Nov. 29, 2009

Recap |  Final Stats

Wisconsin Head Coach Lisa Stone
World Vision Invitational

On today’s win over Cal State Fullerton:
“A little bit of it was the third game in three days and we gutted it out. I thought Teah Gant had a terrific tournament. She was tired and gutted it out. We had a size advantage and had difficulty getting the ball inside but Lin (Zastrow) came up big at times and Anya (Covington) did as well. You can’t say enough about our kids. I think they’re playing very, very well right now. It was tough coming back after a big win but we didn’t want that to be an excuse. We challenged our players. We asked them ‘What’s in your heart? Do you want every single game to be known that we’re a tough defensive team?’ When you look at the total number of points scored (44), it might be there. I think our second half was much better than our first half – we lacked a little energy – but I’m really proud of our team. We came out here to win three games and we did.

“I thought our motion offense was very good with four guards. With four guards and a post, I thought it was very, very good. Jamie Russell really emerged as somebody who’s very active in our offense. She did a nice job driving the lane, found a way to get to the rim. Free throws, what were we from the line? 11-of-11, that’s very good for our team. Turnovers, 14, we got a little sloppy. For the most part, I’m really proud of our basketball team, they did what they had to do. I thought our second half was very good.

“They’re a great group of young women and (will do) whatever it takes. We’re putting people out there that are doing the job for us and if they’re doing the job, they’re going to stay out there. They are implementing the game plan, they’re understanding personnel, they’re studying the scouting report, they’re executing the game plan very , very well.

“We’re thinking maybe we need to play more Thanksgiving tournaments because we’ve done well.”

On Wisconsin’s next game on the road at N.C. State:
“There’s no question that this should help. We played a tough Oregon team on their home court. That I think is probably the closest characteristic of the next place we’re going to see in terms of the next place we go. N.C. State is the ACC Challenge (and) we want to represent the Big Ten to the highest and we want our defense to be very visible. There are some things we need to work on and we’re going to go back and continue to work on it. Offensively, we need to continue to put the right people in the right places and find high percentage shots, I thought we missed a ton of bunnies inside. For the most part, we did what we had to do and every single game is going to have to be like that. We have to be detailed. We have to play with our heart, we have to serve each other and we have to do whatever it takes to have our best defense show up every night.”