Post-Game Quotes
11/26/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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Michigan State Head Coach Suzy Merchant
On the performance of the offense tonight...
I thought it was much better. We worked really hard yesterday on other people being scorers. We sat Aerial (Powers) and Tori (Jankoska) on the sidelines and put some pressure on kids. We did some segments where only certain people could score. We could only get so many points in so many minutes. I think it gave them the confidence that they could do it. If you do it in practice than you can certainly do it in a game. Some of that is on me, when you have Aerial and Tori it's so easy. They can make shots and they get things done. It's easy just to keep relying on them but it was kind of evident that we're not going to become a very good team if it's just two people. We had four kids in double figures, so we needed to elevate the play of some of the other kids. They needed to step up into new roles. We almost had five in double figures so that was a big positive.
On the play of Anna Morrissey and Jasmine Hines...
Anna Morrissey was on the first segment that we did. In 10 minutes, the kid hit six 3's, a pull-up jumper and a layup. She went five minutes against man and five minutes against zone. I said this on the radio, `I don't know if I should hug you, or punch you right now.' She was so confident and it was no big deal. She stepped up there and was the best player on the court. That's the thing, she was so used to playing the role of just let me go out there and have a commanding presence and take care of my man and pass the ball. We're going to be average if that's the way we're going to go, so it was nice to see her step up and show me what she can do.
As far as Jasmine Hines the biggest thing is two things - she made shots, she went 4-for-5 and made her free throws. Coming into tonight's game she was struggling to finish. She would get to the free throw line and not always capitalize there. To me it was really nice to see her have the ability to finish shots and go to the foul line and make free throws.
On where the freshmen are at to this point...
Well I think they're a little up and down now, it's that time where they try and figure out where they're at in the system.
I think Kennedy hadn't been playing because she hasn't been showing in practice the level of intensity that she should be showing. I thought the last couple of practices she definitely showed it. As a coach I can't play kids who don't want to duck in hard or dive for the ball. I don't mind if you miss shots or fumble the ball but if you're just going to be lazy about it, it's going to be a problem. That's her biggest hurdle is herself. I thought the last couple days were good practices, really good. I thought she deserved some minutes. When she did get in there she did some positive things.
I felt a little bad for Lexi because she was on the second segment but I think she scored 16 out of the 29 points that that segment produced. It was tough to see her have those two air balls because she was killing it the day before. She'll get there, she just puts a lot of pressure on herself and has a lot of anxiety about her performance.
The one thing we talked to Jaz Lumpkin about being better at is to be a defensive rebounder. I showed her some film the other day and she was really surprised at herself when she was standing there watching. She's as good as an athlete as Aerial but Jaz just kind of stands there. She just kind of watches it, and it's not intentional in any way. It's just at this level she just has to stop thinking and just playing. She's in that phase where she is still thinking and it's slowing her down. I think there were a few times where she picked up a few really good rebounds that she probably wouldn't have gotten prior to our conversation. She had three defensive boards tonight and going into this game I thought we had four in total. She'll make progress; the one she got off the rim was impressive because it started out break for us.
