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Quotes: North Carolina 74, Duke 70
1/29/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Duke Head Coach Gail Goestenkors
Opening Statement:
“Congratulations to Carolina. I thought they played a really good game, but they played a great second half. I thought they were the aggressor, really, on both ends of the floor for the most part the entire game, but again particularly in the second half. They certainly deserve the win. We didn't do a good job taking care of the basketball. We knew that was going to be a key. And we didn't hit our free throws. Against a great team, you have to do the little things well and making free throws, taking care of the ball, those are two things that we usually do a pretty good job with and unfortunately did not tonight and Carolina made us pay for it.”
On Carolina's success in the last several minutes of the game:
“They went to a dribble weave. They went small and we didn't stop their penetration and they broke us down. Either the guards scored or they drew help from our post players and they just dumped it down for easy lay-ins.”
On the possible benefits of losing a game:
“I told the team I'm kind of glad, if it was going to happen, that it happened early because now I have so much more time with them to help them get better. Our practices will certainly be more intense than they've been lately and we'll be much more demanding, I think, of one another and push one another because this was a different level than we've had to play at as far as the athleticism, the traps, the switches, the physical nature of the game. This was by far the most physical game and you can't just turn it on in one game. You have to prepare for that, I think, every single day in practice. I know that we will be better because of this game.”
On Duke's recent troubles against North Carolina:
“It's their athleticism. They do a great job with their traps and you don't see it everyday so it's very hard to prepare for. They're the most athletic team in the country and it's difficult to prepare for that.”
Duke Players
Junior Lindsey Harding
On defending Ivory Latta:
“I know late in the end, they (North Carolina) started playing a weave, going back and forth and there were a lot of penetrators in. That kind of freed up the lane a lot for them to penetrate. In the first half, I was denying her a lot but in the second half, she kind of held on to the ball a little bit more so it was hard to deny her.”
Senior Monique Currie
On her missed three-point shot that would have tied the game:
“I was hoping it would go in. I was trying to get a quick shot that would have tied it up but it just didn't fall.”
On North Carolina coming back from 16-point deficit:
“We knew that they could go on a run. Coach G always says that games have a lot of runs and we were expecting them to come back. They're a really good team so I wasn't surprised.”
North Carolina Head Coach Sylvia Hatchell:
Opening Statement:
“Duke played really, really well. They actually killed us on the boards. I think the biggest thing is, at halftime, I didn't really jump them like maybe I've done with other teams in the past, but I just talked to them about a couple of things that we need to do. Then every time we had a timeout I just kept emphasizing those things. When we put Alex (Miller) in there, that made a big difference. She was able to get a lot of good penetration. We shot well the second half, even though we didn't rebound well at all. I mean, they just killed us on the boards. [La'Tangela Atkinson] actually had half of our rebounds, and normally we rebound a lot better. I don't know if Camille (Little) has actually ever gone a game without a rebound. But she told me that she was boxing out all the time so that Tange could get the rebounds. But anyway, it's a great group of kids, and we had a lot of fun out there tonight. And for us to come back from as far down as we were, I think that says a lot for this crowd. They're just a great group, and they believe they can win, and to play over here in this environment...I love playing over here. This is a great environment. This is what every coach and every player dreams of, to play in a situation like this. And so, it was good. We can play a lot better than we did tonight, believe it or not. A lot of you have seen us play, so we can play a lot better. But anyway, it was a great game, and hot out there.”
On not turning over the ball in the 2nd half:
“It was real important. We had more assists than we had turnovers, and we had 14 steals, which I thought, that was a big key. Those are some things that I guess make up for the difference in the rebounding.”
On the younger players' inexperience:
“Like I said, Alex made a big difference when she went in there because we felt like they were going to key on Ivory (Latta), and Alex has done that for us in some other games this year ? she and LaToya (Pringle) and Christina (DeWitt) and Rashanda (McCants). They've all been playing real well for us and they're going to get a lot better. They're just young, so they've got a lot to learn. You know, Rashanda, when I put her in, looked like a deer in headlights. But they'll settle down and learn to love games like this.”
On coming back from 12 down in the 2nd half:
“Again, our backs were against the wall and we had to produce. The whole game we had not played on the level we were going to play on. I think we just shifted gears and moved to a higher level. I don't know if they're been holding out, or what, because there at the end in the last few minutes, I thought we were more fresh than Duke. I thought Duke look tired in the last few minutes, and we were playing with emotion. But we'd been holding out until we had to turn in on, and we turned it on at the end.”
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