Jan. 20, 2008

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Q: What are your thoughts on starting Janessa for this game, and did she give you what you wanted?
A: I had a lot of confidence in Janessa all season long. Coming off from two losses I thought it might good to put her in and shake things up a bit. She is tall, she is strong, so that was the thinking process behind that to try to get a bigger body on the floor.

Q: Are you happy with her performance?
A: I am really happy with how she played. But she is right. With her it does not matter if she starts or comes off the bench. She is going to play regardless of what the situation is and she gave us some good energy and she gave us some good rebounding. She is just a good presence down there offensively.

Q: How did the team do defensively to stop Phillips?
A: The first half, we were letting her get positioned too close to the basket at 6' 6". Our posts are 6' 2" and there is nothing they can do when she gets that close to the basket. In the second half, I think we did a better job letting her catch the ball a little further away from the basket. She couldn't just turn and shout like she did in the first half. I think she maybe hit one or two but I definitely think she was less aggressive looking to score because she ended up further away from the basket.

Q: Can you talk about your team's ability to not only force turnovers today, but to capitalize off them as well?
A: That is really one thing we stressed in something that when we do that well, we look better. And I think actually the stretch of the game where we went on the run to get the lead was sparked by our defense and our ability to rebound and get out and score. Mashea had a couple big baskets during that stretch. We kind of thrive on being able to get out and score on transition. We worked and talked the last few days about getting back to the defensive intensity a little bit more throughout conference play. In the last couple games, we gave up 67 points to Minnesota and 79 points to Purdue, and we have to play better defensively, and we got back to that today.

Q: Did you put a lot of emphasis on the perimeter defense?
A: Absolutely. We wanted to got on them and make them put the ball on the floor and do stuff off the dribble. I thought the first half we did a good job of going inside and trying to post up our guards and post up everybody really, and get Krista Phillips involved early on the block and not standing out on the perimeter. It took us some time to get adjusted to that. I think we did a better job the second half just defending them both on the perimeter and the post.

Q: Is there such thing as a much win game and how important was this win with the past two losses?
A: Every game is a must win game. I want to win every game. But naturally, this was a big game for us to win and you want to win all of your home games because of the way this conference is playing this year. Every road game is probably going to be more tougher than years past. But again, what we talked to our team about is that there is 12 games, and if we win five in a row and lose seven, its no good. We just have to take each game one game at a time and focus on what we have to do each night to be successful. And then do the same thing against Wisconsin, and then the same thing against Ohio State. Just taking things one game at a time. It is my job to look at the big picture and there job to look at one game at a time. If we do that I think we will have a chance to be successful.

Q: How did you feel about your rebounding today?
A: I thought it got better today. In the first half, we were not crashing, and we were kind of one and done. I thought in the second half we did a much better job of trying to get in there. And I think Reshida Mark did a great job coming off the bench and she gave us two great offensive rebounds down the stretch that were really crucial. I think her energy on the backboard gave us the energy to finish them off.

Q: Can you talk about Kam's aggressive drive to the basket on Phillips that resulted in the technical foul?
A: Yeah, we talked about that at timeouts about attacking Phillips and let her hedge out on the ball screens and not just settling. We got a little jumper happy for a while. So we talked about attacking the basket and attacking Phillips, because I didn't think she could stand in front of our guards and Kam did a great job of drawing the contact and foul. A little frustration set in and we'll take it.

Q: Mashea struggled quite a bit in the first half. Can you talk about what she brought you in the second half?
A: Well Mashea is a kid where her defense kind of generates her offense. When she is being aggressive defensively, with deflections, steals, and getting points in transition, that is when she is at her best. And the last couple games our defense as a team has not been stellar. We really picked it up in the second half and she kind of got excited about shutting people down. And when she found that defensive fire, that is what really started to get her going.

Janessa Wolff
Freshman Center

Q: Can you tell me about your first career start, and how did you feel the game was played?
A: When coach told me I would be starting I kind of told her that I was excited, but to me it doesn't matter if I start or come off the bench I am still going to play the same way. It was pretty exciting me running in, and slapping everyones hands and having Megan at the end. And in reference to the game we were banging around down low and keeping it a pretty physical game.

Q: What did you do differently in the second half to defend Philips?
A: In the first half I let her get on the block, she stopped then tried to push off. Then the second half I just I didn't let her get on the block at all. So when she came down and set screens I make sure her screens were farther off the blocks, so it was way easier on me.

Brianne O'Rouke
Junior Guard

Q: How big is this win?
A: It is always big getting a win especially in big ten play. Especially when everyone has a loss in the conference. We just come in knowing that mentality. This win was huge before we go on the road for a couple of games and it is giving us our confidence back.

Q: You guys came in averaging 23 threes per game. It didn't seem like you shot that many today...
A: We had lay-ups. We must've had 25 lay-ups and we missed them. We want to take the three's but we had lay-ups. In a couple years, we're going to make every lay-up they give us. Every one they give us. Be careful. We're not going to miss every lay-up in every basketball game we play. You saw it at the end of the game. We missed every lay-up we shot. We got to the rim and missed the lay-up. You have to make the lay-ups. You're not going to make a three-point shot if you can't make a lay-up. That's what I saw. I have to go back and watch video. It appeared as though we missed a lot of lay-ups.

Q: Was there an emphasis to get the ball to Krista Phillips early in the game?
A: We want to get her involved in the whole game. That's really what we want to do. We want to get her the ball down there the whole game long. That's what you want to be able to do. Get the ball close to the basket and lay it in. Get it close to the basket and get an easy shot. So that's what we were trying to do. We wanted to get her active. This is one of the better games she's actually had. She had a pretty good percentage around the basket. She's only a sophomore and I think she's going to get a whole lot better as time progresses. She's our big kid around the basket. We want to get it to her.

Q: Can you assess where Penn State is at based on where teams you've played are?
A: I can't. I'll tell you what I tell everyone else. I have so many holes in my boat. I'm running around plugging holes in my boat. I don't have time to look at theirs. I think they're a good team. I think they're perimeter kids. They're real athletic. They can take you out and shoot overtop of you. I can only see us right now. I'm trying to correct our things, but they're a good team.

Q: At the end of the game you guys missed some big offensive rebounds. Were you guys just out of position?
A: We're outsized. You have to go after people with two hands. You have to displace people on rebounds. We generally get displaced. That's how that stuff works. We're just not very strong. We don't have beat me up players around the basket to go get rebounds at this point. We have to create things defensively where it doesn't come to that. Where they just impose their will on you and do what they want. We're like Muhammed Ali. Sit in the corner and rope a dope and let them just punch us. Punch, punch, punch, punch, punch. Then now the ball goes up on the rim and it's jump ball. Then there's Tyra Grant who's six feet and Christa Clemente who's 5'9". Who is going to get the jump ball? A lot of that happens that way. We can't lay on the rope and let people punch us. We did that tonight. But we did that in respect for Penn State. They have pretty good perimeter kids.

Q: Regarding the technical foul...
A: She got frustrated. She got frustrated and pounded her first. I had kids get frustrated. She just got frustrated. She didn't do it out of disrespect for the ref. It was a good call. She did block the kid and got frustrated and hit her fist on the floor. Athletes do that sometimes. If that's the worst thing she does, I guess that's really minor. She just got frustrated and sometimes it gets the best of us. I think it did her in that situation. It's something we need to be conscious of and tell our players that sometimes it doesn't go your way and you can't show your frustration. It's hard not to but she did at that point. It's not the end of the world.