University of Connecticut Athletics
Quotes: UConn 92, USF 50
1/18/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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On the defense's performance today:
"We take a lot of pride in what we do defensively. I thought we made them work for the points they got… I thought our defense in the second half was really good, we rebounded the ball a lot better. Sometimes that gets lost in the shuffle, that we're a pretty good defensive team. What happens when you score points as quickly as we did today is the other team starts to rush because they have to try to get back in the game…I was pretty happy defensively, especially the second half."
On Moriah's performance today:
"There were so many good plays that she made. She just has a really good feel right now for where everything is. She's not forcing anything, she's just playing... You can just tell that she was on her game, and she had a tough job defensively, too. But I think everybody played pretty well, too. It was just one of those games where the entire team played well.
Junior Guard Moriah Jefferson
Team mentality after beating USF:
"I think so, I think we have so many goals within a game and when we don't achieve them it makes a win feel like a loss sometimes. We want to come out and do all the things that are necessary to win. This was a great team win, everyone played well."
On running the fast break:
"She [defender] was staring right at my eyes, I knew I had it. If she was staring at my body it is a little bit harder but when she looks right in my eyes I knew I could look off to Saniya and dumped it off to Tuck for the layup."
Junior Forward Breanna Stewart
On today's victory:
"We knew they were going to come in aggressive and we wanted to hit them first. I think we did that when we started the game and then we just continued to push the tempo the entire game and they got tired and couldn't stay with us."
On second half defense
"We really wanted to pick up our defense and stop them from offensive rebounding and that was our mindset going into the second half. We wanted to limit those because that's where most of their points come from."
Redshirt Sophomore Morgan Tuck
On team defense
"I think our defense was good, we gave up a lot of offensive rebounds in the first half but we just have to make sure that our focus remains on defense, our offense picks up when we are good on defense."
"She is just high energy, she gets everyone's attention. The way she plays is high energy and she is always working so hard. I think because of those things she is a great person to look to."
USF head coach Jose Fernandez
Opening Statement
"I can tell you something. I didn't think we would come up here and be beat by 42. We've taken worse teams up here and that hasn't happened. We were down by 18 at the half. Turnovers weren't an issue. I thought we did a great job on the glass. They just killed us in transition in the first half. They got great looks in the open floor. Our concern was the glass, transition defense and the turnovers. We did a good job in the first half taking care of the ball. We only had six turnovers and it was 15-9 on the offensive glass in our favor. I think we just gave them too many open looks in transition. We defended from inside to outside, but were in too many gray areas."
On Connecticut's defense, holding them without a field goal for almost eight minutes:
"I think our guys got rattled and there were some things that I wanted us to work on too. At that point the game is out of reach, so you want to see guys sprinting the floor...A team like this, you can't give them extra possessions. Our transition defense was very, very poor."
On Moriah Jefferson:
"I've always been a very, very big fan because she plays so hard and she makes plays. She had a very good first half with the assignment of guarding Courtney Williams. She's also having to set the table and the tempo while also guarding our best player. She's made them go. Last year I thought she was the most improved player."
