Oregon-TCU NCAA News Conference Quotes
NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, First Round|
Bank of America Arena, Seattle, Wash.
Practice Day Quotes, March 18, 2005
FORWARD SANDORA IRVIN
On her goals for the tournament: "Our goal is to just take one game at a time and play every game like it is our last. Most of my teammates are pretty young, so we are trying to make them understand what the tournament is all about and how they can contribute in our run through the tournament. We definitely want to get past the second round, because I have been there the last three years in a row and I want to return and continue to have a successful season."
Scouting Oregon: "I think the Oregon players are a lot like ours in that they are very versatile. Kraayeveld is a very talented post player and shoots the three point shot almost better than their guards. I think they can rebound pretty big and run the floor as well."
Oregon Head Coach Bev Smith
General Comments: "We feel that this is a facility that we know, it’s a good facility and it’s close to Eugene. We have many fans traveling up from Oregon and quite a few right here in Washington. June Daugherty, as soon as we made the NCAA Tournament, was very gracious and was willing to provide us with anything we need. We feel very at home here. We are blessed to be here in this situation. This is a Pac-10 school (Washington) and we want to showcase the Pac-10."
On team’s mental challenges of playing at UW against TCU: "We have played here before and our players know that this is a facility that they are excited to be in. I see it as a great opportunity of playing teams that we have previously lost to. I see it as a great opportunity to learn from our past experiences. That’s always in the back of our mind. In the postseason everyone starts 0-0. We’ve got the past games behind us, not that we have forgot about them, but we learned a valuable lesson. Our team is focused on what we need to do. It’s great to be here in Seattle, close to home, no plane ride, no time zone change, and we are blessed to be here.
"On the critical value of good guard play in the Tournament: "In the NCAA Tournament everyone is very very important, people that are starting, people that are coming in, and people who only play a few minutes, everything they do is very important. After having watched games for many many years you know that it is important for some shots to go in from the outside. That’s going to be key for the game. Our players know that. Any time we have balanced scoring in terms of getting the ball to our post players, and keeping the defense on for four quarters of play. That’s also key to the game. It is important for our players to shoot well from the outside. We have a point guard that is very good at distributing the ball and we are comfortable with, in terms of her ability to get the ball inside to the right players."
What have you seen of Sandora Irvin: "We remember her from her freshman and sophomore years and knew that she would develop into a very good player. She is incredibly versatile from the defensive end. On the offensive end we have seen that her shooting range has increased. She is very comfortable in taking that three point shot and putting it on the floor, so a versatile defender is required to defend her. She is a franchise player and a player that the WNBA will certainly look at."
OREGON GUARD CORRIE MIZUSAWA
On guard play expectations: "We know that TCU has a good post game with their All-Americans that they have, but we also need to make sure that we do a good job of getting out on their guards on the perimeter. We know that Irvin is going to get her points, but if we can stop the other four players than we are going to have a good chance to win this game. It is not just about one player, we need to be able to stop their whole team."
On NCAA experience: "A lot of people don’t realize that I have already been to the tournament, but we have a pretty experienced team anyway. When I played at Saint Mary’s we were a lot younger team that was very nervous about playing so far away from home. I think that this team is much more comfortable because we are playing near home at the University of Washington."
OREGON FORWARD CATHRINE KRAAYEVELD
On Sandora Irvin: "She is a very good player and she deserves the respect that everyone gives her. They have a good team and they are well rounded. She is an All-American and a great player, but we need to make sure that we focus our attention on the whole team rather than just one player."
On playing near home town: "It is nice to be able to come back home and play in front of some family and friends. We are going to try and take advantage of being so close to home in round one and we are just going to have fun with it and see how it goes. It feels pretty weird, I thought that I was going to be able to play about a month ago. It is always nice to play near home because it always gives you that extra boost of energy."
OREGON CENTER ANDREA BILLS
On Sandora Irvin: "She is a great player on both sides of the floor and I am really looking forward to guarding her. If our team defense shows up, we should be able to guard her pretty well."
