Nov. 7, 2010
Recap | Box Score
Wisconsin vs. UW-Superior
Nov. 7, 2010
Madison, Wis.
Post-Game Quotes
Wisconsin Head Coach Lisa Stone
On what the team can take away from the game:
“We will have all kinds of teaching points from this one. First of all, great credit to Superior, Don (Mulhern) has been in the business for a long time, he does a great job. When I coached at Eau Claire, Superior was nothing like this. I give him a ton of credit for what he is doing. Those kids play hard, they never give up, and they did not come in here intimidated at all, they are going to do very well in their league. I thank them for coming, and again I credit the way they played today, because they played very hard. But for us, we have got a lot of work to do, we really do, in a short amount of time. We open up on Friday in Saint Louis. They will have undersized post players and be really scrappy, very much like two of the exhibitions we saw. But we hope to get Tiera (Stephen) back, hopefully by Friday. We will still be without Alyssa (Karel). We have got a lot of things that we can learn from this film, particularly taking care of the basketball and making better passing decisions and defensively our one-on-one containment is very poor right now.”
On turnovers:
“Fake a pass, make a pass – it’s pretty simple, and we made it harder than it needed to be today. I am certainly not going to take anything away from Superior, but our team needs to be better that way. And everybody did it. Seniors right down to the freshmen, everybody turned it over, everybody had a little difficulty that way, and I don’t know why. We had two really good practices coming in. I thought we would have a much better performance out here today. Again take nothing away from Superior, but we Badgers will be better by Friday, I guarantee you that.”
On Steinbauer, Zastrow, and 3-point shooting after Superior switched to 1-3-1:
"Yeah but the problem is, when they go to a 1-3-1 and we shoot four straight three’s and don’t make them, you better get it inside, and that’s something that we are learning. Again, it’s early and that is what exhibitions are for, to find out where you are at and what you have to work on. Some encouraging things, certainly 44 points in the paint, we had 40 in the paint the other day. That’s good for us, it is going to relieve a lot of pressure outside. I thought Jada Buggs really responded today, she played limited on Thursday, but came back today after really good practices. You can see that she has got an unbelievable upside to her. So we have Morgan Paige in her first game as a freshman, this one Jada Buggs, it is really nice to see those young players get out and get their feet wet and handle some intense locker room conversations as well as responding in practice. Again, we will be better, that team wants it as badly as we do and we have got a lot to work on.”
On playing shorthanded without Alyssa Karel to start the year:
“We are going to be very cautious with Alyssa. We are not going to bring her back until she’s ready, it’s too big of a risk and she’s too great of a player. But Tiera is feeling better and she will start some movement tomorrow, which is good, and that will help us, we are a little thin out there right now. But that’s a great group of women that I have the pleasure of coaching and they know we have got things to work on, it’s almost that you don’t have to tell them. And we will be better, I know we will.”
UW-Superior Head Coach Donald Mulhern
Post-Game Quotes
Opening Statement:
"I just want to thank the University of Wisconsin for having us. Our players, since last year when we knew we were going to play against the Badgers, have been thinking about this (game). Our conference rotates (between teams to play Wisconsin) every year, so it was our turn this year."
"Our players had a wonderful weekend. Everybody, to a T, on this campus has treated us with the utmost respect and dignity, and I mean everybody."
On his team’s progress as the game went on:
"We were hoping to get, just to get better. We talked a lot about our team not scoreboard-watching, because that can be overwhelming considering (Wisconsin) is a Big Ten team. We talked about every possession is a battle in and of itself. And if on every possession we can set our focus upon what we can control, which is effort, setting the screens, passing, cutting and those kinds of things. And the outcome of that ball going in the basket or defensively making a good shot, that’s going to happen or not. If we can do our defensive rotations properly, if we can close out properly, set good screens, make good cuts properly, which is what we work on every day in practice, you can then look on that as a building block to the future."
"So our goal was to get better from possession to possession, from first half to second half, and to try some different combinations here. And I feel good about that--we did get better. After the beginning, I thought we were getting a little scared, and I was worried about that. I thought that would be really easy, it was a being our first time on a big stage kind of thing."
"We missed some easy shots, but that’s normal, that’s human, no issues there. But I think we did not play scared, and I was really happy with our composure, and our ability to compete in terms of the best that we could do. So I think that we accomplished a lot of our goals today."
On the strength of Wisconsin’s players and playing against that level of competition:
"They’re pretty big, pretty strong, pretty athletic. And it’s kind of neat that some of these young ladies-they got a chance to watch them in high school being from Minnesota. Alyssa Karel didn’t play, I understand, but Cassie Rochel, Tara Steinbauer--it’s kind of fun for me as a fan part of the whole experience, to see them after I saw them in high school grow and become Badgers."
On what he told his players:
"Watch how these Division 1 athletes carry themselves, and watch how they perform under different basketball situations. I try to draw from others and see what they do; I wanted our players to draw from the Badgers and see how they play, and have themselves learn from that, and try to emulate that. If someone is good, try to figure out how they’re good and do it yourself, that’s my philosophy. I think we’re going to work on that."
