Dec. 7, 2006
– South Carolina head coach Susan Walvius
“The thing we talked about from the first day of practice, this game is about opportunities to score and percentages, and we need to create more opportunities to score by rebounding the basketball, by forcing turnovers and making the most of those opportunities. We are accomplishing the first part of it but we are not accomplishing the second part of it. When you shoot the ball 77 times to your opponents 52 opportunities, when you have 18 offensive rebounds to Oklahoma’s nine, when you turn it over only 12 times and you force 23, you need to win that game. We did a lot right in this game but we didn’t put the ball in the hole. That’s an area we talk about. I know this team can. We missed some chippies in this game, in the last game, those shots will fall, I’m confident in these kids. I thought we had some breakdowns in the defense in the second half. Oklahoma is a great three-point shooting team and they really spread your defense because they shoot the ball so well. It presented some problems to us, especially (Rush) when they pulled her outside. They created some match-up problems there and I thought Oklahoma did a great job capitalizing.”
South Carolina forward Iva Sliskovic
“If you leave (Courtney Paris) open with one player on the block she is going to score every time. They have outside shooters, so it’s like what do you guard? We came out in the second half and (Rush) hit some threes, and when we tried to guard that, they got their lay-ups.”
Oklahoma head coach Sherri Coale
“I thought our performance in the second half was excellent. The first half we were very determined to get the ball inside to Courtney (Paris). She’s the best player in America, that’s what we are going to try to do. We didn’t do a real good job to adapt to the fact that they were not going to allow the ball in the post. Every time we tried to make a pass in the paint there were at least three or four white jerseys there. They have great size and great athleticism and we talked about at halftime using our skills on the perimeter. When we hit that first three in the second half, everybody kind of relaxed. It was a pretty nice cadence then and it was a little easier to move forward.”
“I thought a key to the game was Brittney Brown at the point. Her leadership, her aggression, her ball control, her decision-making, I thought her floor game tonight was excellent.”
Oklahoma center Courtney Paris
“When you have a 6-6 post player in front of you, it’s pretty hard to get the ball (inside). We have shooters; our guards can hit three-point shots. I thought in the first half we were rushing with their press and missed out on some good options.”
