OU-Oklahoma State Postgame Quotes

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Head Coach Sherri Coale
Opening Comment:
“I appreciate our team's effort. It was a total team effort. We had four guys in double figures. Defensively, it was another really, really solid job of adhering to the scout and taking away personal tendencies. I thought their zone slowed us down and made it kind of ugly for a little bit, but Gioya (Carter), to start the second half, kind of broke that open. Except for those rebounding numbers I'm pretty pleased with tonight, or the day, or the afternoon. What was it?”

On today being more of a defensive effort:
“Yeah, I thought the thing we did the best job of was limiting (Liz) Donohoe and (Brittney) Martin's touches. They are both a handful to guard so what we tried to do was deny as much as possible and make the ball go somewhere else. It felt like they had very few catches, especially in the first half. Then, I think Maddie's (Manning) length bothered Liz a little bit. I thought early in the second half Martin made a basket and I thought 'Uh oh, here we go', but then again we came back and denied her the opportunity to receive it and it kind of took them out of what they like to do.”

On what has gotten into Gioya Carter over the last several games:
“Gioya's playing, again, I'll say it, Gioya is playing at the right speed. She has just slowed down a little bit. She has a tremendous mid-range jumper that's very difficult to defend and if you take that away, then she will you tear you up passing the ball, which is really what she likes to do anyway. She is just in a good space and she is allowing herself to stay on the floor by not committing silly fouls, which gives her some timing and she gets lost in the flow.”

On the bench providing energy at different times:
“And different bench members. Derica (Wyatt) is a zone buster. She is. That's hard to do. You have been sitting there a long time, you come into the game, and the first time you touch it you nail a 3 from the corner. That's really hard to do and that was a big basket for us. It changed them. They wanted to go back into man the second she came into the game because she does stretch defenses that way. I think that's, ultimately, the great gift of this team is the quality of depth on the bench.”

On if a dominant run like this happens very often:
“Oh, I don't know, I don't really look at it like that. I know that's the job that you guys have but for us we're on the inside looking at how many times we miss block outs and what we have to do to get more offensive rebounds, how we can execute tighter and cleaner. There are just so many little things that we are focused on. I like the growth, the rate of growth, for this team. Individuals keep growing up and then collectively we grow as a result of that. It's just fun to be a part of. There is plenty of room still, but it's nice to see them rewarded for their diligence.”

“Before we go, I just want to say shout out to Steven Jones. He is one of our premier fans. He lost his mom earlier this year and this was a game that he loved like no other. I came up the tunnel looking for Steven and hoping he would be here. I don't know if he got to come today or not, but he is a precious soul so he is enjoying this victory. I just wanted to say a shout out to him.”

Sophomore Guard Gioya Carter
On what the right speed is for her:
“When I catch the ball I look at my defender, I see if I've got a lane, if I can skip it out to somebody. If I catch the ball, just slowing down and seeing what my options are. And if I don't have the ball, trying to move and cut.”

On if she focuses more on a few specific things when she has the ball now:
“I think when I used to catch it I just used to go 100 miles per hour. I used to just catch it and go so I think now I'm just catching it and I'm looking.”

On if it took a while to figure out the speed of a college game:
“I think so. And just trusting myself to know that I have the ability to do certain things.”

On if there are still times she finds herself playing too fast:
“Yeah, I think I kind of got sped up at the beginning of the game. Sometimes Coach (Sherri) Coale reminds me to swing the ball and make something happen. I thought at the beginning of the game I was a little bit sped up, so it's a process but I think I'm getting better every day.”

On struggling with speed in high school or if it was a new problem at OU:
“Definitely a new problem. In high school I was faster than everybody else, I could jump higher than everybody else, so it was definitely a new problem when I got to OU.”

Redshirt Sophomore Guard Peyton Little
On what it's like to come out and play well from the start:
“Yeah, we talked about it in the locker room before halftime. We said we really wanted to come out in the second half and really put our foot on them and get that space and just continue to score and do what we do.”

On feeling good about her offensive game:
“I think sometimes I shoot the ball to make it instead of just shooting it. My teammates were able to find me tonight and I was able to get some shots.”

On what it feels like having multiple players producing well:
“I feel like it's really good. We have a lot of people that can contribute. Not just us three (Little, Carter, Williams), anyone can come in and it can be anybody's night. I feel like we are all great players and we've been showing up.

Redshirt Junior Forward Kaylon Williams
On if she expects good things to happen when she comes out on the floor for the first time:
“Well, I think that we made a group decision toward Christmas break that we wanted to put two halves together and put in the first four minutes and last four minutes of each half and I think that was a big thing for us. When we come out the first four minutes and execute, it's a key thing or us to do. If we get that first four minutes then we go from there.”

