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Head Coach Quentin Hillsman's Press Conference Transcript
No. 23/24 Syracuse vs. Marquette
February 10, 2008
Syracuse, N.Y. – Carrier Dome
Opening Statement:
On the win:
On defensive stops:
Syracuse vs. Marquette
February 10, 2008
Carrier Dome – Syracuse, N.Y.
Opening Statement:
“I thought we played really tough, really physical, really aggressive. It is tough to be off eight days and come back and play, especially after you go and “get upset.” It’s funny because when you lose a game, you hear Syracuse and upset in the same sentence you’re like what, but that is what everybody was calling it. I just call it going down to Georgetown and getting beat by a team that was hot and better than us that day. As for this game, I thought that we played the way we needed to play and that is not settling for perimeter shots. We really took the ball to the basket; we were 3-for-8 on three’s, 37% that is about how we shoot it. We just have to make sure that we don’t get into a habit like we did at Georgetown of taking 21 three’s. I thought that Erica Morrow was unbelievable today, 24 points in 37 minutes, the poor kid I’m going to buy her a backpack because she is carrying us a little bit. I thought that Nicole Michael really played a strong game. She had a few too many turnovers, but she was aggressive and played at the rim. We have to get Chandrea (Jones) going a little bit. She is struggling right now, but she is being aggressive and trying to make plays. She is just a very good offensive player. I thought that Fantasia (Goodwin) with 14 rebounds, she returned to herself this game and decided to get 14 rebounds. She also returned to herself with the six turnovers too, so that is Fantasia. It was a good game effort wise and I will take the W.”
On the win:
“It is big, it is big to win at home and we have to protect our home court. I think we are 10-1 at home now and that is important to just win your home games. In this conference, you have to win your home games. As long as we continue to take care of our home court, I think, we have a chance to be pretty good.”
On defensive stops:
“Huge, huge stops and more importantly we got the stop and the rebound. I thought that was the most important thing that after you stop them you have to get the rebound. We did a really good job, I think the one rebound that came maybe at the 40 second mark when the ball came off and Marquette had it and Fantasia just took it from herm. That was the deciding factor of the game that she just flat out took the ball from the kid and she just made sure we had the rebound.”
On the importance of winning after being upset:
“I think it is big just for standings alone. We want to continue to win so we can get a decent seed in the BIG EAST Tournament. I still think we have to win a couple more games just to secure everything because people are really playing well in our conference. People are going down and beating people on their home court and some of the teams at the top are losing games. It is very important for us to stay ranked, obviously, because we want to be ranked at the end of the season when we’re trying to get into the NCAA Tournament. So this is big for us to just hang around and do what we have to do to stay in the rankings. More importantly just for the conference, to maintain our position in this conference with wins and tie breakers. This conference is crazy it always comes down to stuff that is crazy on the last day and hopefully this year, knock on wood, we won’t have to be in that crazy situation. We won’t be sitting at Cincinnati with six minutes left and someone saying, ‘well they got blown out, so we have to win to get in.’ We need to just continue and improve our seed in the BIG EAST Tournament, but I feel we definitely have some work to do. “I don’t feel that we’re definitely in the tournament.”
On freshman guard Erica Morrow:
“She has been solid. I have been trying to leave her alone a little bit because she has been playing well and she has been playing a lot of minutes. I have been trying to back off her some and I don’t do a very good job of it, but I try. She is just a very good player and I just knew that when I recruited her that she would come in and do big things for us and she is doing it.”
On importance of rebounding:
“I thought it was big late, I would like to see how many rebounds we got in the last four or five minutes, because I thought that was the difference in the game. I thought that we really got on the glass and didn’t give them two many second chance opportunities down the stretch.”
On turnovers:
“Marquette did a really good job on keeping us in front of them. A lot of teams this year haven’t actually kept us in front of them. They did a good job of making us play over them; we weren’t able to get a lot of free looks at the basket and then when we did it was either a charge or a block. They made sure there were calls, though a lot of times there were no calls, at least they made us play over them and not around them. I thought that was huge and I think that when you know that contact is coming you try to make an additional pass or you take another step and their defense was the main reason for our turnovers, I don’t know if it was being sloppy.”
On Marquette’s emphasis of stopping Syracuse down low:
“Our guards are really good. Our posts are really good. I don’t think that you can put an emphasis on one position on us. When you look at it between Fantasia (Goodwin) and Vionca (Murray), they have 17 points and 18 rebounds, that’s big. Then you add Vaida’s (Sipaviciute) seven and her two rebounds; that is a lot of points from our posts. I thought that we did a good job of staying aggressive and staying after it.”
On Chandrea Jones:
“It is one of those things where now people are game planning for her and it is different when somebody is game planning for you. At the beginning of the year, people saw her play and knew that she was pretty good, but they didn’t know how good. Now as you get into the conference and teams game plan for you things are different. We game planned for Krystal Ellis and she was 5-of-19. So when you game plan for somebody you’re going to try and take them out of the equation. If you look at it we game planned for her, she was 5-of-19. They game planned for Chandrea and she was 3-of-17. I thought both sides did what they wanted to do by keeping both teams leading scorers out of it.”
On heading to Seton Hall:
“It is the BIG EAST and now we play, I think, three games a week. We have to just get in the gym tomorrow and I will go home tonight and start watching tape on them and figure out what we need to do to beat Seton Hall. We just want to play, we don’t want to be off for eight days anymore, let’s just keep it rolling, keep playing and see what happens.”
On pumping up the crowd:
“I’m always a cheerleader, always cheer for my kid, love my kids to death. I’m an advocate for them and I’m going to get everything I can for them from this crowd. Our crowds have been huge; they’ve been into it and the good thing about it is that it doesn’t take a lot of cheerleading for them to get into it and that is what you want. When you talk about 3,500 fans a game it is awesome, totally awesome. I am really pleased with the support and our fans are great. This is turning into a real home court advantage.”
On the difference in being on the road:
“Home is different, you sleep in your own bed, you’re in different surroundings, you’re not practicing in other gyms at nine o’clock at night. It is just a different environment and that is why you have to make sure you take care of your home because you have to play very, very good to do it on the road. We have been on the road, had some very good games and won some games on the road so hopefully we can do the same thing at Seton Hall.”
On Tasha Harris and Erica Morrow facing ball pressure:
“They’re great, they do it well, they are competitive kids and I don’t worry about them. They get ball pressure everyday on the playgrounds of New York City. It’s ball pressure and they just have to play. I thought that they did a good job and handled the ball really well.”
