Jennifer Shoaf Quotations

With the lineup we had out there, we really didn't feel like we had a choice. Brittany (Powell) and Erica aren't our two quickest players, so we had to play a zone just to keep (Ledford) contained.

We've surprised a lot of people. We've even surprised us. We weren't supposed to be here.

She's a common force for us. The younger kids were so nervous. There was so much pressure because all of our guards are our young kids. They've never played in a do-or-die situation.

I can't fault my kids for their effort and their heart. It seemed like we were one little play from finishing it off and we couldn't do it.

I thought she gave them a big boost. She did a good job of running their team.

I think they had a hard time adjusting. But we made it hard for them.

Our goal was to hold them to under 40 points for the game, so we're happy we were able to do that. It wasn't our prettiest game, but anytime you can get a win on the road in front of a hostile crowd, it's a good victory. The girls did a good job of holding their composure in here tonight.

That we won with our defense, that's no surprise. North has better shooters than we do. We just hoped we could score enough to stay in the game, then win it with defense.

We played them last year and had a tough time. It will be a challenge for our kids. We'll see how they come out and handle it.

We came out really aggressive. We were able to get any misses they had and get the ball turned around in transition.

We played aggressively. Some people may not believe this, but the upset didn't happen tonight. I feel the upset was when they beat us. That night we shot ourselves out of it and beat ourselves.

We knew she had the potential. We had to get her to understand what a good shot is in our system. Every shot is a good shot to her. She'll shoot every time.

We were in real danger of being blown out right at the beginning. We couldn't get anything going on offense, and we couldn't stop them. We were struggling, sinking quick. But we adjusted personnel and our defense.

Tonight her defense was still pretty special. Tonight she also had to take on offense, she had to handle the ball a lot against the press. We had a lot of inexperience out there, and Ashley had to go back and control some of that.

We missed a lot of easy shots, but we've been doing that all year. It wasn't like that surprised me.

We challenge her every night. We get on her a lot about playing big, playing your size.

Defense is definitely carrying us. At times we just can't put the ball in the ocean. We keep finding ways with our defense to hold teams down enough to give our offense a chance to create or get something to go in.

That's not an easy time to be playing. But we'll worry about it if we get there. We just want to be there.

I told him Ashley hadn't done anything for two days. I told him if nothing else, I needed her for defense. He said if she feels good enough, let her go.

Hicks hit the 3, and we felt like it was ours. But we went into celebration mode a little early.