|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2019Joanne McCallieFaith SuggsHaley GoreckiMiela GoodchildGreensboro, North Carolina Duke - 86, Pittsburgh - 64 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Coach McCallie, Haley Gorecki, Miela Goodchild and Faith Suggs. COACH MCCALLIE: Good game for us overall. Obviously the second half, coming together, I thought Mie gave us great leadership and Haley early and Miela as well and Faith and others in that second half. Obviously that's where the game turned, great ball movement, playing together. Really appreciated Haley's attack, every time she caught the ball she was a threat and then some looking to create. Miela doing her work, spotting and playing off of her teammates. And then to see a career game from Faith was fantastic. The senior she is for us just incredible. And what a great game you played, Faith. That was excellent. Congratulations to Miela for setting the freshman record of three pointers. I guess it was Becca's record. That's exciting. And it's fun to see your team play well. It's fun to watch. As coaches we were doing more watching than coaching -- even though we still try to coach -- but we were doing more watching than coaching in the second half because the way the team was playing. Obviously we're excited to get better and excited to move on to the next. Q. Coach, you mentioned Faith's leadership on the floor. Could you talk about her hustle plays in the first half on the balls and getting her scoring going in the second half? COACH MCCALLIE: Just an all-around fantastic game. Seven very aggressive rebounds. Dives on the floor. Had a nice charge. She gets a lot of charges. Nobody else on our team does, but Faith does. She has a complete monopoly on that. And hopefully somebody else will do that as well. But she's terrific at it. And I think she had -- she was either -- had each hustle play or was involved in it. It's no surprise to any of us. And it makes us all really happy. Q. Faith, let me follow up with that. We talked over the years a lot about you bringing energy off the bench. 15 seconds after you go in you dig out a tough rebound in traffic. Pitt was dominating the boards early. That seemed to set a tone and kind of turned the game around. Just talk about what you wanted to bring to the team coming off the bench tonight. FAITH SUGGS: Coach always preaches on rebounding how important it is especially in the ACC Tournament. I just wanted to get there, get rebounds at first. That's how you get your energy moving really, get your rebounds, everything else follows. So I just loved getting the rebounds and it was exciting. Q. Coach, in the second quarter there, I think Pitt had a four-point lead. They were kind of making some runs and of course you guys bounce back in a big way. What were they doing early on that was giving you all some problems? COACH MCCALLIE: I think they were just executing and playing good basketball. They were finding their shooters if I recall, some 3 balls were going up and in. From our perspective, our team just tightened up defensively. We made some switches and did some different things we needed to do. And it was excellent to take that, to turn it over very quickly. I think we were minus-4 and then we were plus-6 or whatever it was. Just gotta be able to do it in games, stop runs, make runs and also make some adjustments. And the team was very good at doing that. Q. Coach, the 3s were really falling all game, but in that run in the third quarter, seemed to be the defense that clicked. What did you see from your team defensively in that third quarter run that helped you guys pull away? COACH MCCALLIE: Just playing off of each other. Intensity. You've got to really be intense at this level regardless of time and score. So I thought we played off of each other well. I thought we executed different defenses well and I thought rebounded better, more aggressively. Haley was always in there with her boards. Faith was rebounding. Jade was very efficient on the boards for the minutes she played and rebounds she got. So it was a little of everybody getting in there and fighting for the ball. And in these tournaments it's all about the ball, pursuit of the ball, who has the ball, possession of the ball, and I think that really was key for us especially off the boards. And I just have this image of Haley, long -- Haley is a long, tall rebounder. She gets one hand up and it's like a suction cup and pulls it down. And that's obviously very motivating -- you know what I'm talking about, don't you? That's motivating for her teammates and certainly motivating for us. Q. You guys had an unbelievable night shooting the basketball. How are you able to, as a team, be so accurate from the deep? COACH MCCALLIE: The players. I mean, the players. They can shoot. They can all shoot. When they find each other -- you saw the 20 assists. There was always an extra pass. That's about the players. They do that. Q. Haley, you've watched some ACC Tournament games from a different vantage point. What's it like to finally get out on the court and having that significant a role for Duke? HALEY GORECKI: It's exciting, being the first time playing in the ACC Tournament, especially with this group of girls, we're a great group. And especially at this time I think great basketball is happening right now for us. So it was really exciting. Q. Miela, how does it feel setting that Duke freshman 3-point scoring record? MIELA GOODCHILD: It's pretty exciting, but gotta give it to my teammates. They're the ones who found me for the shot. And, yeah, yeah, really exciting. COACH MCCALLIE: We like the yeah, yeah. Q. Obviously this is a different setting here in the Greensboro Coliseum. Shot 12 three-pointers. Did you guys have a good shootaround, feel like you adjusted to the arena, because the shots really fell for you guys tonight? HALEY GORECKI: Yeah, actually, we were kind of worried -- we were talking about how it's going to be definitely a driving type of game and games just because the shooting -- the shots weren't falling for us for shootaround. But I guess we just got all our bad shots out at shootaround. MIELA GOODCHILD: I think it was just, yeah, I think we were all pretty confident in our shots. So knowing once we hit one that, yeah, we're going to hit the others. So, yeah. FAITH SUGGS: We didn't exactly have a shootaround, but it was kind of like we kind of got off the bus and wanted to feel out the arena. But we were definitely worried. There were a lot of frustration grunts coming from Haley behind me every time she missed. But it was definitely good to see the ball go through the net today. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|