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2:00 PM
Women's Basketball
vs Arizona State
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The University of Utah Athletics
Lynne Roberts Weekly Press Conference: Jan. 8, 2019
1/8/2019 4:39 PM | Women's Basketball
Opening Statement…
"We are coming off of an interesting weekend. We got a split at home. We lost literally at the buzzer against Arizona State on Friday night. It was a tough, physical and hard fought game. I thought we played pretty dang well and Arizona State is good. They are ranked in the top-20. We were up six with a minute to go and to their credit, they came back and kind of stole it. They hit an unbelievable shot at the buzzer, just banked it in. Losing stinks, no matter which was you do it. I hate losing, but losing that way is the hardest. And then we find out on Saturday morning that Daneesha Provo, our second-leading scorer, captain of the team, tore her ACL in the third quarter. When I saw it happen I kind of had a hunch of what it was. So, it was a tough Saturday to try and bounce back from that loss. It felt like it kind of slipped through our hands and then to realize that Daneesha is out for the year was tough."
"It was a hard 36 hours and then we had to turn around and play Arizona on Sunday. They had won 11 games in a row and they have one of the best players in the country. We just talked about that this is what life is about and this is what sports are about and that no one is going to feel sorry for us and that we just have to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps. To come out Sunday and play the way we did, I was incredibly proud of my team. We were up 30 in the third quarter and ended up winning by 16 because we kind of took our foot off the gas because we were kind of out of gas. It was an incredible effort from the kids that are redshirting to the guys that were out there. We convincingly beat a really good Arizona team. So it was kind of an up and down weekend, but showed a little bit of our character and our culture coming through. Now, like anything in this league, there is no rest for the weary and we just have to buckle up and head to Washington State for Friday and Seattle on Sunday against Washington.
On how they will regroup after being down to just eight players for the season…
"Losing Daneesha was hard, but also the way we lost was really hard, it was just a gut punch. It took a lot to just kind of dig down and recover from both of those things. But like I talked to our team about yesterday is that this is our group. Daneesha is not going to limp in here and play in two weeks. In the Pac-12 we lost three really good players to ACL between us, Oregon State and Stanford. It was kind of crazy. So hopefully, Sunday gave us some confidence in our ability and hopefully we won't be as emotionally down and that hard to kind of muster the fortitude that we needed to on Sunday because this is our group. So do we have to reshuffle? Yeah of course, we are losing someone that was averaging 28 minutes a game. But we went through every player on the roster and we talked about what Daneesha brought to our team and how each one of them can help pick up the slack. You don't replace one player like that and just slide someone in. When you remove a great player like that, then everybody needs to compete to pick up a little of the slack. Maybe Kiana Moore does a little more on the defensive side of the ball by guarding the opponent's best player or maybe Niyah Becker gets more minutes at the wing to do some of the rebounding that Daneesha was doing. You just have to piece it together because everybody is going to have to help pick up the slack."
On Megan Huff's plus-minus statistics…
"She is just so good. I don't remember which game it was, but she was like plus-38. For those of us that aren't stat geeks like I am, when she was on the floor we were outscoring the opponent by 38 points. She is just incredibly efficient. So you try to be smart about subbing. There is kind of an art form and there are two things that matter when you sub and that is momentum and fatigue. So if there is momentum with a group out there, they are going to stay in or if momentum is going the wrong way, you sub in to try and get momentum going the other way. So with Huffy, very rarely is momentum going in the wrong direction, however it is hard to not give her rest in 40 minutes."
