Quotes: Duke 82, Western Kentucky 55

Sunday, November 21

Durham, N.C.

2:00 PM

Duke University

Western Kentucky

Quotes: Duke 82, Western Kentucky 55

11/21/2010 5:16:00 PM | Women's Basketball

By: Duke Sports Information

Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie

On team's performance:
“I thought everybody contributed, played hard. We worked on a lot of things today. We did a lot of different combinations, which I thought was great. I am very happy with 23 assists and trying to grow that number. I think we've got an excellent passing team, and I think for us to be at the elite level we should be in that range of 23-30 assists every single game. I think we have the capability of sharing the basketball and moving the basketball that way. So I'm excited about that stat, and I love the hustle stat of 17 steals … Jas leading us with four and so forth … a lot of hustling, a lot of good trapping. Different things happening on the floor, and certainly areas of improvement, too. So we've got it all here and we're excited about it and ready to move onto the next one.”

On passing:
“Well we've seen film and we've talked about it, and we've emphasized it and I think the team believes it's a matter of timing. I don't think we're trying to sell it, like it's something to sell to the team. I think they believe it. They want to be a great team. But it's harder to do because of timing, defense, tempo, ball faking, and understanding where the ball should be, so I still think we've got a long way to go to keep playing together and get more rhythm established.”

On aggressiveness:
“We are definitely working on our early offensive game. We love to be in any kind of 3-on-2, any broken play. If it's not a broken play, we'd like to be in our early offense and attacking. We're learning how to run the floor if we're not in a 3-on-2, 2-on-1 situation, there are spots and places to be to space the floor so people can attack.”

On freshman cohesion:
“They're doing very well, playing very veteran, smart. They're very hungry to get better as is the entire team. I see a commitment by everybody, I see the same commitment by everybody to play a certain way and that's important to keep building on that.”

On aggressive turnovers:
“When they're aggressive like that and they are really finding each other and just thrown to high. There are definitely differences in turnovers. The ones that you find that are aggressive, and then the ones you find that are passive or fatigued, we can't have those.”

On Haley Peters:
“She was tough. She had an excellent game, she was very aggressive. I love how she goes after it. I think she gets better every time she hits the floor. I thought she was very productive, very efficient with her numbers. Also we've talked about rebounding and trying to get her numbers up there too.”

Western Kentucky coach Mary Taylor Cowles:

Opening statements:
“Well, if there is a positive in this game, it's that our basketball team has really struggled in our first two opening games with just starting a game, and I thought today that Western Kentucky was more ready to play. However, against a team like Duke, you've got to be able to maintain that kind of intensity and focus, and obviously we didn't have that for 40 minutes.”

On Duke's depth and pressure:
“I think Duke's defensive pressure is something that everybody knows about, and I think that's something they feed very well off of; that's a very prime part of their game and you can tell. We've played Duke three years now, and the defensive pressure has been very consistent and solid. You know when you play Duke you have to take very good care of the ball, and once again we did not do a very good job of that. That's something that you're definitely very focused in on and concerned with is because of their ability to extend the defensive pressure. Their depth, not only are they deep but they're big, they're big in different positions, and you know, you don't get ranked the way they are without having really good players, and that's just what you know about Duke basketball that they're very talented, very deep, and when one has to go off the floor, they're able to bring somebody off the bench to step up. I thought their freshmen just really played solid. I think they have since their season started, and that's a huge key for a team that already has some veterans but yet to be able to step on the floor with young players like they are that are producing the way they are, that's very valuable.”

On the strength of Duke's bench players:
“Well, I don't think it's frustrating to our players, but it just, you know, as you prepare for Duke you have to know that you're getting a lot of the same from the bench outside of their first five, so there can be no letdown for us whatsoever, and we had that tonight.”

On Duke's defense:
“Well they didn't present anything that we weren't ready for, that we didn't know was coming. Obviously the press and then the half court zone defense, but we didn't do a very good job of attacking that with dribble penetration as well as with good ball movement, and watching the game film already from this year there were teams that they played, like BYU. I felt like BYU did a great job of moving the basketball on the half court but they didn't stand with it, and we knew that that's something we had to do along with dribble penetration, and anytime against the zone if you can draw two and have quick ball reversal, diagonal passes, obviously that's where you set yourself up for a good shot. We did that some, but we didn't do it consistently, so of course Duke's going to continue to stay in that zone and be very active and big.”

Duke senior Krystal Thomas:

On passing and the creative process:
“I think the one, I don't know if you want to call it, advantage or strong point of our team is that we have so many people that can create different passes whether it's on the break, in the half court. So it's just we're all trying to work on the different elements of our game, trying to find each other. We've stressed playing as a team, playing elite, playing together and part of that is getting 24 or more assists … we were close today. If we can continue to grow with what we had tonight, we can make that happen.”

On getting comfortable with minutes played:
“It's something that will be an ongoing process, something that will come every day with every game. It's something I have to keep working on. Running extra in practice, running after practice, running on days off, so just working on that as the days come.”

On the difficulty of practice:
“It's been tough, whether it's a combination of playing against ourselves or playing against our practice guys. You know we've got some practice guys that can run or jump out of the gym and block a lot of shots, so you have to come ready to practice every single day.”

Duke freshman Haley Peters:

On being in the right place:
“I just keep moving and our guards, especially today, did a great job of attacking and making the next passing and finding me. If you just keep moving and moving with them they are going to find you.”

On traveling, their first away game and jitters:
“I didn't really have any jitters, but I learned a lot. It was good to get that one under our belt and know how it's going to work before we go on this long trip … just learn how to prepare and basic scheduling things.”