UCLA-Gonzaga Postgame Quotes
March 22, 2011 | Women's Basketball
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NO. 3 UCLA BRUINS SECOND ROUND POST-GAME PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES
UCLA Head Coach Nikki Caldwell
Opening Statement
"I'm proud of this group. I'm very grateful to have had the privilege to coach four great seniors. Darxia Morris, Doreena Campbell, Christina Nzekwe, and Nina Earl. You couldn't ask for a better senior class when you're looking at leadership, heart, and passion, and just being great teammates. This journey of ours has been fun - all of the road trips. Obviously coming here, this has been a great experience for this group, one they will remember and take with them, even though the outcome wasn't in our favor. Gonzaga played an extremely, extremely good game, executed down the stretch when they needed to. But, again when you're playing this time of year, big players make big plays, and obviously they were able to make bigger plays than we were. With that being said, we'll be back. We've got a great core coming back. But right now, I feel for our seniors because I know what they've meant to the success of this program and getting it to this level in such a short period of time."
On Vandersloot's numbers in the second half versus the first half
"I think when you watch Vandersloot, the thing that makes her great is her ability to make her teammates look good. She picks and chooses when she's going to score the ball for herself. By scoring, I mean taking the shot. She does a great job of putting her teammates in position to score because she's a smart player and the team knows when she penetrates certain areas of the floor, where my slide should be, and they're always moving and giving her that target because she commands the defensive scheme to make sure they key in on her. Her ability to get other people's game going early - she's done that time and time again, and then she'll pick and choose when it's her time to step up and take the shot."
On the intensity of UCLA's defense
"Our press broke down early with not sprinting back and getting our other players set in their press. They were kind of lollygagging around mid-court, and when you got Vandersloot going full speed ahead, you'd better get your defense set. Some of our pressure was good, when we did have the right coverage. But we broke down a lot in our half-court defense. I thought around the beginning of the second half, giving up threes - in that regard, broke us down. As the game wore on, they went to what they do best, and that's dribble penetration, mid-range game, and getting themselves to the free-throw line."
On the pace of the game
"I thought the pace was a good pace. I was more concerned with us trading baskets. In the first half, I thought, considering that we had our two best players on the bench with 10 minutes to go, I thought that pace was a good pace for us, and even coming back in the second half. I thought when you're playing a high-octane offensive team like Gonzaga, you've got to know the key players are going to step up and make key plays, and we then on the defensive end have to have our better players defensively step it up and make defensive plays, especially a very big, good offensive team that has a balanced attack. I thought Standish did a great job really working the baseline area, while Vandersloot controlled the top of the floor. It had that one-to-four look that a lot of your great teams have. They were able to execute with that type of penetration, with that type of ability to knock down the open shot. I like the pace of the game in the sense of us being able to run, get our transition game going as well."
On the team's response to the atmosphere
"This team has done a good job of playing on the road when the fans are obviously not to our advantage. I thought they did a great job of coming into this environment and not playing scared. It could be intimidating for some teams, but because they've been there, they've been in those environments, I didn't feel like they played the game with intimidation. I thought tonight Gonzaga was the better team. Tonight Vandersloot and Standish did what they needed to do to get their team to win. Tonight they executed down the stretch when they needed to. When the game was tied at the 10 minute mark, to me it's a new ball game. Forget what happened in the first half or in the first 10 minutes. When that score was even, down the stretch there, they executed their game plan better than we did."
Senior Guard Darxia Morris
On their first-half press and their perception of Gonzaga's second-half adjustments
"I don't think we came as aggressive as we should have. We broke down on our press a few times and Gonzaga did a good job breaking our press. Our defensive breakdown definitely got to us. We need to be focused to get through the full court press. We just let it get to our heads."
(Reporter makes clarification about whether she thought this for the whole game or just the second half)
"Yeah, the whole game. We had spurts in the first half, but the second half really broke down our press a few times. Like Jas said, Vandersloot did a good job on her players."
On perception of how the team played tonight and having the season end
"It doesn't matter how I played because we still didn't get the win. So, it doesn't matter how I played, it matters what the team did, and we didn't do what we were supposed to do. We knew what we were supposed to be doing during the game, and we came out with a loss."
On the crowd/atmosphere
"I feel the same as Jas. I was trying to tune them out. I did a good job of tuning them out, didn't really let the fans get to me. But other than that, I know the crowd was great - we knew coming in."
On Vandersloot's two great passes and her ability to execute the press
"We knew what she could do, but our problem was stopping it. We didn't stick to what we were supposed to do. We were more worried about her than other players. So when their other players were wide open, she did a good job finding them open. I think she did a good job."
Junior Forward Jasmine Dixon
On their first-half press and their perception of Gonzaga's second-half adjustments
"We let Vandersloot do what she wanted. Whatever press we threw at her, we weren't aggressive, so she was able to do whatever she wanted to do. On our end, we needed to step it up and we should have made sure our press was aggressive every time we set it. So, it wasn't the outcome."
(Reporter makes clarification about whether she thought this for the whole game or just the second half)
"I'm going to say it was the whole game. Our press could have been better. It wasn't 100 percent effective throughout the whole game. I know that if it was, it would have hopefully been a different outcome."
On perception of how the team played tonight and having the season end
"For me personally, I felt I let my team down in the first half with the two quick fouls I got. I sat out the last 10 minutes of the first half. If I would have kept myself in the game, I would have been able to contribute a lot more. I think I wasn't 100 percent the first couple of minutes of the game."
On the crowd/atmosphere
"That's what I expected. We watched the game against Iowa and we knew what we were getting into. We knew that it was going to be thousands of their fans rooting for them at every possession, whether they got a steal, a deflection, a rebound, they scored, they fouled - every time. We tried to tune it out. I tried to tune it out as best as I could and just focus on every shot I was able to take."
On Kayla Standish
"She's a very good player, great mid-range game. When she got the ball, she turned around and shot it. It seemed like every time she got the ball, she was always in. She was given a green light every time, and every time she scored. We were a little slow on adjusting to that. I think she was hot. Good teams will get the good players the ball, which they did."
NO. 3 UCLA BRUINS SECOND ROUND LOCKER ROOM QUOTES
Junior Guard, Rebekah Gardner
On the effectiveness of the press:
"They were coming at us pretty fast. I think it was effective, but we weren't getting back fast enough. In a way it was in taking time off the shot clock, but they were getting layups too. But once we got adjusted it worked out for us."
On Gonzaga having a weakness inside:
"We always try to establish an inside attack. With (Jasmine Dixon) in there we try to give her the ball every time. Maybe not necessarily that they didn't have a lot of presence in there, it was just that we always try to establish an inside attack to make the outside attack much easier."
On shutting down Courtney the first half:
"With our zone it's almost like a match-up zone, so if there are shooters we try to do everything on the catch no matter who it is. I think we just made an effort to be there when she got the ball and it worked for us."
On Gonzaga's difficulty in comparison to teams like Stanford:
"They're definitely good. Their offensive attack and transition offense is really good. It's hard to compare them to Stanford, they're two different types of teams, but they're both good in their own way."
Senior Guard, Doreena Campbell
On the effectiveness of the press:
"We pulled off our press a long time ago, so we didn't really use it to tell you the truth."
On Gonzaga having a weakness inside:
"I think they played really well. They did well. They did really well."
On shutting down Courtney the first half:
"I don't think it was that, I think she just found her rhythm the second half and she just took over."
On Gonzaga's difficulty compared to other teams they've played:
"I'd put them up there, they played a great game."
