Kentucky-Ohio Postgame Quotes
KENTUCKY WOMEN’S BASKETBALL POSTGAME QUOTES
KENTUCKY VS. OHIO
MEMORIAL COLISEUM – LEXINGTON, KY.
DECEMBER 21, 2022
Kentucky Head Coach Kyra Elzy
On the confidence after the win today …
“It feels good to win. Everybody wanted to go home happy for Christmas. It was a very happy locker room. You lose your confidence, you have to battle through adversity, but give them credit. It’s been a tough week and some change but they battled back, and we’re back in the winning column, and this is the confidence that we needed going into break and also into SEC play.”
On the team practicing in green jerseys…
“We just talked about earning your blue. Staff and team- no one is wearing Kentucky right now. We are with our shirts inside out at practice, and one team is black and one team is green. There’s a way that we need to represent this program. There’s a toughness, a pride, a responsibility that we have being the flagship, and I don’t think we have doing that. So, we took away the privilege. They’re looking to win it back, don’t worry. We had a Christmas party yesterday and they had to build gingerbread houses. I get to the third team, and Maddie (Scherr) and Kennedy Cambridge had a ‘UK’ on their house and I told them ‘this wasn’t on the box’, and they said ‘we’re trying to earn our blue back’. So, they do want it, but there’s a responsibility that comes with it. We hadn’t got it yet, but we’re going to work to get it back.”
On how much rebounding has been a point of emphasis in practice…
“Well, they’re probably sick of me saying rebound the basketball and defend. But for us, I thought Ajae Petty really set the tone for us early, going to get the offensive board. We’ve been talking in film that we need four to the boards, especially with how we’ve been shooting the ball. So I’m excited to see that we crashed the boards, having five players in double figures. I thought, even in some of the games we lost, we were moving the ball, we just weren’t making shots, so it was phenomenal to see the ball go in the basket today. Coach Jen (Hoover) and I were talking before the game started and Santa walked by and she said ‘all I want for Christmas is for us to hit a basket.’ I said ‘ that sounds good to me’.”
On Eniya (Russell) adapting to games …
“Eniya is our blue heart recipient today and when I told her she won. The room went crazy for her. I’ve been really tough on her – she is gifted. But she has more in her that I want and I’m going to get it out of her. But I was proud of her today to stay the course because I was hard on her, but she stepped up to the challenge today. Her talent alone speaks for itself and her basketball IQ and the passes she is able to make, and her versatility does make us different and we will need her down the stretch.”
On what was the difference in the first half compared to the second …
“It was I know. I don’t know what we fed them at half time, but we need to do that more often. But I think Robyn stepping up early and making some outside shots. And its contagious you see a ball go in everybody wants the same. She gave us some confidence then somebody made a basket, then somebody made a basket. It was a kind of feel-good type of day. I told them at half time you need to be confident, set in, you all are great shooters you scored your whole life. See the ball go in and be confident sand we did in the third quarter. Honestly, we know we need to just get back to work. Big shout out to Kaiya, he came out there and did his thing. We just need to fix a few mistakes.”
On passing the ball great today …
“Yesterday, they were real upset with me. We for 25 minutes in practice, for 15 minutes we did a 24 second shot clock that we couldn’t take a shot. Robyn was like ‘what if I’m open’ doesn’t matter. Keep moving the ball we are going to run our offense all the way through because if we break it off, we have to have the ability to score sand make a play. Which we haven’t these past couple of games. So, for about 20 minutes in practice 24 seconds on the shot clock we just ran the offense from side to side and if they didn’t do it minus five plus five for the other team. That game them the ability to move without the basketball and also run the play.”
On having Jada Walker and Maddie Scherr initiating the offense? …
“Well, when you have two point guards on the floor it’s hard to press us. They bring different things, so they are different looks for the opponents. Maddie is more I’m going to pick you apart if you make a defensive mistake. Jada is all gas no breaks I’m going to make a play on you. And so I’ve been very hard on them. I know they don’t want to be in any more film sessions that we don’t run the offense correctly. But they understand it and its tough in that position everything falls on your shoulders and just challenging them when we have time and possession. We had possession two or three times when we haven’t scored what are you getting us in? Everyone set? Continue to push or playing to slow? But both of them are very talented and we need both of them and I’m glad they’re Wildcats.”
Closing statement …
“Well, I do want to say one thing. I want to give my team a big shout out. Besides getting the victory today, 19 straight semesters with over a 3.0 (grade point average). We had a 3.1 to finish off the semester. Eleven out of the 15 over a 3.0 so I wanted to give them a big shout out. Academics is very important they are student athletes so very proud.”
UK Student-Athletes
#1, Robyn Benton, G
On fighting through adversity …
“We’ve just been trying to find ways to win, to stop having mental lapses and figuring out what are the issues and what are the solutions to our problems. At the end of the day, though, you’ve just got to play basketball and you’ve got to be confident. I feel like some people lost their confidence in that stretch, but hopefully this game will boost us back up.”
On having to practice in neutral colors …
“We were losing to teams we shouldn’t lose to and we weren’t representing the program well, so [Coach Elzy] said ‘you guys have to fight for Kentucky and earn your blue back’.”
On going into SEC play …
“I think we have to take one game at a time and focus on the task at hand. We’ll focus on Missouri—they usually play zone—and focus on our gameplan heading to Mizzou.”
On Eniya Russell’s breakout performance …
“After the game, I told Eniya ‘this was your best performance and we need this from you night in and night out. I know your minutes are a little shaky but you just have to stay confident because you never know what happens—some people could get hurt or get tired, but you just have to be ready to go.’ I feel like she was really ready to go today.”
On leading a team with a deep bench …
“I just tell them be ready. When I was a freshman starting out, sometimes I would play 20 minutes, then I would play two. At the end of the day, I just had to be ready because nothing is worse than getting your number called and not being ready.”
#11, Jada Walker, G
On how it felt to get this win going into conference play …
“It felt really good. We needed that win going into the break. I could not take another loss. Our whole team could not take another loss. We needed that win.”
On what has it been like fighting through this patch of adversity …
“Yeah, I feel like all of us just got back to what we are good at. We played our roles (today) which we had fallen out of these past couple of games, we were just doing things we should not be doing, and we got back to doing things we should be doing.”
On how important it is when a teammate has the hot hand …
“It does a lot because when we are lacking in one area another person can pick it up in another area, so if Rob’s (Robyn Benton) not scoring well then, we can pick up the scoring and if we are not scoring well, I can do things in other areas like assist and get the team going and not be just focused on us like we are not performing well so we are just going to stop competing altogether so making sure the team is together and playing hard and winning games.”
