Kentucky-Boston College Postgame Quotes
Kentucky-Boston College Postgame Press Conference
Clive M. Beck Center
Nov. 30, 2023
Head Coach Kyra Elzy
On the Baltimore connection when play Rusell and Petty play together and the chemistry…
“Well, they’ve grown up together and they have a great feel for each other and playing with each other. You know, I thought Petty stayed solid. She got in foul trouble early but stayed with us. I thought she made some key buckets at the end and made the right reads. But more importantly, I thought she crashed the offensive boards and we needed just that.”
On how devastating it was to see Maddie go down and if she’s okay…
“It’s always devastating to see Maddie, or any other player go down. Our medical staff will continue to evaluate her, I hadn’t had a chance to see her and we’re praying for a great verdict there.”
On Boston College players being size mismatches for Kentucky players and how Kentucky worked defensively to combat it …
“I thought we changed it up and our players sold out defensively today I asked them to come in, empty their tank, play with some intensity. We weren’t going to play perfect. We’re going to make some defensive mistakes, but just fly around and make plays. And they did that. You know, we talked about our littles. I was like, Listen, you just got to get down there and battle, we’re going to try to bring you some help make them score over you make them make tough shots. And we had just enough stops to win. So, we’ll take it.”
On snapping the five-game losing streak…
“Well, it’s always food to win and we wanted to snap the losing streak for sure. But how we did it, we talked about being tough and earning it no one was going to give it to us. And we earned that victory tonight. It’s great to be back in Lexington in front of our fans and home. But this was a hard-fought victory and they earned it.”
On Brooklyn and Emma King playing confident and how they helped…
“Well, you know, I told Emma, we talked about it before the game I was like, What’s the best game you’ve ever played? She was like, I think I hit 10 threes in a game tonight. I was like, well, listen, let’s go back to that play with that confidence that I thought she played with poise and confidence. She made some big plays that I thought really ignited as the offensive rebounds, the put backs, the and ones. I thought she was solid. At one point Emma was our five so she can play all positions, has a high basketball IQ, but it’s her toughness.”
On the moment hugging Emma…
“You know, I love that kid, Kentucky kid that loves this university, loves this program. She’s going to sell out so to see her half success she’s put so much work into it to see her half success. Just so happy for her and we are all celebrating. We talked about the energy that we needed, and everybody needed to make plays and I want to give Brooklyn miles a shout out, I thought she was just steady and tough. She locked in 9.6 assists, four steals. The biggest thing is I challenged her to step in and score, hit a three today. Hammered down, hit a big layup in the paint, but played with poise and confidence and that’s what we need from her.
On Amiya Jenkins and Zennia Thomas…
“Mimi (Amiya) is day-to-day with her shoulder we’ll continue to get her evaluated. Z (Zennia) is suspended indefinitely for behavioral issues and we are evaluating that internally.”
On how much the win is a testament to the depth and versatility of the team…
“Well versatility does matter–Eniya Russell played the three, four, five Emma King played the three, four, five so we have to be able to move around but we do play positionless basketball. We practice that way– they are confident in and we just talk about next man up. We had to be able to make plays and everyone came in and made plays. We wanted to have fun today and be fearless and just can’t tell you how proud I am of this team–it’s been a rough week. For them to bounce back and come back with a gritty win– that’s going to give us the confidence that we need.”
Player Quotes
#4, Eniya Russell, G, Sr.
On the final play…
“That play is not really something out of the ordinary. In practice, we have offensive review and she runs those plays for our wings so that was something I was comfortable with and I had confidence in my team around me to let me know that I can get the job done– nothing new for real.”
On snapping a five-game losing streak…
We definitely needed this win– I think everybody needs to see because it was a lot of great ball movement. Everyone needed to see their shots fall through the hoop so I think it’s something we can definitely build on but coming into this game we like to take accountability and realize what needed to do to fix it. But we also want to let go of things and just keep moving forward and progressing so in practice we definitely had a hard practice coming back from the Virgin Islands coming off all those losses. I feel like coach prepared us well to build off our mistakes and get ready for the next game– which was today. So I think this game is definitely going to prepare us for the next game and confidence wise too for everybody because everybody contributed very well– I feel like this game was a big step for us.”
#13, Ajae Petty, F, Sr.
On what works when she and Eniya Russell are on the floor together…
“ I just think like when I see Eniya driving I know if she’s going up she’s going to make it if not I’m going to grab it and most of the time she’s looking for me to dump it off so like I remember one play where like she was going she was going and I just was standing there with my hands ready because I’m like she’s going to pass me the ball. When we first started playing together I couldn’t catch her passes it was so crazy but like it’s just knowing. You know when you play with someone for such a long time you know their tendencies and you just know what they’re going to do.”
On the defensive adjustments the team had to make throughout the game…
“I think it was just like you know Eniya said we came in to practice and coach Elzy basically just discussed that even if shots aren’t falling we need to play defense. I know personally after the game she, one of the games down in the Virgin Islands she talked me about like ‘hey your shot is not falling you still have to defend, you still have to rebound’ so I think it was just like Eniya said we had a lot of tough conversations and talked about what we needed to do to adjust and I think everyone bought in. Saniah (Tyler) in the beginning of the game she was coming in running through passes that they were throwing to the post, you know she’s so tiny so it was a good all-around win- everybody contributed.”
