Post-Game Quotes: Minnesota
2/21/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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MSU head coach Suzy Merchant
Opening Statement
I hope everyone enjoyed that defensive battle. I mean, wow. Felt like we were guarding Steph Curry out there, you know. The first half we weren't very good on guarding [Rachel] Banham. I mean, she had open looks that she shouldn't have got. I was real disappointed in that, but I felt like second half she stopped scoring as much. It seemed like we were way better, and that kid is good. I've coached for obviously a long time and as a head coach. I don't know too many teams with kids that score 40 or more a game and this kid does. We were ready. We doubled her on ball screens, and she was still hitting them. Could there have been a few more things we could have prepared for? Probably, and we will next time. I just thought we had the athleticism, she didn't play very well against Indiana, and I felt no different. Here, she just made them. She's the real deal. She's literally putting the team on her back. So I give her a lot of credit but, you know at the same time I think offensively they have two players and we have more than that and I think over time we share the ball better. It's a weird game. As a coach you go and prepare for Rutgers and you prepare for Minnesota. Clearly, they're different. You know, we scored four points and made one basket in the first quarter against Rutgers. And it's the same offense that we just ran against Minnesota basically, and we scored 37 points. So, it's just bizarre. Sometimes coaching these kids we don't know what to expect. Those are two extremes. You can't even make a basket and here you score 37 points and share the ball, and move the ball. Everyone's hitting inside, outside. It felt like we were controlling the game. It was an interesting, interesting game. But, I'm glad we won.
On giving up 100 points and winning…
I don't know. I mean, no, I'm sure. Ask Kara. I know not here. Not with it going into overtime or whatever. It was our offense, it was their offense. We scored four points in the first quarter of the last game and could barely get to 70. Now we score 114. But, no I can't recall one is the answer to your question.
On Rachel Banham…
I mean, it's her range. She used to only be able to go right. Now she can pull out and go to her left. She's quicker than you think. Tori's [Jankoska] our smartest defender but she's not big enough. They don't do a lot for us. Maybe a high ball screen but that's about it. She's kind of a one-man show when it comes to their offense and what they do. If she gets any space at all—that's the thing that makes her good. Sometimes when a couple of our key players take shots it's an obvious force, right? You can tell it's like a bad shot. Everybody knows it. The kid knows it, the coaches know it, and the fans know it. I swear, it's hard to find a bad shot that kid takes. She either gets fouled, but she's so efficient at getting her shot off it's unbelievable. I feel like she's a female version of Steph Curry. I think our team is improving to be a good defensive team through the years, and today we just didn't have an answer for the kid.
On 400 wins as a head coach…
I would have liked it if it was a little bit better defensively. It just means that I've been doing it a long time. I think that's where it starts. I think I'm 21 years as a head coach, so it's a lot of years. First of all, I did not know. When they came out there I was like, "What is going on?" Like I didn't really understand what was happening. I didn't even know until they made the announcement. I'm just blessed to have players like Aerial [Powers], Tori, Branndais [Agee]. I mean, you're only as good as the kids that wear the uniform. I guess I look at 400 wins as a long career and I've been blessed with some talented players.
On the offensive performance…
Like I said, I would rather score 37 points in the first quarter than four. It's kind of hard to win scoring four points in a quarter. We kind of needed it. I felt like we were getting good looks. Even against Rutgers. We had the right kids taking shots, we just weren't making them. I did think we got a little trigger happy. We took probably too many 3's for my liking. We were fortunate enough to knock those down. That helped a lot. We haven't been shooting the ball as well from there.
On guards rebounding…
The first half I didn't think we did. We always talk about when they're outside the paint we have to arm bar. We have to hit them and go get it. We have to check them and go. And we weren't doing that. We were literally running to the paint and the ball would go over our head. They scored 15 points I think on their second shots. Second half we really talked about arm barring them. Keep them out of the paint and then release and go get the shot. Some of it is just natural rebounders. But today I think they did a much better job in the second half of just taking care of the ball. They kept that space between them and the offense.
On Tori's [Jankoska] 15 assists…
That was big. She really did a good job of penetrating the top of that zone and offered some nice passes. That's the one thing. Tori's really focused on that. She's so much more than just a shooter as you can tell. We kept telling her "you're not just a shooter. You can set people up. You're a play maker. You can get to the rim. You can get to the foul line. You can defend. You can rebound." Obviously tonight she did a good job of distributing the ball for sure. I think that hopefully she understands that she isn't defined by making a shot. And tonight I hope she can see how important she is to the team. She's setting people up.
On getting a spot in the tournament…
You want to win every game but it's very important to win these last three games and get on to the tournament. I think we are the only team in the country that has had to play 7 games in like 14 days. We're just in a tough spot. We did it to ourselves. We lost a couple of games we shouldn't have. So now it's sort of about climbing back out. We had to find a way to win against Rutgers on the road, which is a very tough place to play. This was a home game against a very good team with a great crowd. We knew that they only play us, Minnesota, and Ohio State and they only get them once. We felt like they thought we were going to be the team that they would get for sure. We felt like we really needed to come out and get this win for a lot of reasons. Certainly for us we needed to take care of us at home, since we have two this week.
On Tori's [Jankoska] offensive performance…
I hope so. We've been trying to get her to focus on other things and get her to understand that she isn't just a shot. Does it help? Yes. That was a big three that she made for us in that kind of wheel-around play that we run against the zone. So that was big for us. It does help, there's no question that she can extend the defense. To see her try to do other things and want to guard the best player, and make plays, and set people up—she has benefited from being aggressive. She tried to do other things and playing the full game.
On being down by 14 at Rutgers and home versus Iowa…
We didn't have much time left, either. We had a couple of other people do it, too. We had Lexi [Gussert] and Kennedy [Johnson]. They came in and did a very good job, and literally won the game. Those two and Aerial were the three that kind of stepped up. It's just an important thing to be able to find ways to win, whether it be at home or on the road—particularly on the road. I don't care what you say, anyone can beat you. We're going to have a tough one on Wednesday against Illinois. We need to make sure we roll up our sleeves, stay focused, and finish strong here the next couple of games.