Nov. 15, 2009

Recap |  Box Score

Postgame Quotes
Lady Lions vs. NJIT
November 15, 2009

Penn State head coach Coquese Washington

Q: What did you think worked differently for Alex [Bentley] today?
A: I just think she is being more aggressive and she is trying to find the balance between being the point guard and running the team. She was more aggressive, trying to get in the lane and create for herself and create for others. We talked to her yesterday about just being more aggressive when she has the ball and trying to get in the lane because she is very fast with the ball, it is hard to stop her in the lane. She has great court vision and the ability to pass the ball and make shots on the run. I will keep encouraging her to play aggressive and keep attacking.

Q: How do you feel about your bench playing thus far this season? You are getting a lot of action from them.
A: I think that we have a lot of talent on our bench. On any given night anybody can step up and have a big contribution. We look forward to that. Meredith [Monroe] played well today. Everybody that came off the bench gave us something. That also gives us an opportunity to spell our starters so that they can play at a high level for the majority of the minutes that they are out there.

Q: You said that point guard is the hardest position when transitioning from high school to college ball, are you surprised with how quickly Alex [Bentley] is adjusting?
A: No, I am not surprised. I think she is a very gifted player. I think she is only going to get better and better as she gets more comfortable just figuring out how to play on this level. I am not surprised because her talent is at a very high level. But her competitiveness is what gave her an edge tonight. She played really aggressive, getting into the lane and trying to create things for herself and for others. She is just really a tough match up.

Q: Your post didn't play an awful lot in this game. Was that because of the way NJIT was playing?
A: They put five guards out there. In the first half Nikki [Greene] and Janessa [Wolff] were running around. Their coach did a good job isolating them, going one-on-one or running them off screens. It wasn't an ideal match up for our big posts. I think that once we made those adjustments, defensively we were able to stay with them a little bit better and force them to take bad shots.

Q: Halfway through the first, you were down eight points. What adjustments did you make to come back from that?
A: I thought we were a little sluggish to start. I attribute some of that to us playing on Friday. We got back late and practiced yesterday. I think a little bit of it was that they had to get the gunk out of the transmission and get started. When we went to a smaller line-up it helped us stay with them. We just needed to shake to cobwebs off. When I put a smaller-quicker line-up in, that helped.

Q: How important is it for you guys to get points from other players besides Tyra [Grant]?
A: I think we have a deep team. We have kids who can all contribute offensively. There is not all the pressure on Tyra that the outside world thinks that there is. She has a lot of confidence in her teammates, so she doesn't worry if she is struggling, they will pick up the slack. I think our offensive execution is not where it needs to be right now, but it will get better. We have people that can make shots and people who can make plays. We are still finding out how to play together, but that will come.

Q: How big is it for you guys to have four players in double figures and to have consistency across the board?
A: Since we have seen here, we have found that when we put three or four people in with double figures, scoring, then we are usually pretty successful. I don't know that we have lost many games when we have had four people score double figures. When you have a lot of weapons out there, a lot of people who can score, you just are tough to guard. We have four people in double figures, but we also have other people that when they get more playing time and more comfortable--Gizelle Studevent can put the ball in the whole, Marisa Wolfe can put the ball in the whole and Meredith [Monroe] is showing that she can score. We have a lot of weapons. Our depth is going to be one of our strengths. We just need to continue to get better with our offensive executions and that is really showing.

Q: Nikki Greene didn't play a lot in the second half, is she okay?
A: It just wasn't a good match up for her. There was really no one for her to guard. We didn't want to put ourselves at a disadvantage as we were trying to extend our lead. Putting her out there and in a position where it would be hard for her to be successful and we didn't want to do that. Julia [Trogele] was playing well and Meredith [Monroe] played really well, they just had five guards out there so we just went with our smaller-quicker line-up.

Senior Guard Tyra Grant

Q: What do you contribute to the slow start and what did you do to get things going?
A: I feel like we just weren't playing our game. We were kind of off balance with a lot of things. Our shots weren't falling. I feel like we just start clicking everything together, like everything just came together. I would contribute that to how we got it rolling.

Q: How nice was it to see three other teammates in double figures in scoring on a night when you struggled a bit?
A: It's great. It shows everybody else too that it's not just me on this team. People say you have to stop Tyra Grant, you have to do this, you have to do that, double team her. Once you do all that, you see what else can happen. I feel like all of our players are capable of doing this day in and day out. It's not just me.

