Postgame Quotes

Jan. 16, 2008

OKLAHOMA HEAD COACH SHERRI COALE
On the game...
"I thought we had a great second half. I thought our effort was good for 37 minutes. The last three were kind of lazy. We played harder than we did the other night. We finally got the ball to go into the basket a little bit and had a really good start."

On adjusting the offense...
"When we figured out that they were going to guard Courtney one-on-one or even when we thought they were just doubling with the weak side, we wanted to spread as far as we possibly could. Ashley (Paris) getting into foul trouble sort of put us in the position to where we had to do that. Everybody made it look really really good.

"Courtney was very calm, I thought, with the ball. Even though the double team was coming, she just slowed down enough to read and see what was there to make a good decision."

On putting effort into possessions...
"It was a huge point of emphasis. We talked about us playing hard on every possession. Not just every possession, but every piece of every possession. We've been on that for several months now. I think that's really what separates your good teams from your great teams. Everybody plays hard sometimes. The team that plays hard the longest is the team that is going to be successful.

"We've played in spurts or played hard for twenty seconds of a possession. We have to figure out how to play hard all the time. In the end, I don't think anybody does that. I don't think anybody plays hard all the time. But you try to get as close to that level as you can, and we'll continue striving toward that."

OKLAHOMA JUNIOR CENTER COURTNEY PARIS
On the game...
"We went to the four-out-and-one-in and we were able to get some good looks off of it. Someone would come over and help and you would have D-Rob (Danielle Robinson) cutting or one on one in the post and I could just score."

On playing with sister Ashley:
"Oh, definitely and that just comes with playing a lot with each other and working the high-low with each other."

OKLAHOMA SOPHOMORE GUARD AMANDA THOMPSON
On her defense...
"I felt a lot of energy when I was out there and I saw that when No. 13 got the ball, she was not looking to score. When she picked up the ball I was like stick, stick, stick.

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NEBRASKA HEAD COACH CONNIE YORI
On the game...
"We hated to be the team that played Oklahoma after the other night, and I thought they turned it up a little bit and their defensive intensity was good. We are a really young team. We play 10 kids, and eight of them are either first-year players or second-year players that didn't play very much last year, so we look young. We turned it over a ton. Their defensive pressure bothered us a bit, but we gave away a ton of those. It looked like a lay-up drill, and they made their lay-ups. They didn't have to execute a lot offensively because we were just giving them the ball. It was obviously related to their pressure, but also, we are young."

On the offense's execution...
"We did some good things on offense when we got shots. You can't only get 58 shots in this league and expect to win. We are a team that's going to push it and get some things in transition, but they pushed it harder than we did and actually got more than we did that way. I thought our post game gave them a little bit of trouble at time. We have a pretty good post game, very different than Oklahoma's, but largely this game was lost because of our inability to take care of the ball."s

On Courtney Paris in the second half...
"I thought we kind of lost our focus. We didn't send a double team either quickly or at all in some cases. We are just like everybody, we are trying to double her down low, and we don't want to give her those one on one opportunities. We are young, and looked lost at times and didn't send a double team and she took advantage of it."

NEBRASKA SENIOR FORWARD DANIELLE PAGE
On the game...
"It's great going up against such a big name like Courtney Paris. She is such a skilled player, matching up against the in the low-block and seeing where I stand as a player is fun and I look forward to it. It is great to play in a league where you get to play against players like that every night."

On Courtney's play during the 17-2 Oklahoma run...
"I thought we were doing well doubling her on the low-block. I thought we did well as a team guarding her in the first half. That little run they made to put the game out of reach I really thought that she just took over and forced her will. She can, at any time, just take a game over. I think we needed to do a little better job on her defensively as a team. She is just such a skill player that she can just do that in a game."

NEBRASKA SOPHOMORE GUARD YVONNE TURNER
On rallying against the Oklahoma runs...
"We are a tough team even though we are young. We have had games like that where we have gotten down before, and we never gave up, that is the great thing about our team. We keep pushing and keep pushing until we get there, and I think we kept doing that tonight."

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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