Feb. 14, 2008
Vanderbilt Head Coach Melanie Balcomb:
On adjustments the team made at halftime:
“We wanted to come out and play our tempo. It was a tempo game. (Kentucky Head Coach) Matthew (Mitchell) did a great job of walking it up and being real methodical. They’re short bodies because of a lot of injuries and they didn’t run with us. We haven’t seen that kind of defense and that offense since we’ve been in the SEC. It took us 20 minutes to adjust. Thank God for halftime. Sometimes you don’t want halftime. I wanted a halftime.”
On the benefit of having a close game before facing Tennessee:
“You don’t want to ask for this challenge. You also have to be able to drive on Tennessee. They’ll pressure you and force you to drive. You have to have different ways to win. With our team this year, different people have stepped up in different games. It’s nice to know we have different ways we can score. Defensively, we got out of our matchup early and played much more of our full court man and trapping man, and we haven’t done that since preseason as well.”
On what Kentucky did offensively:
“They were slowing the tempo down. They were passing the ball back and forth and walking it up. They were making us play defense for the whole 30 seconds. They were making us defend for the entire shot clock. Everyone in the SEC goes fast and takes quick shots. You get into a place where you don’t have to guard a lot of shots. You don’t have to guard a lot of passes. It’s about transition D and checking out. They ran a lot of half court and took their time. They were much more methodical than any team we’ve played so far.”
On Amber Norton:
“Her legs are feeling better. She’s been playing more with the starting team in practice. I like her effort and I like what she did tonight. Hannah (Tuomi) came in and got in foul trouble early. Amber stepped up and was real aggressive. This was a good matchup for Amber.”
On Vanderbilt’s post play:
“(Sarah) Elliott is such a low-post threat. We wanted to tire her but they were going at a slow pace. We wanted to run her up and down and make her play defense in transition and wear her out so that she wouldn’t get real low position. I thought (Victoria) Dunlap did a great job. She drives, attacks the basket and gets offensive rebounds. I think we did a good job on Elliott. That was really important for us on the interior.”
Kentucky Head Coach Matthew Mitchell:
Opening statement:
“It was a disappointing loss tonight. We played one of our better halves on the road in the first half. In the second half we just weren’t ready to go. I should have done something different to get us ready to go. I did not have us very well prepared against their press. Their press really bothered us tonight. I thought we played good in the first half and played about as bad as we can in the second half. It was a tough night for the Wildcats.”
On Vanderbilt’s press:
“Nobody wanted to handle the ball. We didn’t adjust quickly enough. I thought I could coach them through it. They were taking away the middle and the wings. Instead of dribbling and making them play the ball, we just stood there and held the ball in the backcourt. We have a couple of young players back there who are not very good ball handlers and that’s my fault, not theirs. We finally adjusted a little too late. They were trying to slow us down. Once we got into the half court, we didn’t have much time to run plays. We got real tentative and looked real confused. We started settling for poor shots. I thought we were much more aggressive in the first half on the boards and worked hard to get some better shots.”
On Sarah Elliott and Eleia Roddy being in foul trouble:
“They got in foul trouble because they played poor post defense. Give Vanderbilt credit. Those kids are not real big but they really, really battled. Preparing for this game I was real impressed with how Coach Balcomb has prepared her team this year. They play as hard as anybody in our league. I just have a lot of respect for her team.”