On TCU: "They have a few players that they had the last time that we played them. Everybody has become different players and matured a lot, so it will definitely be a different game than the last time that we met."
On gameplan: "I think that we are ready for this game with a lot of players that are ready to step up. We are going to need a lot of team involvement with our scoring and defense for us to play well in this game."
TCU Head Coach Jeff Mittie
General Comments: "We are excited to be here in Seattle. They have the new format, we are in the Tempe Region I think. It is difficult for everybody to get used to that. In looking at coming out to Seattle, I think our players our excited, we have a large group that hasn’t been here before. It should be a great tournament. We kind of view this as, in its totality it’s 64 teams, but really for us it’s a four-team tournament here. We’ve got a great matchup with Oregon. We are a team that has played Oregon a couple of times in the last four years, and there are some similar players on that team. I think our group is excited to be here. We’ve got a group that, with Irvin, has been here before. This will be Irvin’s fourth-straight tournament appearance. We’ve had a group that has been here before, and then we have some that haven’t. All in all, I think this team is ready to go. We have played good basketball coming down the stretch. Hopefully we can carry it in to the first couple of rounds here."
On Oregon Forward Cathrine Kraayeveld: "You have got to limit touches; you can’t give up easy baskets. When you have a player like Kraayeveld, that mixes her game up so well, you can’t let her have all three things -- you can’t let her have inside, and open looks at the three, and we can’t let her get to the free throw line. If you let her do all three of those, she is an All-American. We’ve got to limit some things, we are not going to stop her, but we hope that we make it tough one her."
On Oregon Being Close To Home: "Well, keep in mind that we have played at Connecticut, Duke, Louisiana Tech, Temple ... we prefer this to the four previous times that we have been to the tournament. One thing that I will say about us is that we are tournament-tested. We played in Hawaii this year. We just came off three straight in the Conference USA tournament. We know that Oregon will have more fans here, and that will be great for the tournament. We are excited about playing -- when the ball is thrown up we will be ready to go."
On Not Being Seeded in Dallas: "The disappointment probably came from our fans, coaches and administrators, because we have such a great fan base. I think our attendance is in the top-35 in the country. Our players are very excited about playing in Seattle; we have a group that hasn’t been here. They get more excited about going to other areas of the country."
On Ups and Downs: "This is a young basketball team, nine newcomers that haven’t played Division-I basketball, and I think you saw some inconsistencies. But at the end of the year, we lost two games in the last 10 or 11, at DePaul and at Houston. This team has developed a higher level of consistency, we do understand what we are trying to accomplish."
On Two Weeks of Practice: "We’ve dealt with that before, our conference tournament has always been two weeks out. But we try to take advantage of the rest. You hear the term "game speed" -- we do things in practice that we hope simulate that as much as practice. When we scrimmage we have 30 and 60 second timeouts, we stopwatch those, we don’t allow 50 seconds we don’t allow 55 seconds. We try to simulate the tempo that goes into playing in the tournament."
TCU GUARD NATASHA LACY
On advice given to younger players on the team: "We just are trying to make them understand the seriousness of the tournament, and how the single-game elimination gives us no second chances; it’s now or never."
Scouting Oregon forward Cathrine Kraayeveld: "I think we plan for her like we plan for any great players that we have played against. Hopefully we won’t let her score a basket, will pressure her and just take her out of what she likes to do best. We will try to give her no easy looks."
TCU FORWARD ASHLEY DAVIS
On advice given to younger players on the team: "We were out at dinner one night, and our freshman guard Moneka Knight asked me if we lost in the NCAA tournament if we could go to the WNIT tournament. We had to give her a little lesson on how the tournament works and how if you lose you go home from now on."
On TCU’s Conference USA run: "I think we played good during the conference run and we really learned a lot from that and it got us excited. Now we know that it is a whole new ballgame. I don’t think anyone is going to bow down to us so I know we have to go out there and play every game like it is our last, because it is."
