Feb. 14, 2010
No. 22 Vanderbilt vs. No. 16/17 Kentucky
Feb. 14, 2010 – Memorial Gymnasium
Postgame quotes
Attendance: 5,216
Vanderbilt Head Coach Melanie Balcomb
On last game vs. Kentucky:
“We definitely played tougher against them today than we did the first time. We were a lot more aggressive. The first 20 minutes weren’t great, but we responded. We were able to execute a lot better. I just liked how we handled our body language. As many mistakes as we made, our body language never changed.”
On Jence Rhoads:
“Jence sometimes gets in a mode where she’s driving because she’s told to drive. She’s shooting when she’s told to shoot. She has trouble being the leading scorer, sometimes. She likes leading in assists. She drove to score and get fouled in the second half. Even on ball screens, she turned the corner and attacked to score. She had to score for us to do well. Most kids would embrace that, but Jence is a facilitator. She likes to give to other people.”
On Jessica Mooney’s injury:
“She’ll be sore tomorrow, but she’ll be okay. She doesn’t have a lot of padding, so she’s had this injury before. She’ll push through it, but she’ll definitely be sore tomorrow.”
On importance of win:
“I don’t know who (in the SEC) has what (standings), but I was ready for Kentucky and preparing for that. I promised myself I wouldn’t look at the standings. Being at home, I knew we needed to pull off the upset. There’s a huge jam and we’re jammed in there somewhere.
On rebounds:
“First half, Kentucky had more offensive rebounds. Their best offense is their defense. We checked them out and only gave them 11 offensive rebounds. With turnovers, we cut down on those. When you cut rebounds and turnovers in half, that’s huge because that’s where Kentucky gets their offense. They’re used to scoring 77 points and they scored 55. That’s frustrating for them.”
On transition offense:
“Transition was big. We made a few mistakes but I thought we did a decent job matching up and slowing the basketball down. Most of their transition is based on turnovers and we were able to execute our offense the second half. They played tremendous defense in the first half and completely took us out in the first half. They’re tough and that’s why their record is what it is.”
Vanderbilt guard Merideth Marsh
On second half adjustments:
“At halftime, Coach made a few adjustments to our plays, so we put some new things in and it worked. Defensively, we trapped a lot more. We tried to unsettle them on offense. One thing that got us going is getting the ball out of 24’s hands. They had 8 offensive rebounds the first half and we shut them down on that in the second half. They killed us on the boards in Lexington. We went into this game wanting to get stops on defense and rebounds.”
On perimeter shooting:
“We made 3-pointers and were able to spread the fall. Lauren was knocking down great shots. That’s our offense and our strength.”
On playing at home after Tennessee loss:
“I think we take pride playing here at home. The crowd was in it tonight and that was a lot of fun. We know we should have beat Tennessee and we played hard tonight. We believed we were going to win this game no matter what. People stepped up tonight and I had a ton of fun.”
On Kentucky scoring drought:
“Their 7-minute field goal drought was huge. If you can get stops on SEC teams, they usually lay down on defense. That’s one thing we worked on: getting stops on defense and being aggressive on offense.”
Vanderbilt guard Jence Rhoads
On career high:
“We were running some good plays and great screens and I was able to get a post player on me and drive into the paint. Coach Tom talked to me and said I needed to attack more and that was my focus in the second half. I needed to get to the rim and get fouled.”
On difference between today and loss to Kentucky:
“We just had the emotion on our side this time. We were all together this whole game. We were into it and fired up and we got the win. We worked hard in practice against our practice players and each other. Everyone remembered the loss to Kentucky where they outplayed us and we were ready to give it back to them.”
On continuing same offensive set:
“We ran the same offensive set quite a few times, but we were cutting, getting open, and running screens. We usually like to switch up our offense, but it worked and we kept at it.”
Kentucky Head Coach Matthew Mitchell
Opening Statement:
“Well this was Vanderbilt’s day today. They played a lot harder than we did. They had a great defensive game plan. It’s obvious we were struggling to score. They were much more aggressive today and it’s disappointing for us to lose.”
On Vanderbilt’s defense:
“They were really quick to the ball, rotated well in their zone, and when we didn’t attack the ball, they were there to cover that. When we got dribble penetration, we made our shots… but we didn’t do that enough. They built walls and had great defense. They certainly deserve to win the game.”
On Jence Rhoads:
“She’s fantastic. I said before the game and after our last game (against Vanderbilt), she is clearly one of the best guards in our league. She’s so good with change of pace and change of direction. She does so well with both hands, but I think she just had a fantastic day and she’s an incredible player.”
On first half vs. second half:
“The way that it was going, I thought we could get enough stops. I never thought we looked in sync offensively. Vanderbilt took away our ability to score in transition. We were okay with the flow of the game, but I thought if we could get stops and score in transition, we could get back in the game.”
On Lydia Watkins:
“Lydia has had a good year. She’s been a little banged up lately and not quite herself in the last few games. She has played very hard and we wouldn’t be where we are without her effort.”
On substitutions:
“We needed a group that could execute against that zone and it was just a feeling I got that we needed certain players on the phone. It’s possible that we were a little slow at the end. It was more about offense than defense. Vanderbilt was showing so many different looks that we needed a new rhythm.”
On Vanderbilt’s defense:
“I think it was frustrating that we were missing shots around the basket. Vanderbilt played great defensively. Even some of our looks that were open, someone was flying at us. I don’t want to take anything away from Vanderbilt; they played great.”
On lack of 3-point shooting:
“I don’t think it was a lack of effort. We made good plays. I didn’t get a feeling, coaching, that we lacked effort. Mentally, we didn’t get our 3-point shooters going, but Rhoads getting in the paint hurt us and so did their 3-point shooters. We showed fight at times today, but I think we’ll come back and fight hard next Thursday.”
Kentucky forward Victoria Dunlap
On Vanderbilt’s defense:
“We just weren’t being strong with the ball. They forced us to shoot from the perimeter instead of the paint.”
On Kentucky’s defense:
“Our mindsets weren’t in it. Some people were going hard, some weren’t. It’s just a team effort.”
On learning from loss:
“We just go back to practice and stay focused. Coach will watch film. We can learn from this game. We just need to work hard and not let up.”