From The Locker Room
3/19/2002 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 19, 2002
Recap?|? Final Stats
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Alabama head coach Rick Moody:
"I would just like to congratulate Michigan State. They played a great game. We had several looks early that we couldn't knock down. But they had a very nice game plan and they're a well-coached team.
"It would be so easy to blame our travel schedule on our lack of effectiveness, but we're not going to make any excuses. But still, this is March, not November or December. When it's March, athletes play with adrenaline and you have to do whatever it takes to boost yourself.
"I was concerned during the shoot-around. I was concerned in the dressing room before the game and I was concerned when my coaches came in after warm-ups and said we didn't look like we had any balance in our step."
Michigan State head coach Joanne P. McCallie:
"I tip my hat to our team and all that they accomplished together. Tonight, our team was willing to do whatever it took. They deserve all of the credit for our tremendous effort.
"Alabama is a fine team and definitely a pressing team so it wasn't a no-press kind of game, and Vnemina (Reese) and Candice (Jackson) and Kristin (Hayne) all did a tremendous job handling the basketball.
"We're grateful for the crowd. We loved the crowd, it was a great crowd, it was a very vocal crowd, and a larger crowd. So we're very grateful for them coming out. We just hope we can get that chance to come back again."
Michigan State junior forward Syreeta Bromfield:
"Our seniors didn't want to leave, and we didn't want to end our season and wake up early in the morning for preseason.
"After our last game (in the Big Ten tournament), we knew we weren't going to go (to the NCAA tournament), but our coaches were like there's a chance that we could get into the WNIT because we have done a great job beating some big teams. So it was kind of easy to refocus because we knew we had the NIT in the back of our minds."