Oklahoma State University Athletics
OSU vs. Texas Tech Postgame Quotes
January 07, 2015 | Cowgirl Basketball
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Oklahoma State Head Coach Jim Littell
Opening statement
"I'm very pleased with our effort. As a coach and a coaching staff, all you ask out of your team is to compete and play hard all the time. We're trying to get to that 40 minutes a game. That's what it takes to be successful in this league, especially when you go on the road. I thought that we got about 33 minutes. We didn't start the second half with great intensity and gave (Amber) Battle some easy looks, but for the most part I thought our kids were really locked in. When you win the rebound battle, 46-17, it's just a huge stat. I don't know, as long as I've been here, if I've ever seen zero second chance points. That was a good stat for our team. I'm not happy that we turned it over 21 times, but for the most part, we were attentive to the scout and played pretty hard for 33 or 34 minutes. We ran some good things offensively and had good balance. Brittney Martin was special tonight. She had a great performance as well."
On the problems Tech presented defensively early in the game
"You know, they're a good defensive team. I think they're probably second or third in the conference in points allowed. They're athletic and they were switching some things. We've covered that before and we handled some of it at times, but I think we got a little careless with some of our passes and that's indicative of the 21 turnovers. I thought we made some corrections, and we got out scoring in transition. When you're struggling a little bit, you've got to find a way to get easy baskets, and I thought we really pushed it hard, found people in the open court and got some easy basket opportunities."
On the defensive performance of the team
A lot of our focus tonight was on Minta Spears. When they win games, Minta get open. She's an excellent three-point shooter and we wanted to run her off all three point attempts. Brittany Atkins did a nice job of finding her in transition, going on top of screens. She just played hard and found her and that was a big key to the game. Amber Battle, we set a goal to hold her to 16 points. We held her to 14, but she had to use 15 shots to get to that. She's a tremendous talent. She's going to be a pro. She is very athletic and can score in a lot of different ways. I thought Brittney Martin, for the most part, did a good job on her. I didn't like the intensity we came out with in the second half on her, but to hold her to 14, we feel good about that."
Brittney Martin
On starting the game
“I thought we came out pretty intense. We've been worried about – you know how we've been starting before our (Big 12 Conference) season games – I think we're really focused on trying to get out and start running from the beginning and start getting things going. Still, obviously, we need to work on that, but I think we're getting there. We just aren't there yet. We're working on it.”
On getting their first conference win
“It feels good. I wish we would have won the last one too, but it's good. It's a good feeling.”
On rebounding
“I think that was the emphasis of the game. We were bigger than them. I think once we get more rebounds than the other team, it shows and we win games that way. It was just an emphasis on every game, really. We've been working on that in practice since we started playing games. It's just an emphasis going into every game.”
On Liz Donohoe
“She rarely misses shots. That's what she does for us. She's tough out there. She rebounds. She's hard to guard. She can shoot. She drives to the basket. She just rarely misses and that's something that we all need to look at her for. We need to get in the gym more. You can tell that she gets in the gym because she hits shots that we need. She always steps up when we need her to.”
Roshunda Johnson
On the team's ball movement
“That's something that we work on every day at practice knowing that some games we don't swing the ball. We just came out and we just emphasized it in the locker room and said, 'Swing the ball; reverse the ball.' We've been practicing on it and we finally did it and it showed as a team.”
