Bowling Green State University Athletics
BGSU-Ohio Quotes
January 08, 2003 | Women's Basketball
Jan. 8, 2003
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -
BGSU HEAD COACH CURT MILLER:
(On the final moments of the game:)
"We were trying, when we could, to play situational basketball, and get Tene (Lewis) in on defense and Stefanie (Wenzel) back in on offense. It was no secret what was going on at the end of the game -- we were running a lot of plays for Francine (Miller), and they were running a lot of plays for Andrea Johnson. It came down to execution. In the last timeout, I thought for sure that we would have a two-point lead, so we talked about not getting beat by a 'three.' At worst, we wanted to make them make a play in traffic, going to the basket. If they do, we'll pat them on the back, go to overtime and try to win on the court."
"What you hope for, as a coach, is that the officials let players make plays at the end of the game. There was lots of congestion and traffic; we did what we wanted to, and didn't give up a 'three.' She (Johnson) had to be able to finish in traffic. Fortunately for us, we contested the shot very well, and the last shot fell out."
"I felt like we needed to shut down the two wings, Johnson and (Candace) Bates, who came in as their two leading scorers. We had a goal of keeping those two under a combined 30 points, and we held them to 24. Latreece Bagley had a bigger game than we wanted her to have, but, all along, we wanted to contain Johnson and Bates. To their credit, their role players and other starters played great tonight. But, those two are very talented three-point shooters, and we held them to a combined 3-of-12."
"I pulled Lindsay (Austin) aside early in the game ... the way they were guarding her, I knew she was going to have a big night. Lindsay was going to have an opportunity to get to the basket and score for herself, but also get into the lane and create shots for other people. That double-double was huge. And, I think Lindsay would be the first to admit that she missed four or five layups that she's capable of making. So, you could have seen huge numbers out of her tonight. But, that was how they chose to defend us, and it was going to give Lindsay Austin some opportunities to create offense for her teammates and herself. Her composure, and an assist-to-turnover ratio of 5-to-1 in a game where she was consistently trapped, is a huge effort and a huge maturing process for us. She really handled it well."
"Jill (Lause) continues to play great offensively. I'm very confident with her on the floor that she's going to make shots and play hard and composed. She's not as athletic as their (Ohio's) post players, but you just have confidence that Jill will make open shots."
"Sakima Smith and I had a heart-to-heart this week, and basically said it's 'put up or shut up' time for her. And, she had a great week of practice, deserved her minutes, played really hard, and was competitive for us. She gave us four big points. That's as good as Sakima has played on the year, and I was very happy with her seven minutes. Her intensity level over the last 72 hours has really increased, and hopefully, she's turned a corner."
"In general, the difference between having a great season and having a mediocre season is finding ways to win close games. We could easily be 4-8 right now, but we're 8-4 because this senior, veteran group has bought into the game plan. They have bought into the system, they're playing hard for each other and for the coaching staff, and right now we're finding ways to gut out close wins. We haven't executed perfectly down the stretch, but it's seniors being determined to win close games. It's a huge barometer of the success of your program, being able to win those close games. I use the men's program last year as an example. They won every close game, and Keith McLeod made big play after big play. And, it propelled them to a great season. That's what you have to do. You have to win your close games to move toward a good season."
"Women's basketball in the MAC this year has so much parity. You will see (that the) people that move to the forefront in both divisions are teams that are able to win at home and steal a victory or two on the road. This home win was very important for us. Four of our next five MAC games are on the road, and all four road games are against teams that were above .500 last year and are predicted to finish ahead of us in the standings (this year). So, holding serve tonight against Ohio, in the big picture, is a huge win for us with a very tough January schedule."
