Boston College Athletics
Postgame Quotes
March 22, 2004 | Women's Basketball
March 22, 2004
Opening Statement - HEAD COACH Cathy Inglese: Obviously I'm very, very pleased with the outcome of this game. I can't be any happier with how this team came together tonight. Both on the defensive end as far as shutting down their inside scoring and making it tough for them to get off the perimeter shots. They're a great percentage shooting team. We knew that coming in, being number one, and I think illustrates our defense is what really got us going and got generated on the offensive end. I was very, very pleased with just our unselfishness and our ball movement as well as our inside game with our post as well as our outside game.
Questions to Student-Athletes
REPORTER: Kathrin, the game looked very rough. Was this comparable to most games for you guys or a little bit rougher?
Kathrin Ress: Well, we haven't seen that tall of a post player in our season, but I think it was rough, but every game is rough, and right now we are in tournament time, so every game counts, and it's done, or like you win or you go home, so every team just looks to give whatever they have, and this was rough, but obviously during season we have rough teams also. But now, from now on, every game is going to be rough, and always rougher.
REPORTER: This is for any of you three. Was that the kind of final score you'd expect from a game between the two top shooting teams in the country as far as field goal percentage?
Amber Jacobs: You know, obviously coming into this game we knew that Ohio State was a great team, and you know, number one in the country for shooting, and I think we rank right up there, too, but I think we knew it came. This win was going to come from who could play better D, and, you know, I gave tons of credit to our team tonight. We came out and just we're so aggressive on D. I thought we followed Coach's game plan, you know, pretty perfectly, and we just came in and we wanted it, and what a great atmosphere to be able to play in, and you know, the shooting percentages, that's how they go, I guess, some games.
REPORTER: Amber, do you guys feel like you were rushing it at first? There were a lot of turnovers, and you had a lot of yourself. Did you ever think that, first of all, were you guys rushing at the beginning, and did it go through your head that this could be my last game in my college career?
Amber Jacobs: Certainly not. I mean, you don't want to be thinking that. You're out here to win. But as for turnovers, obviously, many coming from me, but I give Ohio State a lot of credit. They're a very scrappy team. They just get their hands in there on the ball, and we just had to be really aggressive. They have quick guards, very athletic, and you know, but I just give a lot of credit to my teammates for just keeping me in that ball game and encouraging me, and I turned it over, okay, so now we're going to get it back again, and I think that's the mind set that Coach has really been trying to implant into our heads, even from the beginning of the season, and I think that shows a mature team right there. You know, turnovers are turnovers, but in the end we came out with a win.
REPORTER: Did playing here on the road, being the higher-seeded team, did that give you guys even more incentive? Did that make you think you had to be even tougher? Did that maybe almost help you in a way?
Jessalyn Deveny: I think so. You know, last year we played Old Dominion at home, and they gave us a great game right 'til the end, and coming in here, we knew we were going to play Ohio State on their home court, and obviously we wanted to come out here with a victory, so we were going to do anything we had to do, whether it be if we were playing West Virginia on Ohio State court, so I think we just came out here and wanted to get that victory, and that's what we did heading into the Sweet 16.
Amber Jacobs: That was like the most incredible, most incredible atmosphere ever, I thought it was.
Jessalyn Deveny: They got loud.
Amber Jacobs: It was loud, I thought.
Jessalyn Deveny: It's comparable.
COACH INGLESE: Don't make UConn fans mad. Don't be comparing them to UConn. They're both pretty loud.
REPORTER: Were you guys just trying to make sure that the Turner and Davenport big kids were maybe a couple feet farther away from the basket than they might normally be and trying muscle them out a little bit?
Kathrin Ress: To me as a post, I think when a team pushes you out of your, like, comfortable spot, then your percentage goes down. So we tried hard, like to make them go to spots where they weren't comfortable. Obviously they're tall, so logs are, like, easy to get, but we were just trying to like be strong and then keep our position and like keep moving our feet because if they would, like, get position on us, and they would have an easy score. So we were just really trying to push them out and try to make them shoot over top of us, and we did.
REPORTER: Jessalyn, what happened in the locker room at half time? It was a pretty competitive game going in. It seemed like they had momentum and then things turned around quickly.
Jessalyn Deveny: You know, Coach came in and settled us down. She said we had a good first half. You know, she was pretty pleased with how we defended and on offense. We did a pretty good job, too. We had to cut down our turnovers, but in the second half we wanted to make sure we came out playing our last 20 minutes, and we wanted that victory so bad hat we were going to do anything to get it, so Coach just came in, put all the trust in us, and we went out and got it.
REPORTER: After nine minutes Hoskins had 13 points. She didn't score again till a minute and a half left. Amber, you talked about how defense was the key. How much was there a focus on her after their initial run, considering they're known mainly for making high percentage shots from their post players, and she was just a guard doing everything outside and driving in.
