Head Coach Dawn On the decisive inbounds play late in the game
We had the game. I should’ve called a timeout. I should’ve helped our players out on the sideline inbound play. I should’ve helped them out by calling a timeout. But you just don’t foresee that kind of play taking place, and it just didn’t make any sense at that time.
On La’Keisha Sutton inbounding the ball on that play as opposed to Ashley Bruner, who had the ball first
La’Keisha is our inbounder. She always inbounds the ball because she makes good decisions with the ball and I’m comfortable with her doing it. Obviously La’Keisha and Ieasia [Walker] must have had some kind of miscommunication out there. That’s correctable.
On Marah Strickland’s shot in the final minute
We wanted her to take the shot if she was wide-open, and she was wide-open. She usually hits those shots. We probably could’ve made another pass or two just to run the clock down, but she felt it. I’m more comfortable with her taking shots than her not taking shots and possibly turning the ball over.
On Valerie Nainima’s place in the offense
I want her to take shots within our offense. We’re not in the position where we need Val right now to be the player that she was last year. I thought she had to take a lot of shots last year. I think that because she sat out the first half of the season and we got into a groove, she has to find her way within what we’re doing. At the same time Val hit some big shots [tonight]. We have to allow her still to get more in the flow of things.
On Ashley Bruner’s play
She’s been playing great. She’s been playing really inspired. It’s a new season, and obviously she does well at the beginning of seasons. Hopefully she can continue to have the type of production she is having. She’s playing great. We can’t ask her to give us anything more than what she’s giving us.
Ieasia On what happened on the inbound play at the end of the game
That was kind of a miss communication. I told her [La’Keisha Sutton] to throw it over. I should have gone and got it, but instead I was anticipating going for the out, and she [Lanita Bartley] just snuck in there and got it.
On losing a tough game at home when it was so close
We just have to learn from our mistakes. There are a lot of plays that you can pin point and fix that could have been the changing point of the game, and we would have won. We have to try and get a lead instead of having close games like this.
On Florida’s zone defense
We stopped attacking the basket the second half, so their zone was making us take a lot of jump shots. We just weren’t hitting them.
