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UNIVERSITY OF IOWA BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 16, 2010

Lisa Bluder

COACH BLUDER: I think this was a really good home opener for us. We talked about we really wanted to establish ourselves on our home court. That was kind of our point of focus today.
I thought we did a really good job of that. I thought we came out rather early and took it away pretty quickly and maintained that throughout the second half. So, happy with five people in double figures. Again, we want that.
Hannah coming off the bench and shooting the ball well was really nice to see and having her in double figures. Kachine has another double-double to add to her career totals, which is great.
But I'm really happy with 22 assists on 29 field goals and only nine turnovers. I thought we did a really good job in both of those statistical areas.

Q. Coach, talk about the 17 steals. It seemed you had a lot of arms in the half?
COACH BLUDER: I thought we did a nice job of our player defense of deflecting. It converted into points for us and high percentage points.
We always talk about we want to push hard on the steal, and I thought we did a really good job of doing that tonight. Pushing hard on the steal and really getting out in the passing lanes. I thought it really disrupted Bradley.

Q. Asking you about Hannah again. She was last year projected to be a starter, right?
COACH BLUDER: Correct.

Q. How much has that helped your team?
COACH BLUDER: It's amazing just having her depth. It's quality depth. It's a person that is able to score easily, which you can see tonight.
So it's just for us to have that depth with a quality player coming in off the bench like that it makes, I think, everybody breathe a little easier. It makes our players play harder because they know they have somebody good coming in to spell them, and it gives me a lot of confidence coming in too.

Q. What did you see on the player defense tonight?
COACH BLUDER: I thought our player defense was really good. We got out in the passing lane and disrupted their flow of offense I thought very well. I think they got frustrated because they couldn't pass the ball where they wanted to pass it.
I thought our communication was good on the floor. We did a good job on switches not to let them have that easy pass.

Q. Anything you want to work on before the two games this weekend?
COACH BLUDER: We're not shooting the ball as well as we'd like to from three-point range. So that is an area we want to excel at. That is something that's part of our game plan. So we'll really work on our three-point shots. I think we can get more variety in our offense. So that is something that we can really work on. I think we need to continue working on the inside post and getting inside shots as well.

Q. Morgan got into foul trouble early. What does she need to do to emerge?
COACH BLUDER: I don't know. I'm going to watch the film on those fouls too. But we really can't have her getting into foul trouble that early. It was nice today because we had Jade for eight minutes so we could give her a breather. But at the same time, you can just see how valuable Kelsey is to us in this whole mix of things.
But, yeah, we need to work on Morgan and not having those early fouls. You know, Morgan wants to block shots and I love that. But maybe we're going to have to hold her off until the last ten minutes of the game before she really starts swatting away.

Q. Coach, can you talk about what you have to do to get ready for two back-to-back games this weekend which is tough?
COACH BLUDER: It is tough. And next weekend we have the same thing with two back-to-back games. That's where you play the back-to-back games and that's where your depth really is important, or our lack of depth really shines and shows.
So it's probably good for us to have to go through these situations right now as we prepare for that Cancun trip because that's going to be tough and good competition down there.
But two games here in two days. We'll take a break tomorrow, have two practices. And I just have to be cautious in practice and how they use them and prepare them so they have their legs for two straight games.
Again, we need to go to our bench. I thought we did a better job of that tonight than we did over the past weekend, so we're learning as coaches too.

Q. Is it a challenge having to schedule around football games for you?
COACH BLUDER: We really didn't want to have it this weekend. We really wanted to have it opening weekend. That was our desire. But because volleyball was home, they could change the set-up of the volleyball court, and that was really why we couldn't have it here.
We do not want to be playing when there is a football game, absolutely not. But I think we've done the best thing possible that is we're letting people in free. I've even heard of hints of free hot chocolate on the concourse.
So whatever it takes to get the tailgaters in here and warm them up and get them ready for a good Hawkeye victory over Ohio State. But maybe it's an opportunity too to expose our product to some different fans who normally don't see a women's basketball game.
The free admission, I think everybody could enjoy taking advantage of that.

Q. (Indiscernible)?
COACH BLUDER: I do. And I made a mistake in the last game and didn't get her enough minutes. I talked to her yesterday and said that's going to change. I know she was up to the task. She had three steals tonight. She did some really nice things for us.
So we have to have confidence in her, and she's got to gain confidence in herself in the game situation versus practice. But we gave her a lot of that tonight, and I anticipate that continuing.

Q. Do you feel like Megan has a favorite play?
COACH BLUDER: Right now I'd have to say her defense. She does a nice job defensively for us. She had a key steal for us in the last game as well, really in the last kind of crunch time.

End of FastScripts

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