had five starters all in double figures. I think that says a lot in that we have a threat from every position on the floor, and then we got great minutes from our bench. We’re really coming together and getting ready for the ACC.”
On getting ready for conference play:
“You have the one [Kauai Bradley] that has improved the greatest right here, but collectively we’ve got a lot of chemistry. You said, ‘Getting ready for the ACC,’ but that’s in a few months. We’re worried about our game on Wednesday, and then after that we’re going to worry about our game on Saturday. But obviously, moving forward, we want to make progress and get ready for the ACC. Every day we’re getting stronger in the weight room and getting up extra shots. All of us want to get better, and it’s contagious. It’s a contagious atmosphere.”
