Jan. 18, 2015 Recap | Box Score | Notes
Rutgers Postgame Quotes
Wisconsin vs. Rutgers
Jan. 18, 2015
Kohl Center- Madison, Wis.
UW Head Coach Bobbie Kelsey
Opening Statement:
"We're disappointed that we couldn't come out with the win, but we competed against a very good team. Rutgers is a powerhouse and has been to the NCAA tournament and the Final Four, and their tradition is very strong. We're trying to get to their level, but I thought our kids competed hard.
"If a couple more baskets went in at the beginning since there were a few of them at the very beginning that went half way in and half way out, I know Tessa (Cichy) had one and Jacki (Gulczynski) had one, it would have been a different start to the game. I told them they had to stay afloat and keeping fighting, and they had a couple baskets go in that got loose during transition.
"I'm proud of them, Dakota (Whyte) had a great game, Tessa did her thing and almost had a double-double. We didn't turn it over as much considering that they do press a lot and they're athletic, but I thought we handled their pressure. Couple times it got away from us, but for the most part we tried to make sure to put them in something that we thought could get the ball in. We'll improve and get ready for Nebraska."
On Rutgers' strong performance:
"When you have a girl come in and get 17 points, that takes care of that. They're a little bigger than us and jump a little higher, so it's not going to skew in your favor. We tried to settle them down a little bit, but they're an athletic team and we don't have the same kind of athletes, not that we can't do some other things well. I thought our kids played well considering they are a little bit bigger and can jump a little bit higher, but we took away some of things they wanted to do as well. It's about shots falling and if our shots didn't fall, then we had to find something else."
On the team's turnovers:
"They had a couple live-ball turnovers at the top, and I always say that if you turn it over at the top, there's nobody back, but if you turn it over on the baseline, you got three or four people running back. So not that you're trying to turn it over, but with a ball fake or better decision, you don't make those errors.
"A couple of them got loose, but you're not going to go a whole game without somebody getting a transition basket. We got some, they got some. They just got a couple more than we did, so we just got to take care of the ball better. We're not happy with 16 turnovers, but we know it's a lot less turnovers than we normally have against teams that are a lot less athletic. When you lose, you still have to look at the positive things and not get down on yourself. I though for the most part, we played a good game and there are errors that we have to continue to address."
Tessa Cichy
On her mid-range game:
"I think we had to work for every point we got, but that was something they were giving us and then they were giving Dakota her drive to the baskets, so that's what she kept doing. I think at different points in the game, we worked on different things and tried to compete with what was going well at that certain point in the game."
On what the team can take away from the loss:
"We go into every game thinking we can win, and there's obviously things you can take away from every game. In our minds, we can beat any type of team, whether it's an athletic team, a half-court team, a transition team or a big team, and I think one of our issues right now is putting wins back to back. We win one and then maybe we drop the next one, so I think what we should probably focus on now is putting wins back to back, and I think that will help us because we know we can beat anybody."
Dakota Whyte
On the team's offensive goals:
"At the beginning of the game, I was thinking to attack to kick it, since I know they have a big girl in the post. So, it wasn't really my plan to keep attacking but I felt that once I got one to go in, I just continued to do that."
Head Coach C. Vivian Stringer
On Cynthia Hernandez's 17 points in 14 minutes:
"She had quite an impact. We recognized that teams that don't even play zones have- we had the perfect example of last week against Maryland-chosen to play us zone and they virtually never do. So it's obvious that while we were starting off really well, but we've had injuries and the like so we haven't been able to have all the perimeter people on the same page at the same time. In addition to that, we're shooting 3-for-14, 3-for-17 (from 3-point range). We knew that we had to do a couple of things. We have to look a lot more to the inside, and we needed to have a baseline shooter. That's something that Cynthia has been working on and several other players."
On her first impressions of Wisconsin:
"Coach (Bobbie Kelsey) has done an outstanding job and the players are playing extremely well. I was a little uncomfortable playing them man-to-man which is the preference for us. They run a motion offense. There's a lot of cuts and dives and things of that sort that's going on. (Kelsey) has done a great job of having an understanding and the players play hard and coach has done a great job. We don't want to see them again I'll say it like that. They're big, they're strong, they shoot the ball well and they play hard. I'm not surprised."
On what made the difference in the game:
"Clearly (Hernandez) made a difference. I said that to the team. We needed to open up. We really wanted Wisconsin to go to a man-to-man defense, which they didn't and I don't blame them based upon what they've seen from everybody else. Probably if I put Cynthia in earlier and she'd been hitting those shots a little bit sooner, then they would've given us what we wanted, and that would've been for us to go into a man-to-man defense. There was no question that they handled the zone really well. We were really impressed with the Big Ten because the Big Ten is strong one through 14 without question."
Cynthia Hernandez
On if she thought she was finding the open space today:
"Yeah I do, because they (her teammates) get me open a lot. They push me out so I can have that open space. I'm glad I have the vision to actually get into that position so I'm glad (my teammates) can find me."