On the matchup with OSU inside:
“I think that's what I like most about the Big 12 – every team has their own type of post play. It's definitely a lot of fun to prepare for. We have a variety of post players ourselves – Vionise Pierre-Louis – she's more of a thicker body but then you have McKenna Treece and she's more of a finesse player. I think going against those two in practice every day has helped me a lot because I had to really be smart about the matchup and how to go against them because they are two completely different post players.”

On if she feels like she has figured out her foul issues:
“Well, I wouldn't say that just yet. I'm still working on it every day. I think just picking my battles. It's been a goal for myself to keep my feet moving. It's an every day process so let's not hoorah yet because we're still working on it.”

Oklahoma State Head Coach Jim Littell
Opening statement:
“We're obviously going through a difficult time here. We're having some difficulties scoring the basketball. Give OU a lot of credit. They're a team that has a lot of pieces to the puzzle. They've got a good post player that finishes well inside, has nice moves, they can kick it in there. They've got an assortment of shooters. They do a good job of playing transition basketball and obviously they're hitting on all cylinders right now. So we just got to go back to work and realize that this conference is a marathon and not a sprint. There's a lot of basketball games left. We have 12 games left. We have to get back on the practice floor and do better and find a way to score the basketball better. For the most part in the five games we've been pretty decent defensively, but some of our key people aren't making shots right now and that makes it difficult on us to score the basketball.”

On Kaylee Jensen's performance:
“Very positive day for her. For a freshman to come into this environment – a small-town girl from Nebraska that hadn't played in environments like this before – I was very proud of her. She comes to work every day. She's going to get better and better as her career goes on. She wants to be a player and she's one of our players that is a sponge. Every time you're telling her something she's listening to you, she's looking you in the eye, and she is committed to getting better. So we feel like Kaylee is going to be a very nice player for us in the future and just continue to get better.”

On Liz Donohoe not scoring:
“Well she didn't even get many attempts. What did she get, four shots up? We maybe have to do some things to create more shots for her. She's a little beat up right now. We have to try to get her healthy. I didn't think we did as good a job to get her the basketball and I didn't think her movement was as good as it has been in the past. When we go in at halftime and Brittney Martin hasn't scored and Liz Donohoe hasn't scored, we're not equipped to cover those points. Those are two kids that have to score the basketball for us.”

On trying to come back against OU:
“We got back in the game a little bit. And then we didn't have an awareness of seven seconds left on the clock and we saved a ball under our own basket that Sharane Campbell scored. When you play in a tough setting like this you can't make those simple mistakes. And then we started the second half and threw up three or four layups. Credit their defense, but I thought a lot of that was more our carelessness with the basketball. Instead of winning the first four minutes of the second half, cutting [the deficit] from 12 to 6 or 12 to 8, it was a 20-point game. You can't do that on the road. You can't do that anywhere within this lead.”

On OU's Gioya Carter:
“She's a talent. She's an extreme talent that can score in a lot of different ways. The last ballgame against TCU what did she have, six 3s? She can take you off the dribble all the way to the hole. She's probably got the best intermediate game in the Big 12 right now. I'd say she's probably, right now from what I've seen on tape and what we've seen so far, I'd rank her as one of the top two or three players in the Big 12 right now.”

On Brittany Atkins' injury status:
“We aren't allowed to talk too much on injuries. She is going to be examined next week and we'll know more of where she's at. Injuries and illnesses are a part of the game and we've got to be strong enough to have somebody else step up. I thought Katelyn (Loecker) did a nice job of stepping up and coming into the starting lineup. Katelyn is one that is going to continue to get better because of her attitude and effort as well. It goes to the old adage 'the next man up' and everybody goes through injuries and illnesses and you have to have a way to fight through that. Somebody's got to step up.”

On being consistent:
“You can draw up a lot of different things and you can say we didn't defend, we didn't do that, we don't do that. I don't think you have to go any further than us. We are not making any shots. Against West Virginia, our three leading scorers went 10-for-46. We're not going to win games doing that. We just got to have some of those people step up and make open shots. And there's a lot of it you can credit to people's defense, but we went back on video, and we'll go back and look at this video, too. I can name about 10 or 12 open shots off the glass from five or six feet [away from the basket] that if you're going to play with OU on their court, you've got to make them. And we're not making them right now. I'd like to give you some great coaching strategy, but it comes down to being able to make open shots.”

On players stepping up:
“We're searching for a leader right now. It's not only getting in people's face – it's encouraging; it's knowing how to talk to younger players like Kaylee [Jensen] and making them aware of what the Big 12's like. We need to improve in that area of leadership as well.”

Players Mentioned

Gioya Carter

Gioya Carter

Peyton Little

Peyton Little

Vionise Pierre-Louis

Vionise Pierre-Louis

McKenna Treece

McKenna Treece

Kaylon Williams

Kaylon Williams

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