Q PostGame ASU
SU Women’s Basketball vs. Alabama State
Head Coach Quentin Hillsman Post-Game Quotes
November 19, 2009
“It was just not a good game by us. We didn’t play with any fire, no enthusiasm. We didn’t want to be here and that’s just tough to swallow. I’ll take the ‘W,’ but it’s tough to swallow. We are a much tougher team than that and have a lot more character than we showed today. To go to the free-throw line and shoot 25-42 is totally unacceptable. We had 14 offensive rebounds, totally unacceptable, 21 personal fouls, totally unacceptable. We’re going to get it together. We’re going to get back in the gym, work hard and figure out what we have to do to be a better basketball team. I’ll take the “W” obviously, we’re 3-0 and undefeated, but overall I’m not happy with our effort today. I’m not happy with our free-throw shooting or the way we played defense. We have to do a better job of really getting after it. We cannot play games like this so we’re going to get in the gym and get it fixed.”
“I thought down the stretch that Erica Morrow and Nicole Michael came up strong and they played big, and Tasha Harris hit a tough shot to kind of put the game away. We just have to be better. I’m very disappointed in our effort and in everything we tried to do tonight on the defensive end. They drove past us and it’s just unacceptable.”
On the perimeter shooting:
“We just took too many. We should never be shooting 26 3-pointers as a team. We have to get in the paint and be aggressive. We took a lot of threes. I thought that early we were aggressive and trying to get to the rim. Obviously, we got in 1-and-1 really early, but Erica (Morrow) was 2-10 behind the arc, 20 percent, and we can’t win games like that, with your best players shooting 20 percent behind the arc and taking 10 of them. We just can’t win like that. We took way too many of them and we have to do a better job of getting better shots. I will say that Erica (Morrow) felt the urgency and took the game over defensively and I applaud her for that, but she shouldn’t have to do that.”
On taking any positives away from the game:
“The positive is that we won. Kayla (Alexander) didn’t do a good job defensively. She let the ball get inside too much and they were able to score in the paint on us and that can’t happen. We just didn’t do a good job. She did do some very good things, but it wasn’t good tonight. She has to do a better job.”
On practicing free throws:
“We shot free throws before the game in the Melo Center. We shot a ton of them today because I knew we would get to the line because they couldn’t guard us off the bounce. I knew that they would go zone on us and start shooting the ball or go high-low and still shoot the ball and penetrate, but we didn’t do everything we needed.”
On why he switched to the zone in the second half:
“They were beating us off the bounce towards the end of the first half. We were hand checking. I said if we continue like this we’re going to be fouled out. I knew we could rebound the basketball if we kept them in front of us.”
