Postgame Quotes: Alabama vs. South Carolina
1/8/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Recap Alabama Head Coach Kristy Curry
On positives that can be built on from this game:
"I think one of the biggest positives is free throw percentage. We shot 77 percent tonight and got to the foul line 22 times; it's not shooting 75 percent on 3-for-4 or 7-for-8. To shoot 20-plus free throws and shoot 77 percent was a bright spot and it's something that we really emphasized. I think that the bright spot was that a lot of young kids had an experience that wasn't so fun. They know that every step of the way here they can grow and learn from this. (South Carolina head coach) Dawn (Staley) is in her seventh season at South Carolina; in year two she probably went through a few of these. You either learn from them and you improve in every aspect, or you continue to let it happen now and in the future. Hopefully we will be better from today."
#22 Karyla Middlebrook, Guard
On what the team can learn from this game:
"We are disappointed in the way we played tonight, especially after the first 10 minutes, because we proved we had it in us. We just have to learn from this and get better from it. We need to not get beaten down because of this."
On her reaction to when Ashley Williams got injured:
"My first reaction was `God, I hope she's okay.' Ashley is one of the girls who I am closest with on this team, so it was really hard for me to sit on the bench when she's, from my point of view, unconscious for a moment. But it was good to see her give a thumbs-up to the crowd as she was escorted out."
#15 Meoshonti Knight, Guard
On her reaction to when Ashley Williams got injured:
"It was real emotional to go down like that, but we just have to be a team and face adversity."
On the team's confidence:
"I feel like our team still has confidence. I feel like we are going to come out wanting to win it even more because of our loses these past three games. But like Coach Curry said, 'As loses come, we just have to come back and stay positive.'"
South Carolina Head Coach Dawn Staley
On South Carolina's overall performance tonight:
"I thought we played pretty well. I thought that our starters got us off to a great start, and they stayed poised. They even stayed poised when Alabama was scoring on us. We took their big hit, and then I thought that we settled things down, which allowed some of our players coming off the bench to see the game. Without the poise and run we made, it would have been difficult for them to come in and impose their will."
On South Carolina's offensive performance tonight:
"I really thought that we executed from an offensive standpoint, meaning that we moved the ball around, and it was hard for Alabama to figure out who we were going to. I think that had to do with how many weapons we had on our basketball team tonight. We put many different people in, and obviously (guard) Asia Dozier got off to a great start, so we wanted to keep feeding her, and once we opened up the zone a little bit we were able to go inside. We moved the ball around fairly well, and found a way to put the ball where it should be, and that's the open player's hands."
#41 Alaina Coates, Center
On team's overall shooting tonight:
"We kind of just feed off the energy when we are playing. When somebody has a hot hand everybody else knows it, and we just let them do what they do. It's really just a team unity thing - if somebody gets hot, someone else is going to as well."
#24 Aleighsa Welch, Forward
On her decision to go shake Ashley Williams hand when she got injured:
"Obviously I was in a similar situation in the Auburn game, so I just wanted to make sure she was good. I saw when they brought the stretcher out and when they pulled the neck brace out, so it took me back to being in that same position. I just wanted to make sure she was okay, and let her know that she was going to get through it, that our whole team was praying for her for a speedy recovery."
