USF Women's Basketball
USF vs. West Virginia
February 20, 2010
Postgame Quotes
Jose Fernandez, USF Head Coach
“I thought our kids competed and I think we battled. West Virginia is in the top 10 of the country for a reason. They have a very good basketball team. They've only lost three games. And you look at the three they've lost, Ohio State, Norte Dame, and Connecticut, correct? Those are three perfect programs. We're down four at half, and we gave up that late basket at halftime. But with 10 to go, it was a 5 or 6 point game. It really hurt us; I think we gave up… Campbell hit a big three in transition and House hit those two threes; that really broke our backs. To move it up to 8, 9, and 10. But, we struggled to score against their man to man stuff and they did a very good job defending Lawson. You know, Lawson and Dalembert were in foul trouble the whole game. Those are two kids that are a big part of what we do. We've got to regroup and get ready, get back and get ready for Providence.”
On what he thought of Asya Bussie-“Well, Asya Bussie was an All-American coming out of high school, which was a blue chip recruit. She was one of the top players in the country coming out. We don't have anyone like that on our team. So that speaks volumes of what they're doing. I think one of the things we make up for that is, preparation and planning and these guys' effort and them sticking to the game plan and playing well together. You know, they've got some very good players and they've got everybody back. That team, West Virginia has a chance to go very deep in the NCAA tournament. And next year with everybody back and the transfers that they've got, they can be a final four team.”
KaNeisha Saunders, USF Guard
On if it was frustrating knowing how close the game was-“It was a little frustrating, but it's even more a mental game with us. Like if we not make a shot, we just got to play defense, so it was a little frustrating for us.”
On trying to pull out the win in the second half-“Yeah, we thought we had a chance the whole game. It's just like what Coach said, when House hit those two threes, it kind of brought us down a little bit, and then we needed to regroup right away.”
Mike Carey, WVU Head Coach
Opening statement…"First of all, he is going through a tough period right here right now, I feel his pain. We had like 6 or 7 last year, we had a bunch of injuries. I think quite frankly, I watched their Georgetown tape on film and tonight I think they look better right now then they have. So I think he has done a great job regrouping his players and getting them to play and play hard and buy into what they are doing. I thought that Bussie, even though she didn't score a lot up there, I thought she did a good job on Lawson. I think she frustrated Lawson a little bit. I thought she did a good job on that. And Korinne did a great job on the board to give us some scoring. We're just not playing well right now, we are going through a stretch where we struggle to score and we have to get that fixed. It seems like we are just doing enough to win, and that's not good enough if you want to play in a tournament so we have to get some things corrected."
On being undermanned…"If we are “so called” team in the country then it shouldn't be. If we are for real then we shouldn't have a problem getting motivated. I thought that are emphasis was definitely to stop Lawson. Get in there are find her weak side and we did that but we kind of forgot about other people, we let them drive us. Offensively it just seems like we stood around. They played a 2-3 zone. They didn't do anything fancy, they played a 2-3 zone and we just didn't execute against them and we haven't been. So I give them a lot of credit, I think he is doing a great job in a tough situation. I went through it last year with a bunch of injuries and that and I know when you have low numbers its tough, its tough. You cant make a lot of changes so I feel for him. Hes got them playing hard so I give him credit."
On Korinne Campbell…"I felt that offensively rebounding helped my team out a lot you know getting second chance shots is big for us. We didn't shoot a very good percentage so those second chance opportunities I thought were big."
