Postgame Quotes: Wisconsin vs. Northern Illinois
December 16, 2015 | Women's Basketball
Postgame Quotes
Wisconsin vs. Northern Illinois
Dec. 16, 2015
Kohl Center
Wisconsin Head Coach Bobbie Kelsey:
General thoughts:
"Obviously we wanted to go into Christmas break and finals feeling good about ourselves. NIU is a scrappy team, they were down a player or two, but we're down a player or two as well so everybody's fighting injury and fatigue and all kinds of things. You gotta keep fighting and scrapping until you can get yourself back on track. Roichelle Marble did a great job. She came in and gave us a huge spark off the bench. We've been waiting to see that but then I had to get her in the game and let her play through some of her jitters and things of that nature. But I thought she did a great job. Dakota (Whyte) came in as usual and did her thing, and others contributed so we gotta keep that going. But I thought we broke out in that third quarter which we've been waiting to do. We've had a history of coming out in the third quarter not very energetic and focused."
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On what the senior guards did to make a difference:
"I saw what I was looking for. The posts have done a great job with their defense for the most part, but it's other teams'Â guards that have hurt us. So we have to commit to staying in front of our player and making sure that they can't turn the corner and get layups because that never going to go well for your defense if they give up layups because then the defense fouls. So we did a better job but we know some bigger and better opponents are coming in and we have to continue to do that. But it's nice to see it because then you can hold people accountable."Â
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On what they did in the second half to get things sparked:
"We were taking care of the ball, taking shots that were open and available, making them fight through screens, some of that is just fatigue on their part maybe. If you get screened every time, you're like, 'Gosh!' and they weren't switching so we just told our guards to hesitate and turn the corners if you can and if you can't, kick it out. We're always nit-picking as coaches. We want the best, we want them to play perfect if they can, and when they don't we're on them."
Â
On Marble's play tonight:
"The girl can play. She's working on her shot all the time, going 'I wanna be somebody they cannot leave' and she had that capability. Her shot is—when you see it, it's straight up and straight down. It takes thousands and thousands of shots for it to be automatic and I think she's learned that role, this being her first year actually playing. We have a lot of confidence in Shelly. We have a lot of belief in her, but seeing is believing. So now that we have seen, we can put her out there because she can definitely handle the ball. She can see the ball and it's not taken from her. She pushes it, she plays hard, she'll take her open shot and knock it down. She's just gonna build on this and we know now we have another guard we can rely on."Â
Dakota Whyte
On her mindset coming into today's game:
"I think it stems from this being my last non-conference game in my college career, and also making sure that we go into the Big Ten with a bang, with a win. I think that I kind of just brushed off the Green Bay game, I know I didn't play my best game (against Green Bay), but I just made sure that I reversed my mindset and came out ready."
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Roichelle Marble:
On whether having two point guards on the floor opens things up for her:
"Oh yes for sure. I think for me it just makes things more comfortable out there, with Dakota being out there because it's my first year. But yeah it opens things up a lot."
On her mindset coming into the game that made her so successful:
"Honestly, I've just been re-evaluating myself and how I've been doing in practice for the past couple weeks, so that was part of it. Also, knowing that I had to step up being Cayla (McMorris)Â was out."
NIU Head Coach Lisa Carlsen
Opening Statement:
"I think the first half, we did a good job of competing, possession for possession. The third quarter really hurt us I think. Wisconsin did a great job of coming out and really getting comfortable on the offensive end. That in my opinion was kind of where the game was lost for us. Our defensive intensity wasn't as good as it had been and I think again, Wisconsin did a great job of getting what they wanted on the offensive end, hit some big shots and kind of put us in a hole."
On what Wisconsin changed in the third quarter:
"I don't know if it was necessarily anything different, but I think we went nine possessions without a stop. I thought they did a really nice job of getting the ball inside to their big kids. Nicole Bauman did a great job of knocking down some big shots and once she gets comfortable, I think any team is going to be in trouble.
"I don't think we necessarily took them out of their comfort zone in the third quarter. I think that was key, but I also think they did a really nice job of knocking down some shots."
On the difficulty of playing against the Nicole Bauman and Michala Johnson combination:
"I think if you look at the length and athleticism and obviously skill set in preparation, that's always something that's of concern. We're not an overly big team, so we knew that that length could be an issue. Every time you're prepared for a player as good as Nicole Bauman, I think you hope to slow her down. You're probably not going to stop her. I think if you can make her do something a little out of her comfort zone, like I thought we did a better job in the first half, you might have a shot. But once she gets comfortable, she has the ability to score in bunches."
