Post-Game Quotes - Wisconsin
1/28/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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Michigan State head coach Suzy Merchant
On Tori Jankoska's performance...
I think as I've mentioned before with Tori. Sometimes, she's really taken on a tougher defensive assignment, and I think that's caused her to maybe not be as effective sometimes on the offensive end because she's so focused on that. It was nice to see that good balance and defend at the other end. Against the zone, that's kind of Tori's thing. I don't know. She hasn't always performed well against zones even though she should and can. Tonight was a little more normal with what she can do. She can really extend the zone. She can get in gaps and do some things.
When they went man, we were really trying to pick people to post out guards, especially Tori being one of them because they have smaller guard, posted Aerial (Powers) obviously. We tried to get Cara (Miller) in there a little bit, just mix it up because their guards are small, so it forced them back into the zone a couple of times. She was great tonight. No questions, six assists and no turnovers as well.
On two players having a combined 56 points...
Not often. Most of my teams score 56 points. I guess that's good. We still need to get more contribution consistency. Really, the big three were double-doubles tonight and played extremely well. What did we get? Four points from everyone else. We've got to do better. I don't know if you could tell or not, but there were periods of time they were trying to two Aerial and Tori, which we've seen this year so far at different times. You know different things and schemes are coming.
On pulling ahead by 18...
I thought we did a good job getting some stops, and we hit a couple really big shots during that time. I thought we just did a better job of quick-triggering. We do tend to do that. You can really tell that we don't have a strong, commanding point guard. We struggle sometimes with what we're in. Anna (Morrissey) tries, but she just doesn't have that presence yet. She just hasn't been on the floor as long as some of the past point guards. She's trying, but we don't always get somebody that can pull it behind their back and start directing people, telling them what to do, what we're trying to accomplish. We do some bone-headed things still, but I did like the energy and the fight. I felt like we had some good, fresh legs. We've been trying things to see if that helps us mentally and physically. I think it has so far.
On getting some good looks...
We really are just talking about Anna and Cara mostly, if we're going to be honest. I know they didn't make their shots tonight, but I think they brought other things to the table. Those kids work really hard at it. They're stepping up. They took good shots. Their rhythm was good. I felt like, normally, those kids don't even want to look at the basket. I felt like they were in rhythm and with the flow. They didn't drop. At least to me, they looked a little bit more confident shooting the ball. That's a positive.
On fatigue...
When Aerial gets turnovers, every time you could tell that she's exhausted. She loses the ball. She over-tries. We make mistakes defensively. That's not intentional. It's just that the kid's ribbed. I don't know. The issue is that we get into league play and most people look at it and are seven deep... They have kids they can put in. Their starters are logging 33, 34 and 35 minutes. Nebraska rides their starting five to the ends of the earth, and they've got a thousand kids they can put in, in terms of depth. I think with what we try to manage now is a little bit more what they've been doing the entire season, not just the Big Ten season. They've been logging a lot of minutes all year long because of our depth and injuries. They get a little more fatigue.
Like I said, we're trying to do a couple different things to give them a little bit more time to rest and recover mentally and physically. The last two games, it has worked for us, so hopefully plan to keep doing that.
On the February fight leading into March Madness...
There's a lot of season left. It is nice to kind of get it going, but it does kind of frustrate you. I was watching the Nebraska-Iowa women's game. And I felt like we beat those teams, but we didn't in score. We should have. You add those into what's going on. I think we've been making progress. It hasn't always resulted in a win with our situation, but it is nice to see it come into fruition. We're getting better. We're working at it. They're staying in the fight.
Next week is going to be tough. We're going to play three really tough games. We have Ohio State, Michigan at home and on the road at Minnesota. We turn around and play again on Wednesday. I don't know what we did to the league, but wow, it's insane. We're just going to have to manage it the best we can, stay in the fight and keep focused, because we play some really good teams next week.
I just try to show them that we're right there. Look at this league...we still have a lot of the season left, so keep fighting, keep scratching.
On Jasmine Hines...
I mean, I think they're going to re-evaluate her in three more weeks, which gives you like the last week of the season. I wouldn't waste a kid's opportunity to potentially come back because we're going to redshirt her, just for a week of the season. She couldn't participate anyway. She has done nothing, not ridden a bike, not walked fast, not gotten her heart rate up. She's done nothing for almost two months, basically. s
