Head Coach Gary Gait Quotes
Syracuse vs. Colgate
Wednesday, April 15, 2008
Carrier Dome, Syracuse, N.Y.
On Katie Rowan setting the school career scoring record:
“I think it’s great. She’s been playing hard all year. I’m very happy for her accomplishment, that’s what comes with hard work, dedication and talent and skill. She’s very fortunate to have some great players around her and, having been a player and a coach, that’s the best way to have success, when you have players that are threats to score all around you so (the defense) can’t just focus on you. I think that’s going to be the key to her success again next year. We’ll return a lot of offensive players and that will allow her to play at a high level.”
On playing challenging teams:
“I want to be challenged more. I’m looking to strengthen the schedule. I’m looking at similar teams and we’ve already made a decision on going out to Stanford and playing them next year, so there’s one ranked opponent on the table. That’s going to be my focus and it already is my focus – to improve our strength of schedule.”
On the lopsided score:
“As a head coach I’d rather be challenged every game. That’s going to be my focus and it already is my focus. As much as you tell the players to be prepared and ready, in the back of your mind, you still know it’s an unranked opponent that isn’t quite at your skill level yet.”
On the upcoming games against Loyola and Cornell:
“Loyola’s going to be a tough game. We still need to take care of business (Saturday) and then go to Cornell and play a very good Cornell team. They’re playing very well and made the top 20 in the coaches poll. They’re feeling pretty good and looking to be the spoiler. If we take care of business we’ll hopefully have another home game.”
On being able to rest players:
“We got to rest a lot of players in this game. We had some players a little banged up who started but then they got to sit and rest their injuries.”
On what he takes from the win:
“I’m happy with the win and how we played but I know we could’ve played better. I think (the defense) could’ve slid over and helped more, focused on some of the things we’d been working on.”
On the possibility of finishing the conference schedule undefeated:
“It’s one of our goals, to win the BIG EAST and win it outright. Another one of our goals is to win the (BIG EAST) tournament to position ourselves to play for a championship.”
