Feb. 12, 2009
No. 24 Vanderbilt 84 – No. 9 Florida 68
February 12, 2009 – Memorial Gym
Attendance: 4,680
Melanie Balcomb, Vanderbilt Head Coach
On Merideth Marsh:
“Merideth is really focused right now. It didn’t matter what kind of defense they put on her. In man-to-man, zone, and in transition, Merideth just shot with confidence. She’s been shooting well since SEC play. For Merideth and Tina, we’ve been able to rely on the them a bit. If we struggle defensively, we’re a lot tighter on offense. We played well defensively tonight and that relaxed us on offense. If we get stops, we get shots. The girls aren’t tight if they know we’re not being pressured to score every possession.”
On defense:
“(Sha) Brooks worked really hard tonight. We watched Florida’s past games and no one really made her work to get the ball; we knew we had to do that to win. No one tried to keep the ball out of her hands to begin with, and that’s what we took into this game. She’s a great player at both ends of the ball and we wanted to wear her out, so she couldn’t do much when she finally got the ball. (Marshae) Dotson, (Steffi) Sorensen, and Brooks were our main focuses. We wanted to get Dotson in foul trouble as early as possible. Tina does so well taking charges, as does Jen (Risper) and Merideth.”
On offensive preparation:
“We wanted to go inside, to the basket. We wanted to attack. We relied too much in the first half on passing the ball along the perimeter and we wanted to get into the interior of the zone in the second half. If we’re going to make a run, we need to have that mindset every possession.”
On games ahead:
We lost to Georgia at their home and Auburn has already beaten Florida, so it doesn’t get any easier.
Vanderbilt Players
Merideth Marsh, guard
On her performance tonight:
“Honestly, I didn’t expect to be that open on my shots. We were working so hard on defense and we were stopping them on offense, they didn’t want to stop our offense. We were just making them tired. We wanted to jump on them at the beginning of the first and second halves. We wanted to make them frustrated.”On tying Vanderbilt single-game record for 3-pointers made:”It’s nice, but it didn’t go through my head at all. I didn’t know that I was even close to the record until everyone told me after the game. My last 3-point shot was an air ball though (laughter).”
Christina Wirth, guard/forward
On attitude going into the first half:
“We can’t be satisfied, we were disappointed b/c all season long we’ve been playing in spurts. The sign of a mature team is to be able to stop their run and continue yours.”
On Being Open for 3-pointers:
“I don’t think I really looked only for a 3-point shot. We had open looks b/c we were pushing in transition. Their post players have a tendency to run after the block, so they would run after Hannah and it would leave me wide open.”
On Finishing the 3-game Homestand:
“This is an important stretch in our season, especially with where we are in the rankings. We’ve seen Georgia before, so we know what to expect. We’re ready for a bit of a revenge game. We’ve got big games coming up, so it’s a good opportunity for us.”
Amanda Butler, Florida Head Coach
Opening Statement:
“Vanderbilt played a fantastic game. We were outhustled, outplayed, and outcoached. Vanderbilt set the tone and we were chasing the entire game. Stewart played well and we played with toughness and confidence in the last five minutes. Clearly, we didn’t prepare well enough, so I have to take the blame for that.”
On Vanderbilt’s offense:
“Merideth Marsh is the best shooter in the conference. Christina (Wirth) is the best all-around player in the conference. They were wide open over and over again. We didn’t execute on either end. They came right out and set the tone offensively and defensively. We played on our heels the whole game.”
On Florida’s offense:
“Sha (Brooks) is a resilient kid. She’s a winner and she is definitely not pleased with her performance tonight, but she’ll bounce back from this.”
On Florida’s performance against Tennessee:
“There was no hangover from that game to this game (against Tennessee). We had a fantastic shoot-around today and Vanderbilt showed us very early that it was going to be a different outcome tonight. When you go on the road in SEC play, you have to establish yourself early or you’re in trouble. You can’t be soft and we were soft tonight.”
On foul trouble:
“We weren’t playing smart and we were already in a hole that was going to be tough to get out of. We ended up with our best player having major foul trouble and it just put us in the hole even further.”