Head Coach Dawn On South Carolina State’s run in the second half
I thought it was a game of runs. Obviously we got off to a big lead and came out of the locker room at half time and looked a little complacent. We couldn’t get any shots to fall. I thought we took some good shots, but we couldn’t make them fall.
On Valerie Nainima’s play
Valerie can go 1 for 7, 1 for 10, and she’s not going to shy away from taking the next shot. I think she has to get more playing time, more game experience under her belt to get the kinks out. Her shot will come back. We’re not worried about that.
On what happened during the S.C. State second-half run
Our defense holds up. If you hold some body to 44 points, that’s pretty decent. We went through a lull offensively. You go nine minutes without a bucket and are still beating them, it does say something about your defense. I think we put ourselves in the position to kind of hang on in the second half.
On the team’s confidence level heading into SEC play
I think we’re more experienced [than last year], number one. I think we’ve played a pretty decent schedule to where we should be pretty confident that we can win some basketball games. Number one is to get a win on the road. We’ve taken care of business at home. Now we have to get one on the road.”
Markeshia On her hitting critical 3-point shots in the second half
Coach McCray told me to keep shooting. I’ve been working on my 3-point shot. So I felt comfortable when I shot them.
On what the team was thinking during S.C. State’s second-half run
We know they fight and play hard. We expected them to make a run. We kept to the game plan and kept executing.
Valerie On how her shot was better tonight than in her first few games after her injury
My 3s were very flat coming off my ACL injury. The coaches kept telling me to lift it up, and I was very aware of needing to do that. Tonight was a much better game. I had a flow and just went with it.
On play in the second half
The second half was very physical. We tried to control what we could control. Markeshia [Grant] came in and hit a couple of big shots. Marah [Strickland] hit a big shot as well. We tried to stay calm during that whole physical moment and got back into it.
