Head Coach Melanie Balcomb

Head Coach Melanie Balcomb

1/4/2006

Vanderbilt Head Coach Melanie Balcomb

On inside play
“Liz (Sherwood) has really been improving. She came ready to play tonight and was dominant early. We got Crystal Kelly and (Tiffany) Porter-Talbot in foul trouble early, and that’s where we were able to get our lead.”

“Carla (Thomas) has been suffering from a concussion and had not been practicing until yesterday. For her to come in and step up? she had 10 boards and 14 points, and she hasn’t been rebounding like that this year. She was very focused tonight, and playing with confidence. Late in the game, she had to be on the floor because she was being aggressive and really looked confident.”

On the second half
“They made a run and cut it to about 10, but we just kept hitting big buckets and, really, we won it with our defense. We got a lot of big stops and forced turnovers. We saw in that when they didn’t score 70 points, they weren’t winning games, so we keyed on trying to stop them.”

“Believe it or not, all I talked about at halftime was not fouling. And in the first five minutes we had five fouls. That was certainly not the game plan. That put us in a tough situation because the clock kept stopping. And the fouls were on the perimeter, not even against players in a shooting position. That’s probably the best first half we’ve played all year, and we didn’t play smart in the second half.”