TCU vs. No. 14 Texas Postgame Quotes
2/1/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Opening statement
"Obviously, we have a lot of respect for Texas. They are a team in our conference that beat three top-10 teams in the country. I thought they challenged extremely hard in their non-conference schedule, and they are not afraid of a challenge. They had some adversity in losing an incredible player, and I think Texas is a team that will continue to find its way and represent our conference in postseason play really well. I'm really proud of my team, and I thought they played with a lot of joy. You will make mistakes, but you have to just play with confidence and as a unit. They did that very well. Everyone had important roles to play. KB [Klara Bradshaw] did well in the paint and Chelsea [Prince] had a lot of confidence as well."
On TCU's unorthodox offensive set
"I think basketball is really heading in a direction where there are no positions. We don't even call our posts "posts"; we call them pivots. I think when you embrace that everyone has a responsibility in winning possessions, not one person can stop Big 12 players one-on-one. We changed the defenses a lot to make them uncomfortable. I think they did that great. Klara did a nice job in the paint, and Veja was physical. We just had a lot of people contribute to that game plan defensively."
On what TCU did defensively to come out with the win
"Because we had so much flexibility in our matchups, I don't think any Texas player felt confident in who was guarding them. Texas is just very good and they have some young guards who will continue to grow and get better. We were fortunate to turn them over 25 times, which is uncharacteristic of them."
On Klara Bradshaw's role with the team
"One of the best things about Klara's game that I'm proud of is that she put two good performances together that replicated what you saw in the last game. You come in, practice, earn your minutes and wins in practice. It's your consistency and trust with coaches that you will perform that way in games. KB is a good example of that."
TCU forward Chelsea Prince
On how she was able to make an impact defensively
"I think a lot of it came on the defensive side of the post. Sometimes they threw it and I went with my instinct to get to them."
On the defensive preparation TCU has embraced
"It's exciting to know we did that, but like I said, if we knew we could do it every night we would. It's crazy. I just think that with the 19 steals, it helped us offensively in getting stops back to back. We have a drill where you have to play perfect defense. When they got it in, and they did because they are big, we couldn't let that get us down."
On what was in her head as she shot the go-ahead three-pointer with a minute left
"I wasn't even thinking about it. I just had it so I shot it."
On how the team prepares for each opponent
"We respect everyone and don't look past anyone. Fear is a different word, it's more of respect."
TCU center Klara Bradshaw
On how she judged her performance in the win
"I definitely do think this was my best defensive effort. Before the game, I knew this was going to be a big game for us and we had to come out on top. I wasn't thinking about getting a certain number of points and rebounds, just that the ball was going to get in my hands in some way."
Texas head coach Karen Aston
Opening statement
"Tons of credit to TCU as far as sticking with the game plan, which was to drag our big's out from a defensive perspective. They do what they do, and they do it well. They play hard and scramble a lot. I thought in the first half, we played well defensively but we turned it over 15 times. Our decision-making was awry, and at this point we need to go back home and go to the drawing board again."
On the team's effort
"It's hard to explain. We went over this in practice yesterday, and we turned it over a lot then. We played like we practiced. This team has been very frustrated in a sense that they can't seem to sustain what they do the day before the game. We don't sustain play in minutes. We have a four-point game and we have some stops, then we go down and don't execute. It's been a frustrating thing all year long. We tried the best we could to prepare them for what this game would be like, but there were way too many turnovers."
On where the offense's struggles came from
"The press. A lot of it was coming from behind us in transition and the unawareness on our part that they were still on the court. They had nine turnovers, and that's not being tough on the ball. TCU is scrappy and knows what they have to do. You have to be tougher than we were today."
On how TCU players have changed going into the season
"They just do a great job at doing what they do. I don't think they have any true posts. Veja [Hamilton] is much improved and she's a nice player, but I wouldn't call her a post. She's a stretched four. She's really improved a lot, and [Chelsea] Prince has improved on three-point shooting. They do what they can without having a lot of post players. They stretch the floor against us. We had close to 40 points in the paint, but turnovers were the difference in the game."
Texas center Imani McGee-Stafford
On her performance
"I'm not happy with my stat line. I had four turnovers. It's what coach said, I couldn't do it in the paint."
On what contributed to the outcome of the game
"I don't want to say it's careless, we just have to get better. They didn't hear us calling stuff and it's detail things. I don't think anyone's trying to turn the ball over."
