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Utah Women's Basketball Press Conference Quotes
12/1/2015 12:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 1, 2015
Utah Head Coach Lynne Roberts
Weekly Press Conference
Dec. 1, 2015
Listen to the Nov. 30 Coach's Show
Opening statement:
"We're coming off of a trip to the Bahamas where we played Oklahoma, a top-25 team, and then Boston College, an ACC team. We played pretty well against Oklahoma. They're a tremendous program. I have so much respect for them. They've consistently been in the national spotlight for 15 to 20 years. That was a good 'lace 'em up and play somebody great' opportunity for us to see where we are. We hung in there and then they threw a knockout punch in the fourth quarter and beat us. We felt, players and staff included, that we always want to win but we competed. Sometimes when you get beat but you compete, you still feel okay. The next night, we played a very good Boston College team. They're 5-1 right now. I have a lot of respect for them. I've known their staff for a long time. I don't feel as though we competed. We didn't give them our best shot. We didn't play to our ability. As I've said, you never want to lose, but to lose when you feel like you didn't play very well is even worse. We certainly have a lot to work on and a lot to learn from. You can learn a lot from losing. I hate to do so, but we've certainly been learning. We're five games in. The process is very young for our program, in terms of learning the system. We'll be fine, but there is definitely a learning curve and now we prepare for a couple games here at home."
On her team handling adversity:
"I think we're okay. My philosophy in coaching is that you have to not get too high and not get too low. Those were two good teams we played on the road. Did we play our best? Probably not. They would probably say they didn't play their best, either. It's still early in the season. It's not a reason to panic or freak out. That starts with me and it will trickle down. It certainly is a wakeup call, though, in terms of that we have to get better in certain areas. I would have liked to have seen a little more toughness on the road playing back-to-back nights, just mental toughness. We caved a little too easily. We're fine with the adversity, but I do think we can toughen up a little bit."
On her team's turnover numbers in the Junkanoo Jam:
"The turnover numbers were not good. That was something we worked on a lot in practice yesterday. Equally as damaging as a turnover is a bad shot. Oftentimes a bad shot, meaning a quick, guarded or rushed shot, is like a turnover because it turns into a great shot for other teams. It's not only about taking care of the ball, but we have to take better shots, in terms of shot selection. A lot of that is the new system. It's not a scripted play. It's more of a read and react system so the players are learning. Mistakes will come with that learning curve. I'm okay with that as a coach, but some of the mistakes we made, traveling, carelessness and shot selection, are things we can fix."
On CSUN:
"I'm very familiar with them. When I was at Pacific, for a few years we were in the Big West Conference with them. They've won the Big West the last two years in the regular season. They're a good team. They graduated some seniors last year, but the culture and program is in place. They've had a tough schedule. They just beat Penn State, which is a good win, and they played Georgia tough. They're going to be good. I know they're well coached. They play hard. They're fearless. They're not afraid to travel and play anybody. They play Southern Utah today so we'll see how that game goes on the road and then they play us on Thursday. We don't over look anyone. We have to compete and improve. Thursday is no different."
On Joeseta Fatuesi:
"Joeseta is a mismatch for other teams. She's so strong and powerful that it's hard. The biggest thing for her is that we have to get her to not foul. Our depth is limited in the post position so Joeseta is playing a little bit of different position than what we thought she would play heading into the season. She's done a nice job. She's learning, too. She is such a mismatch for opposing teams so as a staff we want to be in a position to make teams decide how they are going to defend her. She's doing a good job. She's learning and figuring it out. For us to win games, she's going to have to contribute for sure."
On her team out-rebounding opponents in every game this season:
"That's something I hammer home to the team every day. I still don't think [our rebounding] is where it needs to be. If you want to win games and win championships, you have to be a rebounding team. It's hard to score if you don't have the ball. If you give teams second-chance opportunities off offensive rebounds, you're going to lose games. I know we've out-rebounded our opponents, but I know we can do better and I want to do better. I encourage the team to rebound better in practice every day."
On the benefit of facing No. 21/24 Oklahoma early in the season:
"Oklahoma has tremendous size. The previous games we played, we were just bigger than everyone else so we just controlled the game through that. Oklahoma was just as big as we were if not bigger on the perimeter so they used their length really well. They didn't get out and pressure us. They just used their length to clog gaps and make the attacking lanes difficult. I just wanted to see how we matched up with that size and see how we competed against equal size. It was a very Pac-12-like game, which was good preparation because the Pac-12 is a very big conference with a lot of size and athleticism and Oklahoma is like that. Oklahoma would be a top team in the Pac-12. It was a good game for us to see where we can compete and where we have to get better against those types of teams. We learned from that and we can definitely pull from that as we get into Pac-12 play."
On effort to revitalize the home-court advantage of the Huntsman Center:
"We can't do any better than 3-0 at home, right? We certainly want to protect our home court and we've made it a big point of emphasis for our players in terms of that teams have to come in here and play at elevation, against our style of play so we wanted to make that something they bought into and they have. We want to continue protecting the home court. CSUN will give us a test and then we play Creighton at home on Wednesday of next week (Dec. 9 at 7 p.m. MT) and [Creighton] is very good. We'll get tested. We have to compete in every game this year and just fight like crazy."
On the development of freshman point guard Erika Bean:
"Erika Bean is coming along. As I've said, with freshman there is always a learning curve. Everything is new and there is a lot to take in going from high school to the physical and mental intensity of Pac-12 basketball. There's always an adjustment curve. As a point guard, you really can't hide. Erika is the backup point guard to Danielle Rodriguez so she's learning from Dani, which is great to have a senior in front of you who can learn from. With the way the games went, Erika got a little more run than she had been getting and I always tell players that whatever opportunity you get, take it and run with it and Erika did. She got to play a little bit more. She did a really good job. She's continuing to learn. She has great vision. She can hit that advancing, high-lead pass. She's coming along. Again, we're not super deep so someone like her playing a good chunk of minutes really helps us."
On establishing the team's identity:
"It's still a work in progress. They're buying into the competing component of it. We just had a little big of a slip up against Boston College, but I'm proud of the fact that they're fighting a little more. That would be what I hope our identity can be, it doesn't matter who we're playing we're going to fight like crazy and compete together. It's still a work in progress. Hopefully by January, we'll have our identity ironed out. In future years, by now we'd start to figure it out, but because everything is so new, the players are learning, we're learning the players and what we're capable of, all of it is still a work in progress."
On starting her weekly Coach's Show on ESPN 700:
"The Coach's Show was fun, it really was. It will be on ESPN 700 every Monday night during the season at 7 p.m., we had some calls in and some tweeted questions. I look forward to doing it every week and just getting ourselves out there. A big goal of mine for this program is that I want our program to be in the community and be relevant, I haven't been very shy in expressing this. I don't see any reason why we can't do that. It starts with us. It starts with me getting myself out there, getting our program out there and most importantly getting our players out there. These are great student-athletes. If people were aware of them, they'd see them, get to know them and watch them play, they'd really enjoy the experience. I think it's going well. Our attendance numbers are slowly increasing and we're getting a lot of kids and families into games and that's the idea. I'm happy with where we're at, but we still have a long way to go."
Players Mentioned
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