Nov. 23, 2008

Recap | Box Score

Oakland University
Head Coach Beckie Francis

Opening Statement
"Purdue is very good. They have a very strong inside, obviously. And when you shoot 50 percent from the three, it's really hard to guard and it was very frustrating to us. We were trying to take away their inside game and trying put some pressure on their forwards, then they're hitting from the outside, too, so it was a very nice combination."

On how Purdue played defensively
"This is not an excuse, but our team actually said to us and said, `They're so tall!' So, I think the fact is that our scout team isn't tall enough. I think we have too may guards on our scout team. I think we do try and prepare for bigger teams, but we've got to get taller scout guys. They really felt like that they couldn't get their shots up because the guards were 5-11, six-feet tall and I have nine guards that are, like, 5-5 and they're used to shooting over each other at practice, so they couldn't get their shots up."

On being down by 10 points at the end of the first half
"It was a pretty ugly half, too. I felt bad for the fans; I couldn't believe we were only down 10. I complimented them because I thought our defense was pretty good to hold Purdue to 26 points and have them shoot 34 percent from the floor. We just couldn't get a shot to fall and it was just so frustrating that we lost our intensity on defense because there was so much frustration that we just couldn't score. "

On what Oakland will take away from playing an opponent like Purdue
"Oh, we talked about that. In the last two to three years I have coached, usually when we enter the NCAA tournament, we play a team like Purdue. In fact, the winner of our league, Oral Roberts, played Purdue in the opening round. So I told them, this is exactly the kind of game we'll play in the NCAA tournament. But we have to get over the hump of playing and beating a team like this. I also told them this a great game to play back-to-back after playing Georgia to a three-point game on Thursday night, then coming here, they expose our weaknesses and there were a lot of them tonight."

On whether Purdue subbing five players at a time threw Oakland off
"We take pride in our conditioning. We have a very good conditioning coach, but I did say to our players, `I felt like you look a little tired out there.' Normally, we can get some easy buckets on teams because we're shorter, quicker and in better shape. And the fact that she did that really take away that advantage that we usually have. It didn't help that Melissa Jeltema, who is one of best players, had so many fouls. Basically, she played nine minutes and that really hurt us. She's usually a double-double for us. She's our leading rebounder at 5-9, so we were using people that usually we don't play in there and they are not in game shape to keep up with that speed."