USF-UConn Quotes
Jan. 6, 2009
USF Sun Dome

Coach Jose Fernandez on:

The team's performance
“I'm really disappointed with the score, especially losing like that at home. Even on the road its never good so it's a huge cause for concern with the score the way it was.”

On the fans turnout at the game:
“I'm really happy (with the fans turnout). I think the marketing department did a very good job getting people exciting about the game. Our students came out, but if you're a student, and this is your first women's basketball game, and you come to see our women's basketball team get beat by 50, its not good incentive for them to come back to watch us play again.”

On how much more work the team needs to do
“We're past that, because we have five seniors on this team. They know what it takes, its just disappointing that we came out and performed the way we did. We're 13-3; we have 13 on the good side, so we just have to continue to build on that good side and not the other side. I thought three guys, Denson, Grant, and Wynne all showed up tonight. Denson block shots, she took a charge, and she played hard on both ends of the floor.”

Guard Shantia Grace and Forward Porche Grant:
On what you can take away from a game like this
Grace: “We just have to come ready to play, play our game, keep our heads up and just stay together. A couple times tonight I think we dropped our heads when the game got tough, and we just never got up from that, so we need to stay together and stay positive towards each other.”

Grant: “The next game we need to remember to play hard every possession. Just because a team goes on a run doesn't mean that we should just give up and continue to allow them to go on that run, because when you don't fight back it only makes it that much worse.”

UConn Head Coach Geno Auriemma
 “As Maya (Moore) said, you go into any game with a number in your head as we're going to try and do this, we didn't do that tonight either. We went in against a team that is making nine 3s a game and that was a number that we were very concerned about. We were going to make sure that was a focal point of our defense to not allow any uncontested or open threes and I thought we did a great job with that. The energy and the way we helped eachother and covered up for eachother I think that wore the South Florida players down a little bit because the shots they're normally used to getting, the things that they were able to generate up until this point all of a sudden weren't there and then what happens ? and we've seen it happen with our team as well ? you lose your game plan at some point and it starts to get away from you. Once that happens coaches really struggle to try and keep it together and that is what we were able to do to (South Florida) is just get them completely out of their comfort level. It's not that bad if you don't score but if all of a sudden they can't get the shots they normally get, they can't get anything to drop and you're scoring at the other end all the time that just really breaks them down.”

 

Maya Moore, So., F
On shooting from the three point line...
“The last couple of games Coach (Auriemma) has just been emphasizing to me to find the ball, to be active, to be aggressive and not wait around for my shot but to go get it in transition and my teammates were finding me today.”

On limiting South Florida's scoring
“I thought our defensive pressure was great. I give our guards a lot of credit just for being physical out there, fighting around the screens, being physical and doing whatever they needed to do and just being smart about not letting (USF) get off a lot of threes.”

 
On whether UConn took it as a challenge facing the nation's highest scoring team
“I think we weren't satisfied with how we were playing defense and we definitely took it as a challenge. No better team to do it against than a high-scoring South Florida team.”

 

Tina Charles, Jr., C
On playing in the Sun Dome
“I enjoy playing here. My family was able to come out and watch me play, I have a lot of aunts and cousins out here so I was happy they had an opportunity to watch me play.”

On the teams performance
“I thought it was much better than the LSU game. Coach put an emphasis on not having energy and me specifically in that game so we just wanted to come out and just bring it and play UConn basketball.”

 
On her double-double
“It means a lot but that is something I have to do everyday and it starts in practice. I'm trying to take a lot of pride in rebounding. Coach Elliot had said that there are only specific people that take pride in rebounding and I wasn't one of them so I'm just trying to be one of those players.”