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Coach Hillsman Quotes
Syracuse vs. Rutgers
Carrier Dome -- Syracuse, N.Y.
January 13, 2010
Opening Statement:
“I can start with, we just played a very good basketball game. All the way around. When you look at what we did on the floor, we did a remarkable job. We knew there was going to be a battle in the paint; we knew that they would crash the boards on us and play at the rim. We didn't expect them to do anything different than what they did. I thought we did a very good job of playing with a lot of effort, playing hard on every possession and we just competed. This is all them. They did everything we asked them to do for the entire game. We told them that at some point, they're (Rutgers) a very good basketball team, and how are you going to respond when they make the run. Obviously, we responded pretty well. It was one of those games where I thought for a half we didn't shoot the ball as well as we did the first half. The numbers show it, but to shoot 82 percent from the free-throw line, that was the game. They were very physical, and we knew that if we could make our free throws and play in the paint, that we could get points.
“(Freshman center) Kayla Alexander is just a big-time player, she steps up and she plays big. She was six for eight from the free-throw line, which was big for us. (Senior forward) Juanita Ward didn't have a field goal, but she made 10 free throws. You're talking about doing just what she had to do to take care of the basketball game. (Junior forward) Erica Morrow, she played very well, I think she's back. She looked very good. Slinky's (Nicole Michael) Slinky. I told her before the game, 'Slinky, you have to win the game for us. You have to win it.' Because I knew that if she didn't step up and have a big game, we would lose this basketball game. We love these kids because they compete and they never let me down. They always do everything we ask them to do. They prepare like crazy. It was just a great win for our program, a great win for our kids.”
On making an early adjustment to the Rutgers defense:
“I just reminded them that it was the same press that Georgetown and Seton Hall ran. I made the same adjustment we made for Georgetown and Seton Hall. That's what they did – they went out and made the adjustment and then we started going down in transition, getting the ball down the floor, trying to get it inside, and then they started fouling us. I knew we could get shots in transition against them, and we really wanted to push the ball in transition.”
On getting away from 3-pointers in the second half:
“I knew that if we shot 35 threes, we weren't going to win this game. You can live or die by it, and we would die by it. We shot 30 percent, so we're not going to shoot 30 threes and shoot 30 percent; I'm going to do that. We made adjustments and started getting the ball to the high post. In the first half, we got a lot of threes in transition. We would get down the court, get the ball reversed, and Erica (Morrow) hit two big ones in transition early. The stats were kind of skewed a little bit because Erica just got two wide-open looks, and the ones that were coming in the flow of our offense, we weren't making them. So I knew that if we kept shooting those, it might come back to bite us.”
On if he had the team work on free throws this week:
“No, because I know we are a good shooting team. They're good basketball players. Free throws are so mental. We make them in practice all of the time, you make 90 percent then. Our biggest thing was making sure that you're physical, and making sure that you're strong with the ball, because that's what they do. They play very hard, they come at you every possession, they're not going to relinquish any possession, they go after every ball, and I give them a lot of credit for that. They continue to pound and bang and play physical. They're a great basketball team, they've got a great program, they've got a Hall-of-Fame coach, they have everything in place. They've been to Final Fours; they've been to championship games, look at what they do as a program. They're a very good program. I guarantee, at the end of the year, they're going to end up with 21-22 wins and they'll be playing in March. They're a very good basketball team; I respect their program a lot.”
On the significance of back-to-back wins over Rutgers:
“It's just one of those things that we focus on just winning one basketball game. When you talk about back-to-back, that's not that significant to me, maybe it is to our kids. It's probably more significant just to win this basketball game, to make sure we keep it rolling and keep on the top side of the .500 record in our conference and just get ready to continue to compete and to continue to play hard and continue to compete against programs, because what I always know is that everyone writes about great programs and they're always involved in the conversation every year. I want to make sure that we have these kinds of opportunities, and we play as hard as we can to try to take advantage of the moment. I'm always telling them, you have to take advantage of your opportunities, and the lifetime of opportunity, and this is the opportunity.”
On the upcoming three-game road trip:
“Three games on the road, that's good. We just have to go play, because if we can get a couple of those on the road, we can be on the top side of .500, and that's huge. We're ready, it's the BIG EAST, and we have to go on the road.”
