Colorado State University Athletics
Postgame quotes
3/19/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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HEAD COACH Ryun Williams
(opening statement)
"Well that wasn't fun. Tonight we just didn't play our best basketball game, but this group did a heck of job, they had a tremendous season. It's tough to look back right now for those kids in that locker room, but I just hope when they get a second to take a set back and celebrate really a great two years and another championship season. I'm proud of the effort the kids gave all year tonight it was just tough."
(on slow finish in the first and second half)
"Yeah, we had some streaks there where we were pretty efficient, and we had a 12-point lead in the second and then we just stalled. The foul trouble hurt us with Ellen (Nystrom) she is such an important part of what we do offensively, our motion was really good when she was on the floor, so that hurts a little bit but you have to be efficient, this time of the year we have to make basketball plays and we surely didn't make enough tonight."
(on success over the season)
"I think you look back at this season and look at all the kids who stepped up at different times, we have always had a bail out kid or two, to have games when maybe our top kids aren't having games. We just seemed to all struggle these last couple of games, but it wasn't like they weren't trying give UNC some credit, they came in here and played a heck of a game and made the plays they had to make."
(on being too eager to play)
You could see that, that was that unsettledness that we have had, when you want something I think they strangle it a little bit and I think they strangled the opportunity. Seventeen turnovers in postseason play where every possession matters you're going to find yourself on the wrong end of things."
(on the success of Ryder and Newton)
"Well that was the plan, and that is why we brought in Gritt (Ryder), AJ (Newton), all those new faces to do, was to turn this thing and they surely have done it. It's just a bummer, we have had so much to celebrate over the past two years, but in the last two years you end on this crappy feeling, it's tough, but that's also part of athletics."
CSU PLAYER QUOTES
(on second half performance)
"We just got into a rhythm. We knew they were shooters and could shoot the ball well, but since they weren't getting them in the first, maybe we just got complacent. We knew that we played defensively really well in the first half, but I think we just fell apart in the second and they had wide open looks which they should hit."
(on low-scoring stretches)
"It's March. You just have to step up and we can't have that stretch to be honest with you because it's win or go home. If we had it we just needed to fight through it and we couldn't get out of it."
(on mindset during last few minutes)
"For us as seniors we needed to relax, help the younger players out, and know that it's ok. We've been in those situations before because we're older. I think within those last four minutes we were comfortable and we were fine, but they just capitalized on every mistake we made so credit to them."
(on overview of last two years)
"What I'll remember is that when people want to change a program around it doesn't take season after season because we did it in a year. Hopefully at this point on it'll keep going and we can just establish a presence here at CSU to win. That's what I'm taking from it from my two years, being around winning people."
(on Northern Colorado's offensive performance)
"They started their 1-2-2 a little bit more and gave us some flips, but we didn't make placement when we needed to and they did. They found their shooters, they found every mistake we made and executed on that."
(on second-half performance)
"We were up by 10 in the second half and I felt that if we kept pushing a little bit further and gotten up by 15 it would've been the game, but we had some dumb turnovers and then they got 14 great looks. That's why they started believing it again and that's where we lost the spirit a little bit I guess."
(on scouting Northern Colorado)
"We knew they had great shooters and of course (D'Shara) Strange is a really good player. They're in some ways kind of similar to us because they have shooters you can't help off of, but they also have great one-on-one players. We respected them a lot."
(on overview of last two years)
"Even though it's hard right now there have been so many great memories. We have won two conference championships, but it's hard to look back at it right now."
KAMIE ETHRIDGE POSTGAME QUOTES
(on coming back)
"I don't know that I kept them positive. I had a little fight with Steph (Lee) on the bench, and then I wanted to pull (D'Shara Strange) at the last minute because she wasn't happy coming out of the media timeout, so my two best players I had a little fight with.
