TCU Postgame Quotes vs. Texas
1/20/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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TCU Head Coach Raegan Pebley
Opening Statement:
"Definitely we take no moral victories in our program because the belief that we have and the effort that these women put worth and preparing is championship level. But we know that we lost this game because we didn't get D-boards at the end and we did not execute well enough and that ultimately caused turnovers and contested shots. I think right now with having two more experienced players like Jada and Caitlin fouling out who are two of our better players at executing and in the same position, both of them play our three and our fourth position, and that forces us to play smaller and a player to play out of position it caused a lack of execution. But when our team comes out and plays with that type of effort, I am proud of them and we are a team right now that I believe we have so much going for us. We are in a very similar spot I think to last year, only at this point we have been able to sweep Texas Tech but last year we spilt with them, so we have to keep working and keep things in perspective and we can't be on a roller coaster in the Big 12, you have got to stay at 35,000 feet."
Combating the fact that this is the third team where TCU leads majority of the game but loses in the last half:
"We just keep working at getting better at it, it is hard to create those situations in practice. With that exact type of intensity, and competing against that level of competition. But we have to remain humble, know that you made your mistakes and stay hungry to want to improve on those and stay confident that you can finish these games and you will finish these games. It is part of a process of developing a program that is going to go from good to great, it won't happen overnight you have to go through these experiences."
Jordan Moore's Performance:
"We have younger players who are gaining that experience, especially Jordan Moore, I think when she was in there she frustrated Texas. But fatigue for her continues to be an issue for her, we have to work on helping her too sustain more minutes but I think Zahna and AJ and other players out there are giving her the ball when she is working for positioning and I think one day she will develop into the type of player that Imani is. Remember that Imani is a senior and Jordan is a freshmen. So she will continue to improve."
Destynee's Performance:
"I think she really competed and again I think her experience shows. She is a fifth year player, she came from a conference where she had to play UConn consistently and multiple times a year, so she understands the elevated level of play and a good sense of self so she is not as easily frustrated. And if she does get frustrated, she elevates her physical effort even more, so she has just created and helped us so much with the depth in the post and has helped us get better." Veja's Performance of hitting a lot of shots just short or hitting rim: "They only way I know how to help her outside of mechanics' is that you have to get out of the gym and practice shots. That is how you build confidence by work, you don't find the confidence in the game, and you find it in the gym in yourself when no one is looking."
TCU Guard Zahna Medley
What can TCU pull from the last three games to improve the team:
"We just have to finish at the end of the games, like she said (Coach Pebley) we got out rebounded towards the end of the game, and that is the reason why we lost. And also execution is a major factor, so just rebounding and execution." Offensive performance off of rebounds or turnovers: "It is a lot easier in transition because they are on their heels and you're going to have advantages of three's on two's and two's on one's, including fast breaks so they are not going to have defense set up when you're getting rebounds off missed shots or turnovers." Zahna's decision to challenge Imani: "I figured that I could pump-faked that she would go for my shot and block, so I was just trying to go into her arms to get a foul call hopefully but it did not go like that."
Passing Coach Brown's points:
"It is definitely exciting but we did not get the win so I am not really focused on that right now but it is exciting and I am so thankful to be where I am and to have a coach like her."
TCU Guard AJ Alix
Texas Performance of 14 turnovers in the first half and 2 in the second half: "We came into the game with energy and we trusted our defensive game plan but second half we kind of got away from it and did not rebound. But we just got to come back."
Texas Head Coach Karen Aston
Opening statement: "I'm really pleased with the fact that we won the basketball game. You can overanalyze road games way too much in the Big 12, and TCU is a really good basketball team that is a difficult guard for us as everyone could see in the first half. I thought we locked down with our fundamentals a little bit better in the second half and just made better decisions. We didn't turn the ball over much at all in the second half and that was sort of our thorn in our side in the first half. Big game obviously by Imani, and I thought our guards hit some big shots in the second half that opened some things up for us.
On having 14 turnovers in the first half and only two in the second:
"It was a pretty big one [topic during half time] because we talked about the different games within the game which we do a lot, and obviously possessions is a big deal for our team because we're shooting the ball really well. Game after game we've consistently shot a better percentage than our opponent yet there's some games where we hand them the ball and lose our possession gain. So we talked about that. We did a much better job of post players handling the ball better. Our point guards had some uncharacteristic turnovers I thought in the first half, and they settled in."
On her players in the second half:
"They got much more engaged in the second half. You could tell they did not want to lose."
On the second half change:
"I really thought the difference in the second half was our help side in general. Ariel [Atkins] made a big play on help side, Brie Taylor made several plays. I really think that Imani's presence has been there, but we've sort of gotten away from other people being in the right place just because we've almost gotten spoiled a little bit with Imani blocking shots, so I thought in the second half really the people that made a lot of the plays were other players instead of her, she made some but we got the other people in the right place today in the second half. Honestly I thought the difference for us was closing out the first half too. We had a segment of time where we had the two bigs in together and I thought that it sort of relaxed us a little bit when we started scoring some points and getting a few stops, so that was actually I thought a really big part of the game also. Because it was kind of getting away from us a little bit."
UT Senior Center Imani Boyette
On last season compared to this season:
"I think we all were aware of the opportunities we squandered last season, so we just tried to make sure we refocused and came into this game. They're a great team and we knew they were going to play hard, they always play hard. We just had to make sure we focused on the details and got back to playing our type of basketball."
On TCU's defense:
"I think they did a great job of making it hard for my guards to see me and making me work for positions, so I was trying to make sure I was a presence regardless of if I got the ball."
On her performance:
"I was just trying to be in the right place and I just happened to be on help side. My teammates made sure to look at me on the other end."
On TCU:
"I think we've got to give credit to TCU, they came out and played hard."
UT Sophomore Guard Ariel Atkins
On team talk in tough moments:
"We definitely talk to each other. Like coach said, it's up to us I personally think at that point to pull each other together. So we really just tried to pull together and figure it out."
On Texas' turnovers:
"To have 14 in the first half and to come out and have two I think was focus."
