Kentucky Women’s Basketball Postgame Quotes
Kentucky vs. Sacramento State
Memorial Coliseum – Lexington, Ky.
Nov. 10, 2017
Kentucky Head Coach Matthew Mitchell
Opening Statement…
“Well, I’m proud of the team for earning their first victory of the season, and they certainly had to earn it. Some really difficult situations we were in in the first half. My hat is off to Sacramento State and how hard they competed. They really came out with tremendous energy and effort and it was real tough on us, it was real tough on us in the first half. But I thought the run at the end of the first half was key. You know, I thought we were able to get in at halftime and really listen to coaching and commit to playing with some better defensive fundamentals. We ended up with a great victory, so real proud of the team.”
On previous players comparison to Taylor Murray’s speed and coaching her…
“I don’t remember anyone quite as fast as her straight ahead. She’s really fast. I’ve been blessed to be around some great players and some fast players. The only person that I remember visually seeing here at Kentucky was John Wall, just had that burst of speed that you were just like, ‘Wow. How is he going that fast?’ And that is kind of like Taylor when she gets going. It’s gonna be hard for anybody to keep her in front. Then she’s got great body control to get out of the way, she doesn’t charge much. She’s got great, tremendous body control. It’s such a weapon especially for us, we’ve been able to put some pieces around her that have some speed. I know Sacramento State wanted to force tempo, but I tried to talk to our team. We’ve been working all summer. We got here early in June trying to say we wanted to be able to get fed enough to make tempo an issue for another team and I thought we did a good job that time. Taylor’s fast, really, really fast and it’s a tremendous weapon, but another thing you have to realize about her is the first day I watched her in individual workouts summer of her freshman year, the improvement she’s made in her shot between that day and today is just, she’s a really good shooter. She’s got great fundamentals, great technique, a commitment to those two things and she’s shooting the ball really, really well too. She’s rounded into a really solid player.”
On concerns for freshman in the first game of the season…
“You know, it’s 37-35 and we were turning the ball over and you know I was worried that we might hang our head. We had gotten into some foul trouble which is probably the best thing that had ever happened to us was those young players had to get out there and had to figure it out. That was a tremendous end to the first half, so you know, after it was 37-35 I think you know we ended the half 56-42 and it was just a good run and from that point up. A lot of young players and you know Coach (Linn) Dunn was sitting there and just saying, ‘Hey, we gotta be patient here. There’s four newcomers out on the floor.’ It was three freshmen and then Amanda (Paschal) and I don’t know if it was (Alyssa) Rice or who it was. They did a nice job and they created some separation after the end of the half. It was very key for us because if that team gets hot from the 3, and boy we did a great job on the 3- point line tonight, because I wanted to try and limit their attempts, so 25 attempts from them from the 3-point line is a good job by our team. I was hoping we could get 28 or less, and so we got 25, so that was good. But you didn’t want that team hanging around because they were explosive. You saw them. They made some really great plays in the game. Proud of the young players. They did a good job tonight.”
On being able to utilize the platoon sub…
“Yeah, I had to go back in the memory banks to find out how to do that. We did not platoon sub last year, you were right. It was a good feeling.”
On playing 12 players and having 10 scorers tonight…
“Well, yeah, I think that we’re going to have to work hard and definitely we have areas where we can improve and I don’t know if we’ll play 12 every night, but it was great to see everybody play hard enough so we could get everybody in the game and get some experience. Because I’ve told this team, we’ve got 14 fantastic young women on the team that will all contribute in some way this season. There will be somewhere everybody, including Ogechi (Anyagaligbo) who is out for the year, something that she will make a contribution to this team that will be important, and so you never know if it’s going to be on the court or off the court, but I was happy to see that. I thought we had some moments we can build on tonight.”
On free throw shooting…
“Yeah, we had only missed one I think at the halftime, and so we missed a few there in the second half. But you know if you can hang around 80 percent as a team, that’s a real bonus for you and something that can help you win some ball games.”
On rebounding…
“Yeah, we’d given up 11 [offensive] boards at halftime and you know, it’s just not a habit yet and we have to do better. We worked hard on it for three days, you know, I just probably hadn’t done a very good job. There’s just so much that we tried to get in and that’s just something that’s just not where it needs to be, but we’ll just work at it every day and that’ll be something. We won’t have a real long and hard practice tomorrow, but we will definitely have to touch on that because we’re just looking at the ball and you can’t when the shot goes up. You have to find your player and box out and you know we may have tried a little bit better, but you may have tried a little bit better, but you just saw it’s not in a good habit right now. We need to get that going, but the good news is I think we have an athletic enough team, disciplined enough team and tough enough players that understand that they want to win and they’ll get it. We’ll get there.”
UK Student-Athletes
#24 Taylor Murray, G
On the key to lengthening their lead before halftime…
“It was just playing up-tempo defense, loving off the ball. We got some rebounds which made us get in transition to push the ball which made us get to open shots and open 3-point shots or get to the free throw line.”
On whether they like the idea that people underestimate Kentucky…
“Yeah, I mean that’s always a good feeling. Your goal is to always come out ready to play, so us just sticking together and going out each game to play and work hard and get a win is amazing.”
On if it was interesting subbing five players…
“I didn’t even pay attention to it, but I mean it’s good to always have that depth, just to have players come in ready to play and to just have that same energy that the people that were on the court already had.”
#22 Makenzie Cann, G
On whether she was feeling it from the start…
“I guess you could say that. I didn’t play as well as I wanted to last Sunday, so that’s definitely a focus of mine this week, just to have a bigger role than I was last year. So, that’s just been on my mind, just getting in the gym and getting extra shots up, so that was a big focus.”
On how fast Taylor is…
“Well, I joke in practice that she could fall down, get back up and still beat me there. So yeah, Taylor is very fast. It’s definitely a great gift that she has and a great asset that we have for the team.”
On how much of a weapon Taylor’s speed provides…
“I mean, it definitely helps. Especially for me being a shooter, she drives in and I’m standing wide open. So her penetration, her speed, a lot of the teams always focus on her so it really, really helps. They have to pack it in, so it helps the people on the outside.”
On how the freshmen played tonight…
“They all played and they all scored, so that always great for us. In the past we haven’t had a whole lot of depth, so it’s really nice to be able to come in. You guys saw a lot of lineups. I think that’s going to be one of our strengths this year. Versatile. We just have a lot of people that can do a lot of different things.”
Sacramento State Head Coach Bunky Harkleroad
Opening Statement…
“Kentucky is a good basketball team. We had some young ladies on our team tonight play in their first college game, and to do that in the SEC is always going to be a challenge. This was a good measuring stick for our team. I love my team and I thought we played hard. We didn’t necessarily play well, but we did some good things early in the game so I was strongly encouraged by that. I am really proud of our seniors and the way they battled and kept their composure against a good basketball team. You have to give a lot of credit to Coach Mitchell and Kentucky. They have done a great job here and this is obviously a very tough place to play.”
On being back in Kentucky…
“I am a proud Kentuckian. I love my hometown Berea. I love Lexington. I am grateful to be in the situation I am in. I think I have an amazing job, I love my team and I get to coach basketball, so to come back here and compete against Kentucky… I am living a dream.”
On getting the pace they wanted…
“No, we didn’t. You have to give them credit. We just are not there yet, but we will be. We have a lot of new faces. Kentucky did a really good job of defending us, bumping us, moving in front of us when we were trying to make cuts. I didn’t like the way we moved the ball or moved people. I don’t think we did a very good job of creating enough looks that we usually like to take. We didn’t get enough strong rim takes and definitely not enough 3-point shots. You’ve got to give them credit for that.”
