Husky Classic - Washington vs. Arkansas State
November 25, 2007 | Women's Basketball
Nov. 25, 2007
Washington Head Coach Tia Jackson
General Statement:
"It is good to be back home. It's awesome to get the lead real early. For us, the ladies really stuck with the game plan which was awesome. We knew that Arkansas State was going to be an aggressive driving team so we wanted to limit that by going into our zone and playing a sagging man. We did that, we executed it to perfection. I love the effort that the ladies put out there today. We came out with the victory."
On the difference between the first and second halves:
"Arkansas State is a good team. I don't think they were expecting us to do what we did. A credit to their coaching staff who made adjustments. They started to attack us much more aggressively. I shared that with our players to make sure that we were ready to get to positions quickly defensively. Arkansas State is a good team, their RPI ranking is about 100. They're a good team. My hat goes off to the adjustment the coach made in the second half."
On Arkansas State closing the gap in the second half:
"Our ladies never said die. I watched Arkansas State come back from 15 against BYU to win the game. I saw them come back against Weber State the other day down by ten and they came back to win that game by 10 or 12. They rely a lot on their defensive pressure and that's what got in our way a little bit. Then we just had to settle down. We let their defense dictate our pace and we wanted to just slow down and take control of the game. We eventually did that, it took a little longer than I'd hoped, but we did it, we executed and we won."
On Washington's 17-2 run:
"They took shots that they don't normally take. They took a lot of 3's. This is a driving, penetrating team. They only have one shooter. That is it. So when they were starting to hit threes I told my staff, `If they win on threes, they deserve to.' I watched tons of tape, I watched their stats. That was not their strength. And you saw what happened. The only one who began to hit, which I was mad about, was number 25. And she should not have gotten open looks anywhere in the gym."
On Washington's lineup:
"Knowing they were going to press, I liked the lineup. I wanted to make sure we had ball handling power to take care of their press. It worked for us. The person who ended up really contributing off the bench for us was Sara Mosiman. She came in and was finding things on the back side of the press that was really beneficial."
On expecting to see a zone defense:
"If we see another Arkansas State we will, absolutely. Since November 10, we've played seven games. That's like a game every other day. Our ladies were a little tired. It was beneficial for us for a lot of reasons....Every other day we've been playing a game. That's a lot of basketball for these young ladies. We're down in bodies, so we had to find a way to rest them throughout the game."
Washington Players
Sophomore Sami Whitcomb
On winning back-to-back for the first time this season:
"I think it is really good particularly because we don't have all of our players. We played some good teams in this tournament so we feel more confident, with ourselves and with each other. This week we are looking to build of these wins and the progress that we've made."
On Arkansas State coming back in the second half:
"That's typical of them. We knew that they were going to come out strong. This team has come back from greater deficits and won games like this. We knew they were going to be fired up and they weren't going to quit. They had a bit more momentum in the second half than we did and we got caught up in turnovers. Once we got over that we were okay."
Senior Emily Florence
On turnovers:
"It was a little bit frustrating because turnovers are something we've been working on. We've had a bunch in the last few games so we definitely need to take care of the ball better. It was nerve-wracking though, but I wasn't worried because we had a big lead. We have smart basketball players so I knew we would be okay, but yes, it is a little frustrating."
On rebounding:
"We have a pretty good system. Four [players] crash hard all the time and then one person is back. A big emphasis tonight was boxing out because all of them crash so I wanted to box out the girl I was guarding. I was in the paint a lot more and my teammates boxed out well so I was able to get in and scramble for boards."
