March 21, 2004
Old Dominion Head Coach Wendy Larry
"Anytime there is an eight-nine game I think you can always anticipatethat it will be a tremendous game. When you get to the NCAA Tournamentyou know that it will be a physical game. You just don't know to whatextent it will be a physical game. You have to make adjustments duringthe first five minutes of play depending on how the officials will callthe game. We anticipated a physical game and we got what we anticipated.Anytime that a game goes down to the last possession where you have achance to win or lose it it's a tremendous battle."
On Marquette's last play:
"It was a fraction of an inch from the sideline out of bounds. I canhonestly tell you that from my perspective they stopped playing becausethey thought that they had the violation. When they realized that shewasn't out of bounds it was too late to recover. I didn't see theintentional foul and so I wouldn't be able to comment on that. It's myunderstanding that she did have her hand on her back. The way the gamewas called throughout the evening makes you wonder how the intentionalfoul in that situation didn't give her an and-one, but we have to livewith it. That's a situation that was very unfortunate because it was ascramble."
"There were thirteen lead changes so I don't think we were just hangingon. I thought it was a tremendous game. You play the game; you have someruns and match runs. With the players that were not in sync for us, Ithink Lawana Davis struggled today and I think Monique Coker reallystruggled after her third foul. She let the game get taken from herafter that third foul. I think she thought she had a clean block whenshe took the ball out of her hands but I think they called a hip-check.Monique really thought that was clean and it was hard to get her back.Mentally she had taken a tremendous blow at that time."
"Actually we were decisively down in rebounding at the half. We weredown four rebounds, and they had eleven offensive rebounds. They goteight offensive rebounds in the second half. [Christina] Quaye had herway on the offensive glass. If you want to talk about paying attentionto her, she just went after the offensive boards. I bet that of herpoints, four or five of them were stick-backs. She did a tremendous jobof getting on the glass. We said in the locker room downstairs that fromthe jump it would be a situation where the team that rebounded the bestwould win the game. You could throw all the other stats out of the game.We had some taken from us. We didn't play strong enough initially. Wehad possession of the ball and gave it up because we were not strongenough with the ball."
"We were playing a game of chess at the end with how we were matchingpeople up against their match-up zone; putting people in certainpositions to create opportunities. We had Max [Nhassengo] initially inthe corner but we found that they were bringing their opposite forwardup so we just put Myriah [Spence] in the baseline corner to make theextra pass and hopefully find her."
Old Dominion Senior Monique Coker
On the play of Christina Quaye:
"It was a real physical game, like Coach [Larry] said. She posted up bigand got a lot of layups. For the most part when she got the ball it wasbecause of the help off of her and we either didn't rotate or whoeverwas guarding her probably shouldn't have helped at that time. She got alot of open looks."
Old Dominion Senior Max Nhassengo
"We weren't trying to keep it close. We were trying to go on runs butthey were stopping us on defense. We couldn't get some of the looseballs, they just got away."
Marquette Head Coach Terri Mitchell
"In the locker room before the game there were no inspirationalspeeches. We didn't want our season to end, and we've been down thispath a lot with playing great teams. We felt very prepared coming out ofConference-USA and that we were going to be ready for the competition.It was just a matter of staying very focused and staying with the gameplan. If you have followed our team and know anything about us, we'vebeen down many games. We weren't worried about that because we knew thatODU was going to come out in our face. They're a physical, tough team.It was a great basketball game; time ran out and we were the ones thatwere on top. We were fortunate to end the game on our run, becauseobviously it was a game about runs back and forth. We just have a lot offight, and we ended it the right way."
"Down the stretch, we wanted to keep going inside. We were just going togo with our normal high-low offense. We actually didn't run a specialplay. We just wanted an attacking attitude. There was nothing specialwith the scramble except that we told 'Q' [Christina Quaye] in thetimeout, 'You stay around the paint.' We wanted her in reboundingposition and at halftime we talked about how she was 4-of-6 and to keepgoing in to her until they stopped her. I thought our team was reallygood at seeing opportunities and getting her the ball."
"We've been in so many close games. We're not going to quit until thefinal buzzer goes off. We're not the kind of team where even when we winthere's a big disparity in the score. It's always close. We try to do alot of our practices like that. We do a lot of disruption drills inpractice. There are very specific rules about what you look for whenthere's a disruption. I'm not saying that any of that went throughtheir minds at the time, but I just know that 'Q' jumped up and downtall enough that we could find her."
"At halftime we talked about the Big Three (Shareese Grant, MoniqueCoker and Max Nhassengo). They were all scoring, and we just had to knowwhere they were. I thought our players were tempting Shareese too muchby trying to get up on her. I wanted them to back off and make her beatus from the outside, because she was getting into the paint too easily.She's a terrific player and her quickness and athleticism areoutstanding. We just had to keep doubling and tripling in the paint andmake them kick it outside. We felt very strongly that was the only waywe were going to win."
"Every game that our team goes through is another level of experience. Ijust got done coaching against a legend in Wendy Larry, and that'sspecial for me. Now with the possibility of going up against Duke andGail [Goestenkors], they're masterminds. They know the game and theyprepare their players. It just makes me have to be sharp in every way.It helps us grow-just playing against Duke and knowing that they're thevery best in the land right now. You're going to come out better, andthe young kids for the future of this program will come out better."
Marquette Freshman Christina Quaye
"We've been saying that we're not freshman anymore. We've been through asemester of school. We're into the season and in the post-season, soit's just time to step it up and play hard. I know what I'm capable of,and I just try to do whatever I need to do to get the win."
"Rebounding has been a major focus. Actually, in the beginning of theyear we would end up losing a lot of battles, and we decided that if weactually wanted to get where we are now, we would have to rebound. Sorebounding has been our pride, and we just go after the ball."
Marquette Sophomore Carolyn Kieger
"We play against teams like Old Dominion all the time in Conference-USA,and I think that helped us. We've faced it before, so we knew what toexpect. I just think that the confidence of knowing we had faced teamslike that before helped us."
On the possibility of playing Duke:
"If you want to get on top and get better, you have to play the best. Sowe're excited about it."
Marquette Senior Kelly Schwerman
"I think that's a strength of our team. Any given night, any one can gooff. This was just Christina's (Christina Quaye) night; she wasscoring. We don't have any selfish players on this team. We don't carewho scores as long as we get the 'W'."
On the game-winning basket by Quaye:
"I think she got lost on the weak side. Everyone stepped to the ball andthere was a scramble. They just forgot about her under the basket."
On playing Duke
"If they end up winning, we're looking forward to it. How many collegeplayers get the opportunity to play a number one seed in the NCAATournament? It's such a great tradition, such a great building, and it'sgoing to be a lot of fun. It's what we've wanted all season, and it'sgreat to finally come true."