Kentucky-Vanderbilt Women's Basketball Postgame Quotes
Kentucky-Vanderbilt Postgame Press Conference
Rupp Arena
Jan. 11, 2024
Head Coach Kyra Elzy
On three Wildcats scoring in double figures…
“I’ll start with Brooklynn Miles. We really challenged her to attack the paint and finish, which she did. 5/6 tonight with 11 points. When she’s scoring, the defense has to play honest. It was good to see Maddie [Scherr] return offensively with 20 [points]. I thought she looked for her shots from the outside, but also attacked at the rim and got to the free throw line. She was 6-6 there. Then, Ajae Petty with another double-double with 23 points and 21 rebounds. I think a lot of people are looking at the score, but it’s fantastic—what she’s doing. Her ability to rebound the ball—21 rebounds—it doesn’t matter who you are playing. In this conference, to get 21 rebounds in one game, it tells you what she is doing to work.”
On her disappointment in her team’s lack of defensive intensity…
“I’m beyond disappointed. One, in front of our home crowd, and two, we have to hang our hat on the defensive end. We scored 73 points, which is enough to carry you, but if we had any type of defensive intensity—I mean we gave them 95 points. They did not feel us defensively. I did not think we had a passion, energy, or heart for it today—for whatever reason. I’ll have to figure that out and go back with the staff and watch. I’m disappointed with our effort defensively and it showed—they had 29 assists on 38 field goals.”
On what her defensive message…
“We always work on our defense. We spend a lot of time working on our defense, which is what makes it disappointing. The message today was “We needed to fly around. We needed to make plays. We couldn’t bail out on charges. We had to get our hands on the ball and sell out defensively. When we did, good things happened. We just did not do it consistently enough to my liking.”
On Maddie Scherr playing all forty minutes…
“She did play forty [minutes]. We train all of our players to be able to play forty [minutes]. The SEC is big girl basketball. There are a lot of top players playing a lot of minutes. That’s where you rely on your training, your strength coach, and your athletic trainer. Obviously, we watch our loads with the Catapult, so we know what our loads are. If we have to decrease in practice or do different things, we do that. At the end of the day, she’s a senior trying to win. So, that is what it is.”
Player Quotes
#13, Ajae Petty, F, Sr.
On what does it mean for her to have her 10th double-double and how her team set her up for success…
“It means a lot, I think my teammates always do a great job of trying to look for me and trying to get the ball, it just shows the work that I’ve been putting in and just continuing to put in– of course, I wanted to win tonight so yeah.”
On if the third quarter being the nemesis is due to mental fatigue or physical fatigue…
“I think it’s more just a focus and just continuing to lock in when we’re going into halftime and just having a certain spunk about us, one to come out and just prove to people that we can play– I think we definitely have to improve on that.”
On how her conditioning has played into how much she’s improved…
“That was the biggest thing that I focused on when I went home for the summer, just making sure I came back in the best shape that I could possibly be in. When you’re not in shape you have a lot of mental lapses. It’s little things like going and chasing the ball when everybody else is tired just because I’m more conditioned than the people that I’m playing against.
On her mindset going against Kamilla Cardoso on Monday…
“My mindset is the same going into every game to go and do whatever my team needs in order for us to win and just to continue to dominate.”
On how they can make sure morale and confidence stay where it needs to be…
“Just not looking on the outside factors on like what’s going on around us, taking what’s going on right now and just moving forward. Learning from what’s going on, I think that’s the biggest thing to continue to watch the film and watch what we need to improve on and then just wanting to do it. Wanting to get in the gym, wanting to watch the film, wanting to see what we can do better in order to improve.”
#22, Maddie Scherr, G, Sr.
On what makes Vandy difficult to contain from three…
“They have a good presence inside and then shooters on the outside I think just their ability to play inside out and make one more pass can be hard to guard a shot as well.”
On staying in evenly in the 2nd and 4th quarters…
“I think our defensive pressure I think most of the game we weren’t pressuring enough. We weren’t flying around enough. We weren’t helping to help our enough and that’s where we thrive and we didn’t put four quarters of that together which is where they got off on us when we weren’t doing that. I think so. I think if we lock in for four quarters and play that kind of defense that will benefit us better.”
On how she can help Petty rebound…
“I think there’s just keep battling. I mean, you know, I’ve got to cut again. 21 boards. You know what I mean? Let if you know she’s gonna go get them. But yeah, I think we all just need to keep battling. Keep getting on the boards, getting the loose ones maybe that she can’t get basically just getting any board that he can’t get. That’s what we needed.”
