Jan. 15, 2015
Vanderbilt Head Coach Melanie Balcomb
On playing on a bye week:
“In February we will need the bye week. I chose to take two days off this week, so I think we got fresh, but we also got a game in where we got to get people in and build confidence.”
On having to work early:
“This team is going to be good. Their coach was an assistant coach at Samford for years and runs a lot of Princeton’s stuff, and does a great job. She’s only had them a year, so we knew this would be a great game that we would have to work and get back to stopping the three point shot which we had to do early in the season.”
On Marques Webb’s appearance in the first half of the game:
“Marques has really worked on her focus and being ready, and she was ready tonight. I like how she started the game being a dominant force inside, which is what we needed at the time.”
On Paris Kea:
“I think Paris just has to get comfortable with what we’re doing and then finding where she can make a play off of a play. I think that Paris, Rachel, and Dre, all of our best freshmen, want to make plays but just aren’t sure how. We ended up turning the ball over, but as they get more comfortable you will start to see them make more successful plays.”
On Morgan Beaty:
“Morgan has become a player. She is playing so many positions for us and she has been getting a good understanding of what it takes to be a good basketball player, inside and out.”
On the injured players:
“Christa Reed had a sprained ankle and Kendall Shaw hurt her foot, and I was disappointed that they weren’t able to play and get more minutes. We had two days off and three girls got hurt. I said `I didn’t see any of those three players get hurt in practice or in a game’.”
On taking this game seriously:
“I was only disappointed with the first four minutes, and I told them `If you relax, they’re going to attack you’ and that’s what happened. They hit their threes, and all of a sudden we realized we had to respect our opponent. It’s like having little kids. You can tell them, but until it happens to them, they don’t believe it.”
Taking on Georgia next:
“We’ve done a really good job with Georgia over the years I have been here. It’s been a really good match up for us, but in the last few years we have really struggled at Georgia, so I am hoping we play like we did against Mississippi State and really handle their physicality and overplay on defense. That’s what they did to us in the SEC and that’s why they won the second game.”
On the Mississippi State game:
“For us to know that we can handle a lot of pressure, physicality and size, that’s what it’s all about. I think we can work these teams. It is going to be about our offense, and whether we can take the basketball and run our stuff. ”
Vanderbilt G Paris Kea
On gaining comfort with playing college ball:
“Yeah it’s getting more relaxed. Knowing the offense, knowing where people are going to be, knowing personnel and where they like it has really opened it.”
On her several assists to teammate Kristen Gaffney:
“Oh yeah, her defender came to double me a lot so I just passed it to her.”
On her comfort shooting:
“Well coach told me to be more aggressive and attack more, to look for my shot more and gain confidence as a freshman. I think it’s paying off. Working hard in practice and everything.”
On the back-to-back wins after the losing streak:
“It feels great. But we’re not satisfied. We’re never satisfied, so we work hard in practice.”
On returning from a tough loss to LSU:
“It didn’t shake our confidence at all. We used it as motivation, and we knew we had to work on our weaknesses. We figured it out and we worked on it.”
On playing so close to home in the Elon game:
“It was awesome, I saw a lot of friends and family.”
