Nov. 24, 2009

Recap |  Final Stats

Ohio Women’s Basketball

11-24-09 v Marshall (W 63-48)

Head coach Semeka Randall

Opening statements:

“I’m really proud of my team. They came out and they played for 40 minutes. You look at the stat sheet and there is balanced scoring throughout the team. You don’t see it in the point production but I thought our players from the bench came in and gave us a spark when we needed it. We had one day of preparation, so it was very impressive to know that we can play a game the night beforeâ€"a tough gameâ€"and come back, have one practice and get ready for a good team and be able to come out with a great victory like this.”

“Everyone played together. This team has great chemistry in terms of off the court and it is starting to show on the court.”

On tonight’s offensive execution:

“I thought we played smoothly. We weren’t in a rush. At times we hesitated, but once we got comfortable in the flow in terms of what Marshall was doing, we were able to find the open person and that person set their feet and knocked the shot down for the team. I always talk about them making plays for themselves because they’re the ones out there working hard every day.”

On the performance of the seniors:

“They did a tremendous job. That’s what it takes for them every day. They should want to do that, going out on their senior year. At times they’re not going to have great shooting nights but they can do so many things out there with their leadership, their intensity on defense…just doing all of the little things. One of the most impressive things was (freshman) Ashley Fowler…that young lady has great poise and she stepped up to make big plays.”

On the defensive effort:

“I’m telling you…my philosophy is defense and every day I’m making our kids buy into it. They’re trusting it more and more and they’re believing in it. I feel like that is all about heart and being smart out there, and those are the things you can control. You can’t always control the way the ball bounces and how the shots fall, but one thing you can control is the effort you put in on defense. I’m really proud of what our group did.”

Ashley Fowler and Jenny Poff

On how it feels to win two games in a row:

Jenny: “It feels pretty good. We can’t settle for two though. We’re happy and we’re excited about this win but we’re back to business again tomorrow at practice. Then we’ll go home for a couple of days and then we’re back to business again. But it does feel good to get two wins under our belt.”

On playing a good game tonight:

Ashley: “I felt really good. I knew that my teammates were behind me and every shot was for them. It felt really good.”

On the tonight’s excellent three-point shooting:

Jenny: “Once one person gets going it becomes like a domino effect. I got going early, she (Fowler) got going early…Bushby started going. Once one person is hitting it’s kind of like everyone is feeling the groove and everyone is into the game. We build confidence.”

On hitting back to back threes when up by seven in the second half:

Ashley: “When you come down and hit back to back threes it brings their energy down and really makes us want to go harder on defense. That’s when we get our defensive stops and we’re right back at it on the offensive end. We love playing offense and we know our defense has to be good for us to play offense. I think it really made us step up defensively.

Jenny: “It was definitely a momentum-killer for them.”

On the good offensive play this evening:

Jenny: “I think it was a solid effort for all of us. Even our bench players came in and gave us really solid minutes and if we can play like thisâ€"with everyone scoringâ€"it’s going to be a good night for us.”

On the team’s defensive effort:

Jenny: “Our defense is what gets us going. We talk about how much we love offense, but really our number one goal is to stop them on defense. You can’t build momentum on offense if you don’t get defensive stops.”

On the team’s ability to hold the lead:

Ashley: “We just made sure that we stayed together. Every time that they would get inside and score we would make sure that we stayed together. We didn’t want to get down on each other. We wanted to work harder for each other to get those defensive stops.”