Head Coach Dawn On getting the ball inside and driving versus relying on jump shots
I think that’s been our team’s struggle all year long. We don’t have a good balance of taking outside shots and driving to the basket. Once we get better at recognizing that, I think we’ll be able to score a little bit better and put some pressure on our opponent’s defense.
On Courtney Newton’s contribution
If you look at her stat line, it doesn’t jump off the page. But what she’s bringing to the basketball team is confidence. She doesn’t back down from anybody, and she understands how we want to play. I don’t think she was ready to play as many minutes early on (due to coming back from an injury), but she should be ready to finish strong from here on out.
On reminding the team to drive to the basket
You have to constantly tell them to go inside because they don’t recognize what took place four plays prior to the current play. I think part of it is that we have young point guards. Ieasia [Walker] has worked on her jump shot all summer long. She wants to see all the work she’s put into it. We try to tell her she’ll see more of it if she can balance going to the basket and shooting it. Sometimes it takes a little longer to grasp. We’re actually trying to get La’Keisha [Sutton] to shoot more, so it can balance the amount of times that she drives to the basket. It’s something we’ll continue to work on.
Ieasia On driving the ball more in the second half
We just wanted to push the tempo and not set up [our halfcourt offense] as much. That worked for us in the first half, so we tried to get back to that in the second half after [Alabama] scored.
Jewel On switching to a zone defense midway through the second half
We watched [Alabama] on film, and the teams that have been successful against them played them in zone, because it really slows their offense down. We practiced zone this week, and I guess [Coach Staley] felt confident in it that we could slow them down.
On second career double-double
Tonight was just a good night for rebounds. It was raining rebounds. Really, it was just about the coaches focused on me taking my time. I tried to relax, and it worked out today.
