Head Coach Suzy Merchant Quotes
1/8/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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Michigan State Head Coach Suzy Merchant
On the strategy on the timeout when they were up one late in the game...
She (Becca Mills) was open; she had the kid on her back. I knew that they were going to run at her. She did a good job screening and rolling. She had a kid right on her back, and she just didn't catch it. I thought it was the right decision. You're two feet from the basket with your senior center with somebody on her back. She's got to come up with a shot.
On how discouraging it is to her that the game slipped away at the end...
It is discouraging certainly; you feel bad for your kids. I thought we played hard. They have four seniors and a junior that start. For us the last few minutes, we really only had a couple of experienced kids out there. I thought the big thing was we couldn't get a rebound down the stretch. They had a couple offensive rebounds which kept the momentum going. Nebraska picks people not to guard. You saw they didn't guard Cara Miller in the first half, so it was good to see her step up. Then they didn't guard Lexi (Gussert)and then they didn't guard Jasmine Lumpkin. They didn't guard Anna (Morrissey). We really needed a couple more people to step up. We didn't get anything off our bench; that was disappointing.
On how concerned she is about the team at this point...
I don't think you hit the panic button ever. This is still the same team that was 8-3. We've faced Baylor, Notre Dame, Georgia and Syracuse. If we didn't have bad luck, we wouldn't have any at all. Honestly, it's a little bit ridiculous in some ways what's happened to this team. From an injury standpoint and a sickness standpoint, we've had to deal with a lot. We've had to deal with pink eye for crying out loud. It's just one thing after the other. We could use Jasmine Hines and we could use Branndais (Agee) but we can't. It's that same team but we have to just put it all together at one time. For as good as Arial (Powers) played, it's frustrating not being able to convert. To turn the ball over in that situation and then give up an and-one is just frustrating.
On inserting Cara Miller into the starting lineup...
Cara was definitely one that I thought needed to play a little bit more at least defensively. I knew Nebraska was not going to guard her at all, if they weren't going to guard Jasmine Lumpkin they definitely weren't going to guard her. We tried to do some things where we put her inside and try and make (Rachel)Theriot guard her. So that was a positive to see no question. She works really hard; it's more of mental game. She has a nice stroke and spends tons of time in the gym. It was just a matter of time. I'm just glad to see her perform like that.