Amber Jacobs: I mean, mainly we were just focused on containing the penetration, and I think in the first half, we were getting beat a little, and we weren't getting that early help as quickly as we should have been, and I think in the second half we just came out with a little more aggressiveness and a little more active, I think. I thought we, you know, just really understood the personnel and what they were looking for and got a feel for their plays, and I think we knew when they wanted to penetrate, we knew when they were looking for a shooter. We knew when they were going to look inside, and our team did a great job rotating and clicking and defending any option that they were trying to look for.
Questions for Head Coach Cathy Inglese
REPORTER: Coach, I'm wondering if you can compare that defense you played tonight with at any time this season? Have you played that well consistently or was that pretty good?
COACH INGLESE: I think it was interesting after the Big East tournament, after we big UConn, one of two Big East coaches called and said you guys playing in the Big East tournament? You guys are playing great defense. And I think we have -- they're coming together, trusting one another, helping each other out, so I think it's been -- other than last night, we've been playing, I think, pretty tough.
REPORTER: It was the first time that Coach Foster had lost at a home arena in any of the schools he had taught. With that and also winning at Hartford, do you get a sense now that the girls believe we're better than UConn, that instead of just being a cliche' you can win anywhere if you try hard, now basically there is no arena they can think of if they play their best they can win?
COACH INGLESE: We've been playing pretty well, and also at Colorado State which was a tough place to play, too, and we won that tournament and UCONN helped contribute in their being confident, and that it's a bigger venue, it's a loud crowd, and during that time is when I think they really did gain a little bit more poise, a little bit more maturity. So for this game, they knew it was going to be this type of environment, and they were really up for that. I think it helped them and we talked about the fact that, you know, we would rather play in an empty arena, and we were watching a few games on ESPN and some of those arenas are empty. This was a great venue to play in. It was loud. Obviously went against us, but I believe they would rather play in a venue like this. Even the fans are against them, and they're getting attention and it was a fun crowd. So I think they have fed on that and enjoyed that. Boston College Press Conference Quotes / March 22, 2004 - 3 3 3 3 3
REPORTER: Turner three for eight, Davenport two to ten after two to ten on Saturday. A, would you have dreamed you could play them play that well, and B, it looked like the strategy was a double and even triple them every time they got the ball. Go through what your strategy was.
COACH INGLESE: To answer the first part, no, I didn't think that would happen. Today in the shoot-around, I said to our post, watch your body language. They're going to score. Do the best you can. If you do a job and they score, you forget about it. You go back down and just continue to play, continue to battle. But our strategy was really to simply be as active as we could in the low post, and when the high post got it, to really pressure the high post. They do the best job of any team I've seen with the high low. And we really tried to make that very, very difficult. And then bring the guards in, send the guards in, off the non-shooters. And our guard was pretty active, so it was a team thing. Our post did the initial job, and the second player came with our guards just being very active and making it tough when they received it to congest them and let them always know that when they got the ball, they were going to have people around them.
REPORTER: Coach, two-part question here. Can you talk about how important it was for the seniors to win the Big East championship, and also, how far has this program come since your first three years?
COACH INGLESE: It's come really far, and, you know, people forget, and I have talked to a lot of coaches that - you know, one or two of my friends are just taking over programs that are losing and, you know, I went through that at Vermont. I mean, at Boston College, when I first came here, we lost a lot. This senior class we lost ten games in a row their freshman year, and I didn't even know it was our tenth loss in a row until I read USA Today. We lost to UConn, and it said they lost ten in a row. I got a phone call from one of my friends in coaching to ask how we were doing. I knew starting then, we won five in a row to end the season. These guys didn't give up. They were continuing to get better. We had a lot of injuries that year. We had two freshmen starting in the back court, so for those seniors to see how they have not only been successful and having a tough year and not giving up, to come to this point, I can't be any happier for them and just how they've grown as individuals besides on the basketball court.
REPORTER: Another one, can you talk about Ress and the first time you came in contact with her.
COACH INGLESE: Yeah. We took a foreign tour and being half Italian, I was a little bit selfish, and I said to the team, we're going to Italy, and we did, and played in four games there and our last game in Rome, and we played the senior national team, and she was on that team, and we spoken to the coach prior. She had mentioned her name so we watched her there. Felt she had a lot of potential because of her versatility for a big player. She could do more than just play in the post, and we just kind of watched her and remained in contact, and when she came over to the states, we obviously went all over her and really went hard to get they are to come to BC.
REPORTER: How was Audrey's energy in the second half? Even after she picked up her third fall, she drove right to the basket the very next play.
COACH INGLESE: That's what our team is about. Our guards get a lot of three people here, but we really stress, you know, even Sarah going in off the bench for 30 seconds, Aja is a sparkplug for us on defense. And she played both inside the four spot as well as in the perimeter, and she played aggressively and confidently, and she's one that brings us energy on the defensive end, and I think she certainly did that tonight.
