Post-Game Quotes - Northwestern
12/28/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery 
Michigan State Head Coach Suzy Merchant
Opening Statement
I am proud of my kids. It wasn't the best game. Three of our kids were vomiting until game time; wasn't even sure we were going to play them. I am proud of them, not proud of losing because I hate losing, but it says a lot of about Tori (Jankoska), Aerial (Powers) and Lexi (Gussert), just to be able to get out there and play; not even sure if they were going to be able to keep anything down. I have been coaching a long time and have never seen anything like it. I have had a kid or two down with illness but never had more than one kid at once. We had three of them today. It was really not anticipated either because we have had some really good practices lately. I thought we had really made some progress. We did everything we could with no shoot-around, trying to give them as much time to sort of stop their illness. It was just a bad time. Not much that we can do about it, we are just going to need to get healthy, and we will be a pretty good team if we can keep ourselves together and become healthy. I felt very proud of our girls, instead of saying they can't go, they will say `I'll give you anything I can Coach and give you my best.'
On Kara Miller's injury, is it a knee or ankle...
It is her ankle, I think, I don't know for sure. That kid is tough. I have coached some tough kids before but she is the toughest I have coached in about 23 years in the business. So when she says something is moving in her ankle she fears looking in the direction of the trainer because she is scared they will hold her out. She has broken her nose three times but keeps playing and doesn't ever say anything. She is just as tough as they come. She takes charges, dives on the floor, I made her run a little bit and when I saw her limping a little bit, I knew that it hurt. She has stress reactions in her feet but just keeps going. I was nervous to play her a little bit because she is a spark plug and does some nice things. I just didn't want to push it. They are going to get it x-rayed and see what is going on. The list just keeps getting worse now.
What Becca Mills has provided in the last seven or eight games...
It has been pretty consistent that Aerial and Tori have been the go-to people, and we have been challenging Becca to be more aggressive. I think that she has, she has been making great progress in the past four or five games. Tonight she wasn't real great in the first half but I thought her second half performance was good. She ended up with 21 points and 16 rebounds, which is a career best for her. She was really trying to put the team on her back. We just needed a couple more people to kind of help her a little bit, perhaps the people who weren't sick but we didn't have that tonight. I am proud of her, I think she is making progress, becoming more confident and I think she has really played hard. I wish I could play her less but given the circumstances with Madison (Williams) and no (Jasmine) Hines. I mean we just don't know what is going on. It is tough, it is just frustrating but I am proud of her. She is trying to do it from all phases. She is knocking down outside shots, made her free throws and her rebounding was as good as it's ever been.
