Nov. 9, 2008

Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 

Head Coach Matthew Mitchell

Opening Statement…

I want to compliment Bellarmine today on a game well played. They played with a lot of effort and Coach Smith is a very fine coach. Going into the game, I knew we would face a challenge. We can find things to learn from this game as Bellarmine exposed some of our weaknesses today. We need to correct the mistakes we made today and we need to move toward the season opener against Michigan.

On what the team can learn from this game…

This game is very important for the coaching staff to use as a learning tool. The thing most disappointing about today was the fact that against Kentucky State we played with tremendous intensity and passion. It’s difficult to duplicate that, and that’s a challenge to this team. That is how this team will win and be successful. This team is not going to out-talent people and we aren’t going to overwhelm a lot of teams with fancy play. We have to give tremendous energy, tremendous passion, and focus on three things we talk about all of the time–honesty, hard work and discipline. I don’t think we showed a lot of that at the beginning of this game.

On Eleia Roddy and what she brings to the team…

Eleia Roddy was one of our bright spots today. For us to be successful, she has to be a major contributor on the offensive end. She played with energy and effort, and that’s good when the seniors do that. Carly Ormerod played with energy and effort as well. A lot of people would not be performing at the level Roddy performed at today after many surgeries. That is a real testament to what kind of character she has and that is the kind character we have to have this season to be a successful team. Roddy demonstrated the type of passion we need and the way she is performing after everything she has overcome is remarkable.

On Kentucky ‘s low scoring percentage…

We got off to a very good start against Kentucky State and our team needs that energy to propel us to better things during a game. We are not in a spot to overcome that yet. To improve, we need to make better offensive decisions on shot selection. Bellarmine was double and triple teaming the post, which made it difficult to get inside. That challenged the outside players to make shots. We started missing easy shots and the team was looking for the next person to make a shot. That puts a lot of pressure on all of the players. To combat that, you have to make the easy ones early in the game. Then, everyone has a better feeling about themselves on the offensive end. I was encouraged to see Carly Morrow make a three-point shot at the end. It came when we needed it. It was the first three-point basket of the day, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. We may struggle offensively from time to time and we must find ways to overcome that.

On Kentucky ‘s free throws…

We work on free throws all of the time and it’s something I challenge the players to do. I think the low number of free throws made was indicative of our attitude toward this game. We didn’t come out as focused as we needed to and we need to learn a lesson from that.

On Kentucky ‘s comeback…

Today, I tried to keep the attitude that we must win and we must find a way to win. It was much like games that we will play for the rest of the season. At the eight-minute media timeout we were down three points and I told the girls to play a four-minute game and get the lead back. We were able to do that and we came to bench at four minutes with a three-point lead. The comeback was an attitude adjustment and the players focused in. We should have done that at the beginning of the game and we didn’t. I always tell the team that it is never too late to turn your attitude around and that was the biggest factor in our comeback today.

Kentucky Players

Victoria Dunlap #34

On the game against Bellarmine…

“We wanted to try and get the ball inside more and I think we did a good jobtoday even though we missed a lot of shots inside the paint. We want to dominatedown low and to do that we need to start making the little shots.”

On the upcoming season…

” We don’t have a lot of experience this year, but we are going to play hard and show off what we have been working on during the off season. We have a lot of young talent and I think this year we are going to show it.”

Eleia Roddy #1

On her injury…

“Last year after my injury there was times that I wanted to quit because I wasn’twhere I thought I should have been. I knew I had a future in basketball and thatI could really help the team out this year. I wanted to finish out my careerat Kentucky strong and that helped me stay motivated during the off season.”

On her second half performance…

“Coach has told us to make sure we save our energy for the end of the game. Knowingthat we could do better helped motivate me even more to play harder. Being aleader on this team I knew that I had to step up and take control.”

On the upcoming season…

“I’m looking forward to the challenges we will face during the season and I thinkwe will overcome them. Playing in the SEC we have to bring our best game everynight and I think this team is ready for that.”

Bellarmine Head Coach David Smith

Opening Statement…

“I felt like they had a good physical effort. Certainly there are a lot of thingswe need to improve on. I think there’s some good news and bad news. The bad newsis they pretty much exposed every weakness we have, and the good news is thatwe didn’t have more than they could expose in 40 minutes. The difference wasthe offensive boards, 23 second-chance plays and then of course when they got23 points off of turnovers. They’re bigger, stronger quicker and you can’t simulatesome of that in practice. It’s hard to adjust to on the fly.”

On Taylor Kopple’s performance…

“We’re hoping for this kind of a season for her. She’s got to step up in orderfor us to be successful. She is athletic and she can run the floor. Hopefully,some of the teams we play against, it won’t be a size disadvantage. With theathleticism that Kentucky ‘s wing people had, she wasn’t able to do some thingsthat she will be able to do against the teams that we’re going to play over thenext 27 games. She was ready to play and she played hard. Coming to play againsther high school teammate Carly Ormerod served as some motivation for her. Shehad a really nice game and now we just have to get some of the others to playat that level too.”

Bellarmine Players

Dana Beaven, #32

On the inside play of Kentucky …

“They were able to shoot over us and I tried to use my body and push them out.Sometimes it worked and sometimes they were too big and there was nothing I coulddo about it. They are very physical.”

On the play of Kentucky ‘s Eleia Roddy…

“She would get the ball inside and we would try to double team her but she wouldstill get the ball to the basket so there was nothing we could do about it. Shewould just go right through us.”

On what Bellarmine needs to take from this game into the regular season…

“I think that we need to keep the same intensity level that we had today going.We played harder today than in the other scrimmages that we have had. If we cankeep the intensity level during the regular season up where it was today thenwe can be really good.”

Taylor Kopple, #15

On her 24-point performance…

“It was determination and motivation to being able to play against an extremelygood team and getting to work on the things that our team needs to work on. Ihave played with Carly Ormerod before and we have been competing since we werenine years old. I guess that I went back to that mentality and felt like I wantedto be there.”

On if she has to be the leading scorer every night for this team to be successful…

“I don’t think that I am the main scorer. I just think that I had a good gametoday. There will be times when I score two points and then times when I willscore 30. It doesn’t matter who is the high scorer. As a team we will all cometogether and win.”