Pitt Women's Basketball Postgame Quotes

Jan. 29, 2017

Pitt Head Coach Suzie McConnell-Serio

Opening Statement:

"Sometimes I feel like a broken record. Louisville is a great team and they once again proved why they are a top ten team in the country. We gave them everything we had in the first half. We played a really solid game defensively, contesting, challenging players. They had players hitting threes. We still had a two-point lead despite that. Then the second half I knew that they were going to come out and play with a sense of urgency. When a team has a lead, or they need to change the complexion of the game, they press you, disrupt you, and we didn't handle it well. They made plays down the stretch, they made shots and unfortunately we couldn't put points on the board in the second half. We had open looks in the pain, open jumpers, open lay-ups, open threes. For us to compete, we need to give ourselves a chance down the stretch and make those plays. We didn't today, but we're getting closer. You talk about closing the gap against top ranked teams; we're just going to continue to fight and work to compete against these top teams."

On offensive rebounds being a factor:

"It was a huge factor. The two areas of concern coming into this game every time we play Louisville are offensive rebounding and their zone defense. You know that some teams are going to get offensive rebounds. It's the points that you give up off of those offensive rebounds and they had 18 second-chance points. We talked about taking care of the basketball and they had 21 points off our turnovers. That's 39 points that we put out there, which are gifts in my mind. Those are the two areas of concern coming in to this game and we just didn't handle them like we needed to today. You can't do that against a team like Louisville. They capitalize on all of those opportunities."

On the difficult third quarter:

"Aysia Bugg had come off the bench today after coming back from a concussion. With her at the point I thought we were doing really well, and then we went back with the original starting lineup at the start of the second half. That's hindsight being twenty-twenty going with the original lineup instead of the lineup that was on the floor at the end of the half. We just came out flat, we didn't get off to a good start. It was disappointing. Once you get down so much, we couldn't recover. We had the lead to ten in the fourth quarter, but we missed opportunities. We had an open three that would have cut it to seven and we had other opportunities that we couldn't capitalize on. We just couldn't get the lead to single digits."

On playing Syracuse next week:

"Have you seen Syracuse's press? Syracuse has the best press in country, in my opinion. They are relentless. They trapped you ninety-four feet and all the way to the rim. They are non-stop. We have to be able to handle their pressure. Teams that do, and are able to hit shots, those are the teams that have beaten them. We don't score a lot of points, but we have to score at least 60 points to give ourselves a chance to compete with these teams. We are not beating any of these teams in our conference scoring 40 points. That's the bottom line, we have to be able to put points on the board."

On Louisville's play overall:

"They just kept coming at us. They played with a sense of urgency offensively, more than we did. I thought a lot of times we defended their sets in our 2-3 zones. You get familiar with a team when you play them so many times and who the players are that you're keying on. I thought we were late on some of the close outs to their shooters, and we had some miscommunication. These are things that can't happen as the game progresses. Does fatigue become a factor? It shouldn't. I think you get a little lazy sometimes when you're constantly defending. When you start to give up three points in a possession, you start to get a little frustrated as well. They capitalized every time we gave them a chance to score."

On Cassidy Walsh's spark in the fourth quarter

"I thought Cass [Walsh] was a great spark on the bench. She hit a three and she was creating offense when we were struggling. Our decision making at the point was a struggle at times in the second half. Cassidy [Walsh] is someone who can be a calming effect and can make things happen at both ends of the court. I think she's deceiving in a lot of ways. She hit a big three and a follow up on a layup try. She took advantage of her minutes. As someone who hasn't been getting a lot of playing time, she continues to practice hard and when she got an opportunity she provided a spark off the bench."

Pitt Sophomore Forward Brenna Wise

On what happened at the start of the second half that allowed Louisville to go on a run:
"As Coach Suzie [McConnell-Serio] said, 'They're obviously going to make adjustments.' We had a two-point lead going into the half. They needed to make adjustments to us, and we didn't respond as well to those adjustments. As opposed to the first quarter where we gave them the first punch, I think they gave us the first punch in the third quarter."

On what it says about the team to continue to fight until the very end:
"Cassidy [Walsh] brought great energy off of the bench. She really is a leader as a point-guard. She's really stepped into that role well. We had great energy. I love our desire to compete and never give up and play those 40 minutes, but we've just got to continue to get better and play in those 40 minutes."

On what it says the team to play the No. 9 team in the country close two times this year:
"Anything can happen in the ACC. We're seeing upsets left and right and we're bound to get one of those. Anything can happen on any given night, and we believe in that. It's about lacing up the same shoes the same way, and going out and competing."

On if they specifically prepared for Louisville's Myisha Hines-Allen and Mariya Moore:
"Mariya Moore had a great game. She shot the ball phenomenally from the perimeter. Myisha Hines-Allen was the ACC Player of the Year last year. That's obviously someone you need to hone in on. When you go into a zone, you take away the inside game, and they capitalized on the outside game. She [Myisha Hines-Allen] certainly shot the ball well. Obviously, you want to take away a higher percentage shot than a lower percentage shot, but she hit clutch threes in certain situations. I give the credit to her."

On how they view themselves amongst the other teams in the ACC:
"Half of the ACC is ranked in the Top 25. Let's not forget about that. In regards to the ACC, if you have such strength in the ACC, you don't need to come in first and win your conference to make the [NCAA] tournament, you don't need to come in second. We need to compete and get wins, and at the end of the day, that's the most important thing. Rankings mean nothing. Like I said earlier, you have upsets left and right happening, and we're bound for one of them."

Pitt Graduate Transfer Center Brandi Harvey-Carr

On what Louisville did in the second-half to slow her down:
"I feel like I didn't come out as strong as I was in the first half because they kind of changed their aggressiveness, and I feel like I wasn't as aggressive as I should have been. It kind of let me down a little bit, but I tried to gain it back throughout the game."

On if Louisville's rebounding advantage was a key to their win:
"If you want to beat great teams, you have to rebound and eliminate second shots."

On what they have to do to get back to .500 in the conference:
"We just have to come in every day to practice just ready to get better. We have to make sure we're getting extra shots. Most teams play zone on us, or they play man. The other people on the perimeter will be open. We have to get them extra shots. We have to take advantage of who we have. We're a small team. We have to work harder to get better."

Pitt Women's Basketball Postgame Quotes

Players Mentioned

Aysia Bugg

Brandi Harvey-Carr

Cassidy Walsh

Brenna Wise

Related Videos