Wisconsin vs. Northern Illinois
Dec. 16, 2015
Kohl Center
Wisconsin Head Coach Bobbie Kelsey:
General thoughts:
"Obviously we wanted to go into Christmas break and finals feeling good about ourselves. NIU is a scrappy team, they were down a player or two, but we're down a player or two as well so everybody's fighting injury and fatigue and all kinds of things. You gotta keep fighting and scrapping until you can get yourself back on track. Roichelle Marble did a great job. She came in and gave us a huge spark off the bench. We've been waiting to see that but then I had to get her in the game and let her play through some of her jitters and things of that nature. But I thought she did a great job. Dakota (Whyte) came in as usual and did her thing, and others contributed so we gotta keep that going. But I thought we broke out in that third quarter which we've been waiting to do. We've had a history of coming out in the third quarter not very energetic and focused."
Â
On what the senior guards did to make a difference:
"I saw what I was looking for. The posts have done a great job with their defense for the most part, but it's other teams'Â guards that have hurt us. So we have to commit to staying in front of our player and making sure that they can't turn the corner and get layups because that never going to go well for your defense if they give up layups because then the defense fouls. So we did a better job but we know some bigger and better opponents are coming in and we have to continue to do that. But it's nice to see it because then you can hold people accountable."Â
Â
On what they did in the second half to get things sparked:
"We were taking care of the ball, taking shots that were open and available, making them fight through screens, some of that is just fatigue on their part maybe. If you get screened every time, you're like, 'Gosh!' and they weren't switching so we just told our guards to hesitate and turn the corners if you can and if you can't, kick it out. We're always nit-picking as coaches. We want the best, we want them to play perfect if they can, and when they don't we're on them."
Â
On Marble's play tonight:
"The girl can play. She's working on her shot all the time, going 'I wanna be somebody they cannot leave' and she had that capability. Her shot is—when you see it, it's straight up and straight down. It takes thousands and thousands of shots for it to be automatic and I think she's learned that role, this being her first year actually playing. We have a lot of confidence in Shelly. We have a lot of belief in her, but seeing is believing. So now that we have seen, we can put her out there because she can definitely handle the ball. She can see the ball and it's not taken from her. She pushes it, she plays hard, she'll take her open shot and knock it down. She's just gonna build on this and we know now we have another guard we can rely on."Â
Dakota Whyte
On her mindset coming into today's game:
"I think it stems from this being my last non-conference game in my college career, and also making sure that we go into the Big Ten with a bang, with a win. I think that I kind of just brushed off the Green Bay game, I know I didn't play my best game (against Green Bay), but I just made sure that I reversed my mindset and came out ready."
Â
Roichelle Marble:
On whether having two point guards on the floor opens things up for her:
"Oh yes for sure. I think for me it just makes things more comfortable out there, with Dakota being out there because it's my first year. But yeah it opens things up a lot."
On her mindset coming into the game that made her so successful:
"Honestly, I've just been re-evaluating myself and how I've been doing in practice for the past couple weeks, so that was part of it. Also, knowing that I had to step up being Cayla (McMorris)Â was out."
NIU Head Coach Lisa Carlsen
Opening Statement:
"I think the first half, we did a good job of competing, possession for possession. The third quarter really hurt us I think. Wisconsin did a great job of coming out and really getting comfortable on the offensive end. That in my opinion was kind of where the game was lost for us. Our defensive intensity wasn't as good as it had been and I think again, Wisconsin did a great job of getting what they wanted on the offensive end, hit some big shots and kind of put us in a hole."
On what Wisconsin changed in the third quarter:
"I don't know if it was necessarily anything different, but I think we went nine possessions without a stop. I thought they did a really nice job of getting the ball inside to their big kids. Nicole Bauman did a great job of knocking down some big shots and once she gets comfortable, I think any team is going to be in trouble.
"I don't think we necessarily took them out of their comfort zone in the third quarter. I think that was key, but I also think they did a really nice job of knocking down some shots."
On the difficulty of playing against the Nicole Bauman and Michala Johnson combination:
"I think if you look at the length and athleticism and obviously skill set in preparation, that's always something that's of concern. We're not an overly big team, so we knew that that length could be an issue. Every time you're prepared for a player as good as Nicole Bauman, I think you hope to slow her down. You're probably not going to stop her. I think if you can make her do something a little out of her comfort zone, like I thought we did a better job in the first half, you might have a shot. But once she gets comfortable, she has the ability to score in bunches."
Players Mentioned
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