Nov. 6, 2006
VU Head Coach Melanie Balcomb
On Vanderbilt’s defensive performance…
“That was one of our goals – trying to play defense for 40 minutes. Our first two games are on the road and we know that the way you win on the road is with defense.”
On Vanderbilt’s ability to score in the paint…
“We feel like our inside game is really good and really strong, so we really tried to cram it in there. Our outside game in the first half really opened up our inside game. So our focus in the second half was to try and go back inside again.”
On Premier Players’ pressure defense…
“The pressure was really strong tonight. They kept stepping up on our guards and [freshmen] Jess [Mooney] and Merideth [Marsh] had some trouble. In high school, you can get away with exposing the ball, but you can’t get away with that on this level.”
“We have to do better on the offensive boards. We don’t miss a whole lot of shots generally so it is tough. Our mentality is not where it needs to be on the offensive boards.”
On preparations for the season opener Nov. 12 at Colorado…
“They (Colorado) haven’t played any games and we haven’t played any games. We’ve looked at some tape but this is a whole new season and they might do some things totally differently from what they have done in the past. That’s why it is important to keep our primary focus on our team.”
On what Vanderbilt has learned about itself in its two exhibitions…
“We can defend. We have to get better rebounding, obviously, but we can run and we can defend better than we did last year. And I think we can be a much more explosive team offensively. We have the ability to score in flurries and spurts. I think we are going to be even more powerful on offense than we thought we could be.”
On the experience gained in the exhibitions by the freshmen…
“These are great players who haven’t yet had to perform at game speed. Now in these games they have had to go at game speed.”
