Nov. 11, 2009

South Carolina Head Coach Dawn Staley
On Kelsey Bone’s performance
I thought she played well. She probably could have dominated a little bit more. And I guess we could have gotten the ball to her more against Augusta State and their height disadvantage.

On the newcomers’ performances
I thought Val [Nainima] was a little nervous at the start. When we sat her down, she said she was a little nervous, but we told her you’ll play a lot better once you get back in. Val’s a player. She could have shot the ball a little bit more in the second half, but she was trying to get her teammates involved. She knows that she’s going to need them to score for us, so she got them involved, which is a good thing. All of the newcomers played well and according to the certain roll we see them in for our basketball team.

On Samone Kennedy not scoring
We’re just trying to encourage Samone to shot the ball a little more and try to get her more comfortable to shoot the ball. Sometimes when we’re reversing the ball a lot of people are paying attention to Val [Nainima], Keisha [Sutton] and Kelsey [Bone], so she’s got to be ready to shoot the ball and actually take the shot. We will work on her making the shot a little bit later. It will come. She has worked hard on her shot over the offseason, and hopefully she will be able to put in to a real game situation.

Kelsey Bone • Freshman • Center
On first game performance
I was actually quite nervous. I talked to my mom for an hour before I had to get back to the gym because I couldn’t get the jitters out. She told me that I’ve played a lot of basketball and that this is just another game and that I’m still playing basketball just in a different setting. I was able to calm down, and I got a chance to talk to my brother and get some familiarity. Then I was able to give the team what they needed from me tonight.

On playing an actual opponent vs. each other in practice
It was wonderful. We’ve been going against each other for so long, since August. So to finally see different faces and to have different people to take out frustration on, it was really good. We were on the sidelines telling each other `you’ve been working on that.’ So to be able to see the things we’ve been working on pay off was the highlight of the night.

Valerie Nainima • Junior • Guard
On first game performance
I haven’t played in about a year, so it was about the same as what Kelsey [Bone] was going through, I was just getting out the butterflies. Coach Boyer told me to keep shooting, and it just started to drop so I just ran with it.