Nov. 14, 2014
Recap | Box Score | Howell’s Photos 
Vanderbilt vs. Belmont Quotes
Vanderbilt Head Coach Melanie Balcomb
On the first game:
“It was a great game. They’re a very good team, and I think that it’s a great win for us. I think to be in that situation and to be able to make plays with young players on the floor like that, players that don’t have a lot of experience, was exciting to see. That’ s a very good team, and they’re going to win a lot of games.”
On the lineup:
“I was just looking for some relentlessness: who’s going to go after the ball. It ended up that Audrey was our best rebounder, and Bekah each had ten, eleven boards. I knew we weren’t making shots and I knew they would run down and play with confidence; I knew they would shoot the basketball. They’re scorers and rebounders in that game. For the rest of them, I think Paris Kea really stepped up, made some really big plays, was more aggressive tonight. I thought she played a much better game than she had been playing. She was playing tentatively and I thought she was much more relaxed. I was looking outside of that for players that weren’t hurting us defensively. We had a lot of players running into screens, not seeing their man, giving up ten out of seventeen three’s. There were players I felt that I couldn’t play because I knew defensively they were doing things outside of our philosophy and they weren’t successful. So I went with Christa Reed because I felt like she really would think the game and be calm. Someone who has also been really calm, consistent, and steady has been Morgan Batey. I really trust her out there this year, I think she’s been solid and plays with a lot of composure. So I think I got that lineup right.”
On Marqu’es Webb:
“I think she’s got to finish inside. She got eleven points, but she’s got to finish. Those baskets should be and-one’s. She’s got to do a better job of finishing her shots inside when we get the ball to her; it should be automatic. I think she’s just rushing and missing a lot of opportunities.”
On stretching out to behind the perimeter:
“Well we’re bigger so it’s a tough matchup for us. One of the things I was thinking about doing was going four guards, but our guards weren’t defending real well. A lot of times it was our guard and then they would pop their post against our slower post, against Marqu’es Webb and Rayte’a Long. So it was a tough matchup for us. What we tried to do was go zone, extend our defense more. And then they hit three’s, and we didn’t execute that well. So the second half we played two different zones and full court as opposed to man. Then at the end of the game we went back to man and tried to chase them off their screens, chase them off the three-point line. So we tried pretty much everything that we had so far.”
Forward Marqu’es Webb
On the first game of the season:
“It was an ugly win, but a win none the less. It’s better to learn from a win than from a loss. We go in the locker room, and we give Belmont all the credit in the world. They are a great team. They came out fearless, and they came to win. With that being said, we can only go up from here. We made a lot of mistakes tonight, but we also did some good things, so were going to learn from this and get back to work tomorrow and the next day and do better on Monday. You watch games again, learn from them, and move on to the next one. We will get better, and we have so much more to learn about each other and what we can do.”
On the new players this year:
“The good thing about the freshmen is that they are fearless. They go out there, whether they make mistakes or not it doesn’t matter because they are playing hard. You take the mistakes because they are playing hard, going after loose balls, rebounding. Audrey had a double-double, so we took the mistakes. We’re trying to build a team because we’re young and have a lot of new faces.”
On attacking the boards against Belmont:
“I think in the first half they were outrebounding us. We saw that and it was not good, so coming out of halftime we made it one of our goals to outrebound them. We just have to do a better job of converting on rebounds. We got a lot of offensive rebounds that we couldn’t put back up. It was really frustrating, but it was good that we were in there and we were trying. When you’ve got someone like Bekah, a guard, having ten rebounds it’s huge. Getting on the boards offensively and defensively is going to be a big goal for us.”
Guard Rebekah Dahlman
On the first game of the season:
“Yeah, I think a lot of emotions were going through all of our heads. I give credit to Belmont’s great team. They came out really strong and fought all the way through, but we had a lot of things rushing towards us. We just had to slow down. We will improve, I know we will.”
On being back on the court:
“It felt great to be back. During our first exhibition game, I was smiling the whole time. We all needed that energy tonight and I think we have to bring that from now on.”
On the new players this year:
“These freshmen are not freshmen in my eyes. They make me better, they make the whole team better, and I think we’re learning from them, they give us energy and bring a lot to this team.”
Belmont coach Cameron Newbauer
On Sally McCabe’s contribution as a freshman:
“Her poise and patience out there tonight, I think they calmed our team down. She has this air about her where she doesn’t get frazzled or flustered. She came in mad knocked down a three and showed her skill set off right away.”
On perimeter play by Luffman and Mills:
“Once we calmed down, that was one thing with Jordyn last year– to just continue shooting. She was aggressive. Nine out of 16 is pretty doggone good. Taylor had some very big shots and some good looks. Tonight was good because we were playing a stronger, faster, quicker team, so you do rush things a bit but you understand the effort you have to bring to practice.”
On hanging with Vanderbilt:
“We just sent a team that’s going to be really good this season to the wire. If you would have told me we would be up one point with two minutes to go with 15 first half turnovers and 20 offensive rebounds I’d tell you that you’re nuts. But, that shows the character and perseverance of our team. They didn’t let anything stop them tonight.”
On committing fewer turnovers in the second half:
“We didn’t really make any adjustments, we just calmed down. We were more patient, more poised. The turnovers should have happened because we weren’t poised early on. They actually pressed us more second half full court, which is quite an anomaly.”
