UK ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL POSTGAME QUOTES
#23 KENTUCKY VS. FLORIDA
THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 2022
MEMORIAL COLISEUM – LEXINGTON, KY.
Kentucky Head Coach Kyra Elzy
On Dre’una Edwards’ not playing Thursday and if she will be available Sunday …
“It’s a disciplinary action that we’re dealing with, and we’re dealing with it internally and no further comments from there.”
On their relationship after Edwards’ second suspension…
“Like I said, it’s a disciplinary action we will address it when the time comes, no further comment. If you have any questions about basketball game today, more than happy to answer.”
On Robyn Benton’s injury during the game and her status…
“Right now the medical team will examine her, and she’ll be day-to-day, so still have not received an update. So I’ll check on her when we leave here.”
On if Olivia Owens and Nyah Leveretter’s presence tonight made it hard for the offense to get into the paint…
“No, I think our problems started defensively. We did not have the intensity that I was looking for. We changed up our defenses, and that is on me. And I’ll take it, that was not the type of intensity that I was looking for defensively, and then offensively, I thought their physical play really bothered us. I didn’t think we handled it early on. I thought we had some open looks and we just have to be confident and step up and knock those down.”
On if not having Edwards affected the team’s mindset regarding intensity…
“Well, I don’t know that affected us. We did not play well at Tennessee, either with Dre’Una [Edwards]. So, that is part of it. So we just have to go back, reset, refocus, and really change our mentality, a refuse to lose attitude, and that will start with me as the leader of this program, and we really have to do some soul searching. But we’re talented enough to turn this thing around, as disappointing as this is tonight.”
On what she tells the team on how to get through a rough stretch of games…
“Well, right now, we just go back to blue collar, you go back to work. My message to the team, we are not victims. Obviously, we were dealing with some adversity, but so are other teams in the country and we just have to bull up, step up to the challenge, and that’s what we’ll do.
On what area of on-court play the team can improve on…
“The intensity, defensively. If you can fly around defensively, right now, we need to generate some points from our defense, and when we’re getting scored on, the defense is set, so that makes us have to work so hard in the half court. So, as you see, when we turn up the heat, we do turn over our opponents and can have easier scoring opportunities.”
On what Florida’s guards did to make it difficult to defend them…
“Well, that’s what your lack of intensity shows. They put their head down and drove the ball, and we didn’t step up and finish our defense, and it shows because they laid ball up.”
On (Jada) Walker and her performance…
“Yeah she is a spark. She has the mentality that we need across the board and she will continue to grow and get better. I like where she is as far as competition and hustle plays. I thought she laid her heart on the floor today even through the mistakes.”
On the difference between intensity and toughness…
“Hence what I said earlier, their (Florida’s) physical play bothered us and we will have to go back. We have played against physical teams and have done well, today we did not. We will go back and evaluate that. But I thought their physical play bothered us early.”
On the difficulty of 3-point shooting tonight…
“For this team, transition 3s are really good for us, rhythm 3s are really good for us. I think when we become stagnant offensively and we are not moving it forces us to take either contested 3s or deeper 3s because they pushed us out on the floor so we are not as efficient that way.”
On the lack of assists throughout the game…
“Right now our offensive chemistry is not clicking, we are doing too much standing. What I talked to the team about during the timeouts, we are breaking off our plays and that is on me. We will go back and work on that at practice. When we run our sets all the way through, we are pretty efficient. But right now we are breaking them off, not attacking downhill so we are easy to guard at the moment.”
Florida Interim Head Coach Kelly Rae Finley
On Florida’s rebounding advantage …
“Yeah, we felt like we had an advantage in the rebounding department with these guys. We knew that they had really struggled with that in previous games so it was definitely one of our keys for tonight’s game.”
On Alberte Rimdal on how she important she will be in the next games …
“She’s tremendously important to our team. I think all of our student athletes are. You know, she brings the ability to stretch the floor and she doing it more and more consistently for us but she’s willing to what her assignment for the evening whatever the game calls for and that’s what makes our team so special.”
On the mismatches under the basket …
“That was something we worked on. A lot of teams have chosen to switch against us. In those situations, we feel like we have an advantage of the point guard with Kiki (Smith) and an advantage on the inside. Jordyn (Merritt) is extremely versatile. She brings the ability to score in the inside and the outside with her presence. So, she’s a really tough match up for a lot of opponents and that’s something we look to key on.”
On having 40 points in the paint …
“It’s everything. You know, we felt like we could play a lot of different styles of basketball. We can play big when we need to play big. Play small and quick when we need to play small and quick and that’s something we really focused on and it’s where our advantages lie. We felt like tonight we would have advantage up and down with the pace of the game we like to play and I thought we were a little concern with their press since they been successful but we got the ball really quick, our forwards did a great job on made baskets and getting the ball up out of the basket excuse me and being their press down the floor so we didn’t really struggle with that until late. That was a key and something we worked on and it was really great to see it translate to the game tonight.”
