Bowling Green State University Athletics
BGSU-CMU Quotes
January 06, 2002 | Women's Basketball
Jan. 5, 2002
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. -
BGSU HEAD COACH CURT MILLER:
"I give them a lot of credit, with their new coaching staff. They don't beat themselves, and we finally had to step up and make plays to get back in the game. I feel like we finally played fearlessly at the end, like there was nothing to lose. We just had to play hard, with no fear of failure at that point, and we started to make the plays that we needed."
"We needed one more basket to get it to about five (points). We had a couple putbacks, and then we got Francine (Miller) a clear-out, but missed a layup to get it to five or three. If we get it down to one possession, anything could happen. But, we couldn't get it to a one-possession game. I give them (CMU) a lot of credit. They're doing a lot of good things, and they're winning a lot of games because they don't beat themselves right now."
(On Francine Miller:) "She missed 10-straight games [Note: Miller missed nine full games, plus the final 36 minutes of the Detroit contest] due to her knee injury, and she is not 100 percent. But, clearly, she is the best senior in the whole conference. She's played in two (full) games prior to this one. The first game (at Youngstown), we win and she scores 26. She comes back against Kent State and scores 29. Today, she played about as poorly as I've ever seen her play, and scores 15 points in 23 minutes. So, she's still the dominant senior in the league, she's just not playing at full strength."
"(CMU's) go-to players stepped up and made plays. There's a reason (Vershaun) Jones is in the top-20 in the nation in rebounding. She pursues the ball, goes and gets it. It just goes back to every coaching philosophy that rebounding is not about size, but about heart and desire. She's 5-10 and gets 16 rebounds, and she nearly had a double-double at halftime. One of our keys to the game, after coming off (playing against) a powerful center at Lehigh and a 6-6 kid at Kent, was that we were going to defend a different type of center today, someone who would go after the ball and get rebounds. And, we were going to have to match her intensity and keep her off the boards. Obviously, we didn't get that done."
"One of the reasons that we're 3-10 is that we can't stop big runs. And, there were multiple big runs by Central in the game. We've had the inability to step up and make shots and stop big runs, and that's hurt us all year long."
"The other key was that we wanted to contain Desiree (Eidson), who's having a terrific year and just continues to make plays. She got loose on us, made some tough shots and had the ability to get herself to the foul line. Regardless of where they played her, at the 'three' or the 'four,' she pretty much overpowered us all game."
