Pam Borton Quotations

We started slowly but played better midway through the first half and were able to control the tempo of the game. It's always good to get that first win in conference play.

We're approaching this week, these two games this week, as they are not any more important than the games last week or the games in the future.

We've talked about it to the players. The guards will have to run the team in some situations. The kids will have to call plays.

We need consistent play from our post players off the bench to make us a deeper team.

She?s a kid that wants to learn and a kid that wants to be coached. She is a coach?s dream as far as she is a sponge and wants to learn and always get better.

She plays at post for them but she has the speed of a guard and she's playing with a lot of confidence. I think Danielle gets better and better every game and I think her best days are ahead of her.

I was pleased with our execution on offense in the first half.

I'd like to wish Brittney and Lauren the best of luck in all their future endeavors.

I felt like we didn't have Jamie the whole game. Jamie didn't play up to her capability offensively or defensively. I thought she was playing scared, and I thought she was playing a little tentative out there.

We're preparing for this as if it was a Big Ten game. Our players have been pretty good about not overlooking anybody on our schedule.

What I learned about this team, and what we all learned about this team, is we're not as good as we need to be right now.

We've faced worse adversity before. We'll get through this as well.

Hopefully we can play our best basketball next week.

The only thing I want to say about this game is I was extremely excited for our seniors. It's been a pleasure to coach them, and it's been a pleasure to learn from them, too.

I think in the last three or four games they have barely lost or they've been in games they should have won in the end. If this game would have slipped away, this is just another one that they almost (won) and they found a way to win.

I thought she was playing scared and tentative. Jamie wasn't getting the job done.

Jamie was hurting us. I felt like we didn't have her for the whole game. She was not playing up to her capabilities on offense and defense. She wasn't getting the job done.

Jamie was disappointed with the last game, but so was everybody else. You can't judge your happiness on one game.

Our team defense has gotten a lot better. We've got to keep our aggression up a little longer and play a little smarter and a little more disciplined.

Our bench made the difference, especially in the end.

Some of our better options on the floor are with the younger players.

Natasha had been wavering the past few weeks. It didn't come as a surprise.

Liz can no longer be a role player. She's learned the last couple of weeks that she has to be become a primary scorer for us.

That was Shannon's best game of the season so far.

I worried more about that earlier in the season. I can't jump to conclusions after one game.

We have some of our best offensive scorers and threats off the bench. I was very proud of them seizing the moment.

We have some of our best offensive scorers and threats off the bench.

We had mix-ups on who we were guarding sometimes, and we had players getting hit by screens. That's not us. We went into this game hoping to prepare for Penn State (on Sunday). Instead of taking two steps forward, we took a step back.

We had great effort and played with great passion, but it just wasn't enough tonight. The tougher team won tonight.

We had a lot of mental lapses and defensive breakdowns the entire game. It's a win.

We have to have more help in that area. I'm not making excuses, but we need to make things a little easier for us for the duration of the game, not just the beginning.

We can't have Jamie sitting on the bench for very long. Jamie's got to find a way to keep herself on the floor.

We have two weeks of practice to get things done. Hopefully, this loss will make us better.

When we're on the road against a top-10 team, teams are going to go on runs and you've got to be able to sustain the runs and we did not in the second half.

We definitely did a better job in the second half on pressuring the basketball. We played extremely flat in the first half.

We didn't have an answer for both of them.

When Jamie is playing up to her capabilities, she can be one of the best players in the country. We had other players on our team giving us the effort we needed.

This time of the year, nothing replaces experience. It's what we have to go on. It can't be one or two players who will put the team on their backs.

We just have to pull some kids out of the places they're in. Some kids aren't as confident as they need to be. We have to build their confidence and remind them they're still a good basketball team. They've got to believe it and play like it.

When you have her at those numbers ... you think you'd win a basketball game.

This was a very disappointing display of basketball. When you shoot 31 percent and have 20 turnovers, you're not going to win, especially in March.

We just wanted to show 12,000 people what we were all about. That's hard work and second effort and just a lot of energy out there.

We might have to shorten our bench. Some players have been more consistent lately.

We wish Lauren and Brittney the best of luck in their future endeavors.

You got to go with what has been working and I think right now, if you figure out the percentages, we were getting 50 percent of our production from our bench and 50 percent from our starters.

Bolden did a great job on Crystal last year at our place. She went 2 for 14, and I think that was a difference. Shannon is a really intelligent player just with her length, (Smith) had to shoot over a 5-11 player with her hand up, I think that bothered her a little bit.

At this point of the season, you would rather not have to make these kind of moves. But as a coach, you find yourself making adjustments all year. Our lack of consistency has been an ongoing thing all year.

Five of our first six possessions were turnovers. We dug ourselves a hole very, very quickly. It was 10-0 before you knew it. But any time you turn it over 24 times and give up 18 offensive rebounds, it's going to be tough to win on another team's floor.

Right now, Washington is the best team in the country to us.

Purdue plays the same style as Michigan State. They pressure the ball all over. We'll have to be ready for that.

Are we pleased at how we finished? No. We know we have the talent and tools to put things together. At this point, our seeding doesn't matter.

This game could have NCAA implications for us.

A lot of things hurt us the last two games... fundamentals, physical play, decision-making, people showing up ready to play. Even as coaches, we have to work harder. We all share in the responsibility of what happened. We can't put it all on the kids. It's up to as a staff to get us headed in the right direction. This will be our test.

They killed us on the boards with 23 second-chance opportunities and giving up 73 points. Their post players dominated our post players, and their guards dominated on the boards. We got beat by a team that was a lot more aggressive than we were.

They made the plays they needed to make in overtime.

There was no doubt in my mind that we were going to win this basketball game. There was no doubt in my mind before the game, after yesterday's practice, after shoot-around today. We wanted this game, it didn't matter who we played, it was all about us.

It's a challenging time here. I'm very confident and believe in the kids that are here. They are getting 100 percent of my focus right now.

It's not missing shots or lack of execution.

It's huge and we can't have Jamie sitting on the bench for very long. Jamie's got to find a way to keep herself on the floor.

It shows her role on this team is not just to score points for us. If she doesn't have 33 or 25, we're still going to win games. She makes big plays on both ends of the floor for us.

It's been an ongoing thing with Jamie all year, the way the season started for her. She was the closest thing we had to any type of a go-to player.

It's been a pleasure to coach these seniors and learn from them. It was exciting to see them go out in front of 10,000 people.

That's not why we lost the game. We lost because the other team was more aggressive than us and we didn't take care of the boards. You can't win in the NCAA tournament when you don't rebound and give up points like we did.

Each one of these individuals have different issues on why they have chosen to leave this program.

Everybody is taking a step back and looking at the events that happened during the year. I don't think you can pinpoint it on one thing. It was many different things that kind of happened at once.

It's huge. We can't have Jamie sitting on the bench for very long. She is a consistent offensive player and threat on the floor and, obviously, one of our go-to players.

Nothing was broken. Her arm got twisted a little bit when a player fell on her hand.

Indiana gave us a good fight. They're twice as good as the last time we played them.

I'm taking personal responsibility for what's going on but not full responsibility. It's never one person's fault 100 percent. You never hope it comes down to this. We do have to find out how we can do things better.

If you don't take the game serious, you can get beat.

I don't know if we were bored or what. We did just enough to win the game. We had too many mental lapses and defensive breakdowns.

The difference was how we started the second half. We came out like gangbusters, showed a lot of passion and a lot of energy out on the floor. We definitely did a better job defensively just by pressuring the basketball.

The difference in the game was the four and a half, five minutes going into halftime.