Postgame Quotes

Jan. 2, 2013

Head Coach Sherri Coale

On the game:
"Wow, that was a fight. That was a fight for 40 minutes, and I thought it was a great show of character by our team just grinding their way back, fighting back and getting to the hump time and time again and not being unable to get over it. Finally, once we got over it, hanging onto it. I thought our execution late in the game was really, really solid. Defensively we adhered to the game a little bit better in the second half. We did a great job on the boards, getting some separation. That's the only way you survive turning it over 21 times with only eight assists. We did what we had to do to win the game, and I'm really, really proud of this team."

On if what the team took away from the loss to UCLA helped in this game:
“Yeah, we have been a much better team in terms of blockouts since the UCLA game. That's attention to detail as much as anything – it just being important to you and being a muscle-memory pattern or a reflex that happens every time a shot goes up. I thought late in the game when we had to have rebounds, we sure did a good job of it.”

On West Virginia's defense:
“You try to expose it as much as you can, and that sounds like such an easy thing when you're just talking about it. It is a much, much harder thing to do. You have to weather everything that's up front. What makes it so difficult is you have to fight being sped up. It pushes you into rush, rush, hurry, and no cuts are ever complete and no post-ups are ever properly time. You get a little wound up. You get sped up, and then your offense has no cadence and you lose tempo. That's the danger of it all. What I thought we did a good job of in the second half particularly was playing with cadence and playing with tempo and exposing the overplays. We got several backdoor cuts because we didn't lose our tempo. We got several over-the-top feeds into the post because we didn't lose our tempo.”

On the fight the team showed:
“I think that's their character. You can just see a reflection of their character. Wins like this give you great confidence. These are the ones that can pay off again and again and again. It's going to help us down the stretch, not only in terms of the way you feel when you fight back and do this but what we know about our ability to execute when the game is on the line, what we know about our ability to handle situations and handle the game.”

Junior Guard Aaryn Ellenberg

On the contributions of her teammates:
“It was a great all around. We all contributed in different ways, even guys that came off the bench like Portia [Durrett]. We talked about that in the locker room. She didn't play that many minutes, but when she came in, she made a difference. I think all around everybody did what they needed to do to get that done.”

Senior Forward Joanna McFarland

On her performance:
“It was a challenge the whole game. Like Coach said, it was a fight. It's go time. If you sit back, you can get in the hole, so I was just trying to do what I could for the team.”

On facing West Virginia's defense:
“I think part of it is not letting the physicality of the game get to you. You can't get caught up with fighting with your man trying to make a cut. We did a lot of things like on angles and getting separation in practice, and we just had to try and take that into the game.”

On her attitude during games:
“This is my last go-round, and I am just trying to enjoy every single minute I have with my teammates and with the team I am playing with. I am trying to show that so everybody else can see we can play with a lot of joy instead of getting down on ourselves.”

Sophomore Guard Sharane Campbell

On while playing with three fouls:
“First, at the beginning of the second half, I was a little worried about the fouls. Whitney [Hand] came up to me and told me I needed to get back on it, I needed to step up, I needed to not play afraid, and that's when I was like 'OK, yeah. It's time for me to step back up and do what I have to do.'”

Head Coach Mike Carey

On the game:
“Give Oklahoma credit, we were up seven or eight and they fought back. We got into foul trouble, we definitely fouled too much. We just have to do a better job of defending without fouling. We did do a good job on the boards. Then, when we let it get tied, we kind of got shook up a little bit and took some bad shots and gave up some bad boards and offensive rebounds. You can't put them at the line 39 times. They scored 31 points from the foul line. You just can't win a game doing that.”

On the style of play in the Big 12:
“The Big East was physical too, but that's how we play. We were holding too much, we were pushing too much with two hands -- stuff like that. We just have to be smarter. I thought our girls came out and played hard, I really did. I just thought the last five minutes we didn't play smart. We cut it to 1 and then didn't box out the big girl. Why? I don't know. The good thing about the Big 12 is you're going to play every Wednesday and Saturday, so we have to get ready for Kansas on Saturday.”

On West Virginia's first Big 12 experience:
“Great, great crowd, great enthusiasm. First class. I thought it was first class from practices all the way through. I was very impressed with the way they treated you. Everything was done the right way, so I'm very impressed with the way they did things.”

Players Mentioned

Aaryn Ellenberg

Joanna McFarland

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University of Oklahoma Athletics

Postgame Quotes

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Players Mentioned

Aaryn Ellenberg

Joanna McFarland

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