Kentucky
Women’s Basketball

Matthew
Mitchell Pre-Louisville Quotes

Memorial
Coliseum – Lexington, Ky.

Dec.
2, 2016

Head
Coach Matthew Mitchell

Opening Statement…

“Well, another tough game
ahead of us with UofL. They have another really great team again this year and
extremely athletic, extremely talented, always well-coached. So, it’ll take
everything we have, every bit of grit and moxie that we can muster to go over
and try to win the game. It’s a big game for us, always is. It’s just another
UofL-Kentucky game.”

On why he thinks his
Kentucky teams have had recent success in this series…

“Well, it’s just
year-to-year. We’ve been very fortunate to have players make plays. It’s not
like they’re blow-out wins or anything, we’ve just been really fortunate to
have tough-minded players make plays at the right time. It’s not a series of
games. Each game is an individual game, and we’ve just found some kind of way
to make more plays in the game. So, it’s players making plays. What you have to
do in this game, Sunday we’ll have to make a lot of plays.”

On whether he’s worried
about the team going on the road again…

“Very worried. Very worried
about going on the road and worried about playing at home right now… worried about
a lot of stuff right now. I mean, we’re really trying to take shape as a team,
and so grateful to be able to win last night because we’re trying to round into
form, as I’m sure Louisville is too. It’s early in the season. So, that was a
really difficult trip from the travel, just from the logistics of traveling.
The travel won’t be difficult, but a much more hostile environment. It’s always
rowdy and electric in the Yum! Center. They do a great job of getting their
fans in there, so it will be a different kind of road challenge. Where I
thought the travel impacted us negatively in Colorado – and they played well,
I’m not trying to take anything away from Colorado. They really played well and
are continuing to play well. But our challenge on the road will be Louisville’s
outstanding player, outstanding coach, outstanding fans. It’s just a really
difficult game if we were playing there or here for us right now, it’s a tough
game.”

On the biggest challenges
against Louisville…

“Well, they always play hard in
our game. It’s always a really physical, tough game. I think Coach Walz is one
of the best coaches at mixing looks and giving you multiple looks, and giving
you challenges in the game where you really have to think through things. You
just can’t play mindlessly against Louisville. You’ve got to really be sharp
mentally because they just are unafraid to mix things up, really a lot of
multiple looks. So, you’ve got to try to simplify that for the players the best
that you can. But I think the biggest challenge for us is they’re just
extremely athletic, very, very deep, have a lot of weapons and the players for
Louisville are the greatest challenge for us. They’re just really good
basketball players.”

On keeping emotions in
check for the rivalry game vs. Louisville …

“I won’t tell them anything
to not get them too jacked up for this one. We need to get real jacked up for
this one because we need to play at a real high level for this one, and we
always do. We’ve always enjoyed this competition. It’s always been a tough game
and it’s always made us better. I feel like playing Louisville is a challenge
that always benefits our team to play against a quality team like they are. I
won’t do anything to put out the fire. I’ll try and get them ready to go. We
need to play with tremendous enthusiasm. It does mean something because it’s a
rivalry game. It’s important for our team right now for so many reasons – to
try to improve and to try and get a great road victory. There is a lot on the
line here and so we’ll try and be excited when the ball goes in the air on
Sunday.”

On if he expected such an
impact from Maci Morris and Taylor Murray this season …

“Well, we needed them too, so
yeah, I was expecting them to because we want to have a really good team this
year – a special season – and we will not if those two don’t play at a special
level. They’re roommates, they’re great kids, incredible character, bust it in
the classroom, bust it in workouts and they really played well last night. They
are going to have to play well Sunday. We will need them to play at a high
level. When you get down to it in basketball, your good players have to play
good to be a good team. You can’t expect great success in basketball if you
don’t play well. That’s probably the genius coach of the day. In any sport,
you’ve got to play well and we need them. We don’t have anybody besides them,
so they’ve got to play.”

On the development of Maci
Morris …

“She is a year older, much
stronger, much more explosive, more athletic, much better overall. She showed
up on campus as a ballplayer. A lot of people kind of pegged her as a shooter –
and she is a basketball player. She made some tremendous plays in the game last
night. She can put it on the floor, she can shoot the mid-range, she can make
the 3. But she is just a year older, stronger and obviously she’s been here a
year so she knows everything a little bit better. I’m excited she’s just seven
games into her sophomore season and she’s just going to continue to get better.
You can just see the great basketball she is playing and will play for the next
two and three-quarter seasons here at Kentucky. She’s a good one.”