"It's just a good defensive team. They're long and they're more athletic than you think; they were into us. We couldn't' rip right past them because we couldn't athletically get past them. And they got a double team really fast and we couldn't find shooters. They were covering us up really well and again, I think so much of this time of the season is guard play and our guards just couldn't create a shot for anybody until I think they kind of softened up a little bit; just the nature of the game. I think they were unbelievably into us early, and we were able to run more stuff. We could at least make some passes in the second half. It took a while; we tried to run some stuff early in the second half and took their leave and again, we made a couple of subs and kept grinding away and in the end we got fortunate in transition to find Kourteney (Zadina) a few different times to really draw it in and give us some energy. It wasn't really set offense that did that, it was in transition that we found her."
(back-to-back three-point shots)
"Again, I have a tremendous amount of confidence in Kyleigh (Hiser) and Kourteney (Zadina), even when they miss a few shots early. I just thought Colorado State did a great job of defending us in our set things, things we were trying to do. I think Kyleigh got free in the first half, but we just weren't getting great looks. It was just being ready and reading the floor well. I think Dee Dee (Strange) made the assist on both of them, and she found Kourteney those two possessions, and I think later found Katie (Longwell). So it wasn't really out of offense, but it was pushing the ball up with a better tempo then we did against Montana trying to get ourselves with a little bit better energy coming up off of half court and just got ourselves freed up and got baskets that gave us life and energy to at least compete a little bit better as we went down the stretch."
(on baseline play)
"I look at Dee Dee as a guard, and against a team that is guarding tight against the parameter you have to have a player that can make some rip drives to the rim, or at least make a play at the rim. If Dee Dee didn't make it, she at least got fouled a lot because she drew a lot and she's long and she can get shots up. Lindsay (Mallon), she has the challenge that they sag off of her and there's really no place to drive. She just forced her will into what she got. But it's what you need. They got us settling for jump shots; they tempt you to take shots that you aren't going to be in possession for offensive rebounding, it's still 15 seconds on the shot clock and we really gave into that a lot and took some of those shots. Even Katie (Longwell), I remember Katie coming off of a screen and got to the elbow and made a little runner. All of those, getting into the paint, softened their defense up and got us to the rim, and I think that's what wins the game more than anything else we did."
(on hosting South Dakota Sunday evening)
"I'm really excited for them. I think it's funny that we went thought that stretch where everything felt easy on the offensive end, or it felt easy, and then go to the tournament and we don't have any practice time. We played three games. Sacramento State plays so crazy that we can't get anything then Montana really clogged it up. I thought after the third day of not practicing we really got stagnant offensively, and tried to really work on that over the last two days. Now just to have another chance to regroup, I know that we can be better offensively. I don't think that there are very many times that Steph (Lee) can go 0 for 10, and we can still win, so I think it's a really good statement to our team and the bench that came off and made some really great plays and willed us to win.
"I really like this team. We continue to play a lot of different ways, different styles. We defended a really solid team tonight. Our press really threw them out of rhythm, and changed the tempo of the game for them on the offensive end. I love that about this group. It's not about how we want to play, we'd like it to be a lot more finesse, but we took on a really physical team and we ended up just enough to win.
"I just hugged our A.D. and Sarah, both A.D.'s. I know that they probably did some backflips to get us to host. The team, I was able to surprise them with that news in the locker room. We're really thrilled to be able to play again at home. You know, this is what I was hoping for early in our season. We could play some games, get going on a roll, and maybe create a little bit more excitement in Greeley. It didn't work out that way. We were up and down in the pre-season, and couldn't really get people totally interested, but really did the last few weeks of the season. We had a million emails and texts from Northern Colorado fans that are just excited for our team and I just think this is a real statement. We had a lot of people come out today and I think they'll follow us on Sunday. I want that more than anything for our seniors. They're super excited to be back in the gym and to be putting on that uniform again. We'll see how it goes. I think we can be better and know we are going to play a super South Dakota team, but we're excited to be able to do it again and do it at home."