Nov. 30, 2008

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Oakland University vs. St. Bonaventure
Oakland Head Coach Beckie Francis

Opening Statement
"They were a very good team. They were undefeated, they won 18 games last year and took some of the top teams in the Atlantic 10 to the wire and beat some of them. I think they had almost their entire starting lineup back. I love their composure. They hit big shots and they got defensive stops when they counted. It was an all-around good, focused game."

On April Kidd
"We were down at the half, thanks to a big run St. Bonaventure went on. We always talk about dominating the first 10 possessions of the second half and when April comes up with four straight steals, that's domination. That's what she does and we feed off of that. We have a nickname for her ("Cobra") and she's really accepted that role and knows that defense wins championships and she's the key to it."

On the week off before long road trip
"We knew this was a very good team and were undefeated without and close games and they had never played anybody like us, not to sound cocky, but we had played two top-25 teams and I had a feeling that would be to our advantage. In fact, two days ago in practice, we did eight straight possessions of out-of-bounds defense, saying that this was the last twelve seconds of the game. This game gives us confidence and we have finals coming up and this is a very smart team. I think they're thinking about getting caught up on their homework and taking their finals before we head out on the road."

On Riikka Tereva being out of the lineup and the expectations of the guards
"It's basically been April, Sharise [Calhoun] and Stacey [Farrell]. They are the ones who have the replace her in terms of bringing the ball up, running the offense and stopping the other team's point guard. I think those three played crucial minutes tonight, and I give St. Bonaventure credit, but they supplemented Riikka very well tonight."

On the ball-handling of Brittany Carnago
"Actually, Brittany's really good on the perimeter. She has really good passing skills and because she's so tall, and other teams usually don't have that kind of height, she can pick people apart. She fed Pike an assist today and it was just sweet. So, it really does help."

On learning from the non-conference season
"I think we learned a lot. We learned that we can use our bench and our bench can give us some solid minutes. We learned that we are deep, we're hungry and ready for that first league game."

Senior guard Jessica Pike

On offensive plan
"We just run motion, so our offense is basically to just play basketball. We were just trying to go out there and run a little too much in the beginning, so we settled down, got people open and let them take their shots."

On Jeltema coming through in the clutch
"She came up huge in the end. She was on fire and we kept trying to get her the ball. That's MJ, though. She's clutch and we know that and in the clutch, we want to go to her. She was 10-10 from the freethrow line and that was the difference in the game."

On getting to the freethrow line
"It was a very tightly called game, but with the way fouls were being called, we decided to take St. Bonaventure's approach and attack as much as they were, because we were getting into some foul trouble early."

Junior guard Melissa Jeltema

On getting to the freethrow line
"We definitely try to get to the line more than the other team. We try not to foul and we really wanted to attack once they got into foul trouble so we can get to the line."

On rebounding
"It's just hard work. You have to want it more than the other person, so it doesn't matter how tall you are. You just have to get in there and get it."

On the changing momentum at the end of the game
"We practice this all the time, so it was nothing new. We just went into there with confidence and knew that we could do it."

On Brittany Carnago stepping up this season
"It's nice because now I can run the floor a little more and work on my offense more."

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