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Quentin Hillsman Postgame
Quentin Hillsman Postgame Quotes
Syracuse vs. Georgetown
January 2, 2010
Carrier Dome – Syracuse, N.Y.
Opening Statement:
“My one wish for this game is for people to say these kids competed like crazy. I’m not going to focus on one loss. Our kids competed, but obviously you can’t have 33 turnovers. When you lose 33 possessions you can’t win a basketball game. I’ll continue to be positive with my kids. I’ll continue to have faith in them and will defend this program. We need to get ready to face Seton Hall. Nobody feels as bad as the kids because they gave it up. We said we couldn’t turn the ball over and we did. We’re trying to make plays, be aggressive and I appreciate their effort. We’ve gone 12 games undefeated. We lost one so we’ll gather, recover, bounce back and play Seton Hall. We out-rebounded them, shot more free throws, we took four less shots, but we had 33 turnovers and shot 44 percent. So at the end of the day, that’s the game and I’m not going to let it turn us backwards. We’re going forward. We’re going to Seton Hall.”
On the number of turnovers:
“They are number two in the country in steals so that defensive effort was no fluke. I give them a lot of credit for staying with it. It’s hard to have 33 turnovers, but we did get the ball in scoring areas and just didn’t execute. It’s my hope that everyone will see we competed and answered every call. Basketball is a game of possession and we lost 33 of those. It’s hard to win in that situation. I think we had four 3-second calls so that’s a turnover. When you look at some of the turnovers, I can’t think of five turnovers where we turned it over and they made a lay-up. I can’t think of too many where they got the ball and scored uncontested.”
On Nicole Michael fouling out of the game:
“Huge. You’re talking about a 3-point shooter and her fouling out allowed them to shrink the defense. The bottom line is she cannot foul out of games.”
On Vionca Murray & Kayla Alexander’s performance:
“Vionca (Murray) was playing well. She had the leak out, the ball over the top and a breakaway layup for us. She played well in the second half and deserved those minutes. Kayla (Alexander) got in and played her minutes. We wanted to get Troya Berry involved because she’s a physical player allowing us to continue to put pressure in the paint. We did that. Kayla came in and played the stretch.
On Juanita Ward’s performance:
“She’s a good player. When she’s on task and focuses, she’ll have those great games. She’s on the glass, aggressive and a top-tier BIG EAST talent.”
On free-throws:
“I’m not happy with the percentage in the second half. It’s an Achilles heel for us all. We haven’t shot free throws well, even when we shoot them every day in practice. What can you do but continue to shoot them. As a team it’s not bad, but when you look at the number at the end of the sheet, it looks somewhat distorted. I thought overall we didn’t shoot terrible as individuals, but we didn’t shoot well as a team.”