Q: Defensively what did you guys do better in the second half to stop NJIT's Jessica Gerald?
A: I feel like we just played our defense. We got up in the passing lanes, we pressured. They were doing a lot of ball screens, a lot of back doors and things like that, so a lot of ball pressure. It's inevitable that somebody's going to get beat at some point in time. It's just basically we have to have enough ball pressure; we have to play our style of basketball and our style of defense. I feel like that's what we did.

Q: How important was the road win against Drexel on Friday Night?
A: I feel like it's great just to know that we can win when we're not at home and we don't have that home crowd advantage and things like that. That was a hostile environment. It's hard to play in a place like Drexel. It's just a little confidence booster to ourselves to know that with any kind of environment we're in or any kind of obstacles or anything like that, that we're faced with that we can still get through them and get over them.

Junior Forward Julia Trogele

Q: How often do you guys practice with you being the tallest person on the floor and what kind of challenges does that present?
A: I don't know if it necessarily presented a challenge because coach always stresses that every kind of lineup can be thrown out there during the game so we need to know every position on the court. I think that's the biggest thing is that we need to know everyone's position, not only so that we can play it but so we can look for people when they're open.

Q: What do you contribute to the slow start and what did you do to get things going?
A: Our biggest thing is rebounding and running. I think once we kind of got out of playing to their pace and we started playing our game, we just picked up the intensity and got our flow going.

Q: Nikki Greene went on a breakaway to the hoop. Were you guys hoping for a dunk there?
A: Yeah, I think she was too. I think she slowed down because she wanted to get a good jump off. I think that I'm excited for the day that she dunks. I was all "come on, come on." But, it will come. I'm not worried.

Q: Why do you think it took you guys the first half to kind of get it rolling?
A: I think the biggest thing with the defense was containing the drive. They were driving middle a lot. Coach Coquese (Washington) at halftime was like, `we need to make sure that we force them baseline and trust our teammates to be there to help us out on the help side.'

Q: Are you familiar with the two recruits you looked at this week?
A: Oh yeah. We know them. Trust me they're up here a lot. They were just at our game on Friday. We're excited to have them join our family and they're extremely talented and we look forward to having them with us. Their personalities are great and they know how to play ball too so it's a great match.

Freshman Guard Alex Bentley

Q: What do you contribute to your success today?
A: I don't necessarily think something worked better, I just think that I'm learning and it's just a new experience being a collegiate athlete now. I'm trying to balance my game with how our team is now playing. That's all.

Q: What were you seeing on the floor that led you to finding your teammates like you did today?
A: I just think that I was trying to play more of my game today, attacking just like coach Coquese (Washington) always tells me to do. I started to do that more and things started opening. Once I got my players, or once I got my teammates shots, once I attacked and kicked it and they knew they could hit the shots it brought openings for me.

Q: Why do you think it took you guys the first half to kind of get it rolling?
A: I think it's because we're still learning each other's game. We have like five new freshmen, well four since Mia (Nickson) is redshirting. We're still learning each other's game and everything and we just started off slow. We got back in it in the second half.

NJIT head coach Margaret McKeon

Q: What was the difference between the first and second half?
A: I really think that in our execution kind we got back on our heels offensively, and then defensively we missed some assignments, our effort couldn't sustain that very long for our top players that we play, our seven or eight deep that we are, and then they kind of came with it when they made some good open shots, they started really dribble penetrating against our match-up zone and they got too deep so many times, uh and had easy buckets for their big kids and then we were in for a long night, long day.

Q: This your first game of the year and Penn State's second in a 48-hour span. Were you trying to attack them early and try to pounce on them real quick, since they have tired legs?
A: We were really just trying to execute and do the things that we try to do well and um I thought we caught them off-guard, I don't know if, I thought we executed really well early on defensively, they didn't play much against, I did see the Drexel game on DVD, they didn't play much against match-up zones. So I don't know if that's always early in the year that's always helpful if you do play a match-up because people don't practice against it as much.

Q: What did you think of their point guard Alex Bentley?
A: She really started, she really got into us on the defensive end, we have young point guards as well, we have a freshman and a sophomore and last year our sophomore didn't play that much because we graduated a fifth year senior, so I thought she did a great job. She got in deep and distributed the ball, I don't know how many assists she had, but it seemed like 12 or something, she had nine and she made open shots when she was there. She did it all today, I thought she did a really nice job against our match-up and when she understood where she could get things done, she did it.