On making sure the team isn't getting complacent…
"This is a really special group in terms of the fact that it isn't about them. It is about us doing things as a team in the Pac-12 that Utah women's basketball has not done. We've done amazing things with this program in the Mountain West with Sweet 16s and Elite Eight appearances, but we haven't done a whole lot nationally since we've been in the Pac-12. So we have recruited to find players that want to be the reason that things start to go differently. No one is here to have a great non-conference and go 11-0, we are all here to do things in the Pac-12 that we haven't been able to do, so they are as motivated as ever. It has been cool to see how consistent this group is. Whether we win a big game, win by a lot, someone gets player of the week or freshman of the week, there is not any strutting around, which is refreshing. It tells me that we have recruited the right type of players"
"We are coming off of an interesting weekend. We got a split at home. We lost literally at the buzzer against Arizona State on Friday night. It was a tough, physical and hard fought game. I thought we played pretty dang well and Arizona State is good. They are ranked in the top-20. We were up six with a minute to go and to their credit, they came back and kind of stole it. They hit an unbelievable shot at the buzzer, just banked it in. Losing stinks, no matter which was you do it. I hate losing, but losing that way is the hardest. And then we find out on Saturday morning that Daneesha Provo, our second-leading scorer, captain of the team, tore her ACL in the third quarter. When I saw it happen I kind of had a hunch of what it was. So, it was a tough Saturday to try and bounce back from that loss. It felt like it kind of slipped through our hands and then to realize that Daneesha is out for the year was tough."
"It was a hard 36 hours and then we had to turn around and play Arizona on Sunday. They had won 11 games in a row and they have one of the best players in the country. We just talked about that this is what life is about and this is what sports are about and that no one is going to feel sorry for us and that we just have to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps. To come out Sunday and play the way we did, I was incredibly proud of my team. We were up 30 in the third quarter and ended up winning by 16 because we kind of took our foot off the gas because we were kind of out of gas. It was an incredible effort from the kids that are redshirting to the guys that were out there. We convincingly beat a really good Arizona team. So it was kind of an up and down weekend, but showed a little bit of our character and our culture coming through. Now, like anything in this league, there is no rest for the weary and we just have to buckle up and head to Washington State for Friday and Seattle on Sunday against Washington.
On how they will regroup after being down to just eight players for the season…
"Losing Daneesha was hard, but also the way we lost was really hard, it was just a gut punch. It took a lot to just kind of dig down and recover from both of those things. But like I talked to our team about yesterday is that this is our group. Daneesha is not going to limp in here and play in two weeks. In the Pac-12 we lost three really good players to ACL between us, Oregon State and Stanford. It was kind of crazy. So hopefully, Sunday gave us some confidence in our ability and hopefully we won't be as emotionally down and that hard to kind of muster the fortitude that we needed to on Sunday because this is our group. So do we have to reshuffle? Yeah of course, we are losing someone that was averaging 28 minutes a game. But we went through every player on the roster and we talked about what Daneesha brought to our team and how each one of them can help pick up the slack. You don't replace one player like that and just slide someone in. When you remove a great player like that, then everybody needs to compete to pick up a little of the slack. Maybe Kiana Moore does a little more on the defensive side of the ball by guarding the opponent's best player or maybe Niyah Becker gets more minutes at the wing to do some of the rebounding that Daneesha was doing. You just have to piece it together because everybody is going to have to help pick up the slack."
On Megan Huff's plus-minus statistics…
"She is just so good. I don't remember which game it was, but she was like plus-38. For those of us that aren't stat geeks like I am, when she was on the floor we were outscoring the opponent by 38 points. She is just incredibly efficient. So you try to be smart about subbing. There is kind of an art form and there are two things that matter when you sub and that is momentum and fatigue. So if there is momentum with a group out there, they are going to stay in or if momentum is going the wrong way, you sub in to try and get momentum going the other way. So with Huffy, very rarely is momentum going in the wrong direction, however it is hard to not give her rest in 40 minutes."
On making sure the team isn't getting complacent…
"This is a really special group in terms of the fact that it isn't about them. It is about us doing things as a team in the Pac-12 that Utah women's basketball has not done. We've done amazing things with this program in the Mountain West with Sweet 16s and Elite Eight appearances, but we haven't done a whole lot nationally since we've been in the Pac-12. So we have recruited to find players that want to be the reason that things start to go differently. No one is here to have a great non-conference and go 11-0, we are all here to do things in the Pac-12 that we haven't been able to do, so they are as motivated as ever. It has been cool to see how consistent this group is. Whether we win a big game, win by a lot, someone gets player of the week or freshman of the week, there is not any strutting around, which is refreshing. It tells me that we have recruited the right type of players"
Players Mentioned
W
/ Women's Basketball
F
/ Women's Basketball
G
/ Women's Basketball
W
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