OU-Iowa State Postgame Quotes

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Iowa State vs Oklahoma - February 4, 2015

Opening Comment:
“First, I would just like to express my appreciation to Bill Fennelly and Iowa State for agreeing to play this 10:30 tip on a Wednesday morning. It's a little bit odd. It's a tough circumstance, I know, for a team that travels. It's even more bizarre than it is for us. We just appreciate him working with us to help grow the game and get future generations of little girls excited about women's basketball. It's always a challenge to compete against an Iowa State team. They are so well-coached and they play their strengths so well and that was our gameplan, to try to take away their strengths. That's easier said than done. I thought for the most part we adhered to the gameplan and tried to limit threes and until late… early and late… in the middle we were fantastic. Early and late, not so good but that's the difference in the game.”

On having everyone contribute:
“Well, I just think we played more like ourselves today than we have. The ball moved, everybody wanted the ball, shot selection was really good, defensively, we adhered to the gameplan better, just all of those little things that kind of got a little ways away from us the last week. I think Kay Kay (Kaylon Williams) with four assists and no turnovers… that would be the stat, that's the one that caught my eye immediately when I looked at the stat sheet after the game. She was getting doubled and making great decisions and teams can't continue to do that if she is making great decisions. She did and I thought she really responded in the second half.”

On if she felt Iowa State was playing one-on-five with Nikki Moody scoring 30 points:
“No, I didn't look at it that way. We rolled the dice a little bit. We were going to stay at home on her penetration. If she got two, she got two. We weren't going to help off of those shooters and had we helped off those shooters, the other guys would have scored some. We just rolled the dice with that and tried to turn her into a two-point maker and not a three-point maker. She is a great player. Late in the game, she hit a jumper that was defended about as well as you could defend it. I don't know what you do. You just kind of say 'Okay, that was a great play. Next. Let's take the ball out of bounds and go'. I think kudos to her.”

On passing up open threes early in the shot clock:
“Yeah, I struggled with the decision, but I made the decision to pass up open threes early in the shot clock. When they came back again, single digits, let them fly. Only layups or openings in the paint until then, just so that we could manage the time so it would be impossible to come back. I think of the one that Gioya (Carter) passed up on the far wing. You never know, but in my gut I feel like if she shoots that, she makes it. She passed it up trying to do what I asked her to do and then missed the next one and sort of felt a little bit robotic, a little bit rigid after that. That's part of what you have to learn how to do as a team. You have to learn where that is, you have to be able to stay aggressive and you have to manage the game at the same time. The thing that we haven't mastered yet as a young team is the ability to just really step on somebody and we haven't yet. We had them at 17 or 18, even 20, and let them creep back in. We have to do a better job of keeping the hammer down. Sometimes that is as simple as defensive discipline and not fouling so they get free throws without time coming off of the clock. Sometimes it's pulling down a key rebound after you get them to take a bad shot. There are a lot of things that go into that, but that's one area where we have to improve.”

On if Sharane Campbell-Olds is going through a scoring funk:
“I thought she was really good today. She took shots that she needed to take and passed up shots that would have been a force or a settle. Rebounding the ball, she was fantastic and defensively she did a great job. I would say she has been pressing a little bit, but I didn't see any of it today.”

Oklahoma Players

RS-Junior Forward Kaylon Williams

On the atmosphere:
“That was awesome. I loved it because I love kids – just the energy that they bring to everything they do. They get excited about everything. They were dancing, they were having fun, they were learning, having a good time. It was great. It was just a great day and like Coach (Coale) said it was a great opportunity for those young basketball players in there to go get excited about women's basketball and take the steps they need to take to be where we are in a few years.”

RS-Sophomore Guard Peyton Little

On if she felt like she was going to have a good day shooting:
“Yeah, I hadn't been shooting the ball as well in past games but we were moving the ball really well on offense today and all of our shots were open and were good shots.”

On if the team is concentrated on improving right now:
“Yeah, we just want to come in to practice hungry every day and ready to get better game by game and week by week, that's what our goal is”

Freshman Guard Gabbi Ortiz

On if she feels like the team played more like itself today:
“Yeah, we were better connected and we played as a team moving the ball. We were a little stagnant the past couple of games and just didn't have that flow. We had that back and it was fun to play today.”

On if the team felt like it needed to play well with the audience today:
“It never really came across my mind. You want to play well for the kids. They are having a blast already and I think that's one of the reasons why – the atmosphere – but we had fun as well.”

Iowa State Head Coach Bill Fennelly

Opening Statement:

“Oklahoma is obviously an outstanding team. I thought they played really really well. They are a hard team to prepare for because they have a lot of weapons. They played the game the right way. It is tough to beat any team playing one-on-five. We only had one kid show up and I don't care who you play, especially if it is an Oklahoma team on the road, it is tough to win when you have one player who decided to play the game the way you are supposed to. Nikki (Moody) was great; she kept us in the game but got zero help, which was disappointing.”

On trying to push back into the game:

“Mainly shots. We missed more shots, more layups, than these kids probably do in their elementary school games. You cannot miss front-ends one-on-one and you cannot miss layups. When you are playing a team who can really score the ball like Oklahoma, you sometimes cannot get a stop and so you have to score with them. There were times were they let us go to the basket because they did not want to get a foul and we missed it. Every time we kind of got into a working margin we would miss a shot or they would hit a shot at the end of the shot clock, or something like that. That has been a thing for us we have to make shots. We have really struggled to make them the last couple games.”

On Nikki Moody's performance:

“No, I was definitely surprised by it. We had two good days of practice and I thought we were ready to go. I thought we just really had a hard time getting going and some of our kids missed shots early that took them out of it a little bit. You never know what you are going to get. Every time I go to Hilton my guy who is always parking the cars always asks, 'Coach, what about tonight?' and you never know. That's what happens when you deal with 18-22- year-olds. I do want to say that the time of the game, the atmosphere of the game, had nothing to do with it. We have both played at the same time, same situation; that had nothing to do with it. Lets get that out there right away. We got beat by a better team today. We got beat by a better team. The team beat the one. That is the great thing about basketball.”