Michigan State vs. Ferris State Post-Game Quotes
11/12/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Nov. 12, 2006
Michigan State Head Coach Joanne P. McCallie
Opening statement...
There are a lot of things we could have done better, but we'll work on that in the film. I was very impressed with a variety of people. I thought Mia Johnson was outstanding in her overall game and her hustle. A guard getting 11 boards, that's very exciting, and I thought Jefferson getting 10 boards was very effective given the fact that she's not totally back yet. And Allyssa's 14 rebounds was extraordinary, and I'm very proud of her - what a fabulous freshman. She's a person that loves to play the game and does a lot of other great things as well.
Overall evaluation of the team...
We definitely have a lot of work to do defensively as well as in our offensive sets. I've got to work with the point guards and get them to do a better job of moving the ball, executing and setting up plays. There's too much attack from all five spots if that makes any sense. We need our point guards to settle down and get things running and then look to be in attack mode, and I think that's costing us a bit in our shot selection.
On the team's leadership...
We have more than our senior leadership - we have leadership from Mia and I think Aisha brings a lot. There's a variety of different people that can step up and be responsible.
On the second half performance...
The second half was better, but in some ways it was worse. We got lackadaisical on defense because we made some shots, and that's not exactly what we want to teach ourselves at this point. But again, it was a great exhibition. Grand Valley was a great exhibition and so was this one, and we're really excited to get started and take these lessons to the regular season.
Ferris State Head Coach Tracey Bloodworth-Fisk
Opening statement...
I think it was pretty obvious that they were bigger and stronger than us inside. DeHaan did a great job taking up a lot of space in the paint and intimidating our post play. We didn't do a very good job of getting the ball down low, but credit their defense. They were very aggressive, took up a lot of space and made it hard for us to get the ball inside.
On MSU freshman center Allyssa DeHaan...
She's a special player. She's so big and plays so hard as a freshman. I was very impressed with her. She played very smart and uses her size well. She didn't get her body into people and altered a lot more shots than what she blocked, and she had eight blocks.
On MSU's defense...
I think they caused us to rush things. We didn't settle in and hit shots in the first half, but in the second half we started to hit a few down the stretch. They put so much pressure on us and took away so much space and pushed our offense out so far that it was hard to get high-percentage shots. We took way more threes than we wanted to take. Typically you won't see us take that many threes, but they were just bigger, stronger and faster than us and it's something we'll have to learn from.
On the Spartans rebounding...
They did a great job on their offensive glass. We didn't do a very good job, especially our perimeters, at rebounding. They took advantage of their size, especially at the perimeter. They had 23 offensive boards and we had 22 defensive boards and that was probably the biggest difference in the whole game.
