Postgame Quotes vs. West Virginia
3/20/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 20, 2011
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HEAD COACH Todd Buchanan
Opening Statement
"I will start off to say this; words will never be able to describe how proud I am of my basketball team and my staff. It has been an incredible, fun ride this year.
"With that being said, I thought Madina (Ali) was the difference in the game in every way. I felt like she exceeded so many things to us and obviously from the rebounding perspective we could not find her. There were a lot of times where she just pursued the basketball relentlessly and for whatever reason today we could not find her to block her out.
"I give West Virginia and Coach Mike Carry incredible kudos for today and obviously being very well prepared. I felt like there were times in the game where when we played our game and we got them sped up and went through some transition baskets and got some easy baskets, we were kind of back into it. We were into the mindset of how we want to play and forced the tempo for them to play the way we want to play. It just hurts. It hurts for these kids."
On Courtney Taylor's foul trouble
"There was not a time when I thought about bringing her back in. It has been my philosophy for 23 years that unless you are just totally getting dismantled or it does not look like you are going to be able to finish the game the first half or have the game be basically ended in the first 20 minutes, then no. The only thing that we thought about similar was maybe do a little bit of offense for defense. It would have been too risky. If we were going to keep it anywhere around 10 until the last shot, that is basically where we were. I felt really good about it."
On Houston's defense
"I love my kids' effort. I love my kids' effort defensively. I felt like they did an incredible job defensively. I think it's more like what Brittney and Lesslee said a while ago; you do not get 26 offensive rebounds normally unless you get multiple shot opportunities and more possessions and that is what they were really, really good at.
"My hat's off to them. I give them a lot of credit. Their pursuit of the basketball is incredible. They kind of beat us to the spot and was maybe a little quicker at times than we were today. That is the real part that hurts because that has not been us all year and it could not have shown up at a worse time and on a bigger stage."
On West Virginia's size
"Their length, we have obviously seen it before. We have seen it in the same conference as Georgetown and Louisville. I think it did play a toll today. The way they pursue the basketball defensively and on the glass is as good as anybody or better than anybody we have played all year and that was the difference.
"Madina is as versatile and as athletic of a kid with that kind of size that we have faced all year. She is phenomenal. And Liz could not miss. I give her credit. She was phenomenal and a lot of that was off of second and third possessions."
SENIOR FORWARD Courtney Taylor
On watching the game while on the bench in foul trouble
"It was very frustrating. One of my main roles on the team is rebounding, and sitting over there and them killing us on the boards I think that had a big deal with us getting out rebounded. It just hurts when you can't go out there and help your team contribute or you know help them get the win."
On what they accomplished this season
"Overall this season has been great, I couldn't ask for a better senior year. I couldn't be more proud of my team. I don't want to start crying up here. But overall, I've enjoyed this year and I think that we have an awesome team and I hope that next year's team can just compete as well as we did this year."
SENIOR GUARD Brittney Scott
On West Virginia changing the tempo of the game
"You know they run a good half-court set and they use the whole box so I think it was kind of wearing us out you know playing for you know, 28 seconds and then them getting another rebound. It slowed us down a little bit and I think that's what really got us and that's when they went on their run."
On West Virginia's 3-point shot at halftime
"I feel that we had played them real hard the whole while the shot clock was running down, and they just hit a lucky shot."
SENIOR FORWARD Lesslee Mason
On West Virginia's size and height
"Size definitely can be your advantage when it comes to getting rebounds, so we're not going to make excuses for not boxing out, but it did take a toll on us being undersized. It has all season."
On coming back in the second half
"We just were trying to pick on the weaknesses, we didn't get our post players. Courtney and I are shorter than other post players, but we're also faster, so we try to kind of just use our advantages and just run the ball and get stops. Things kind of just didn't work out."
JUNIOR GUARD Porsche Landry
On the loss
"Our shots weren't falling like we wanted them to in the beginning. It was that and we just dug a hole for ourselves that we just couldn't get out of."
On being called upon to be a leader next season
"I'm looking forward to it. I'm ready to take that leadership role. I'm just ready for next year. I'm ready and never want it to end. I just want to play another game."
