Jan. 3, 2009

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Oakland Head Coach Beckie Francis

Opening Statement
"That felt really good to get a home conference win against a very good team. We know that they are really well-coached, they have a very strong tradition, being in the women's Final Four in the past during Division II. I was really proud that we were resilient when we needed to be. Again, it was a team effort, where we had limited minutes for some of our all-conference players and I was very proud of the whole team."

On Sharise Calhoun playing 36 minutes
"Sharise is a star track athlete and she has unbelievable endurance because she runs the 300-meter hurdles. I know I can ride Sharise for as long as I want to. She's one of the better defenders on our team and she's safe. She doesn't gamble and that's what we like. It increased our team's speed by 20 percent because she is a track star, as well."

On missing shots in the second half
"I think a lot of that was because Jessica Pike and Hanna Reising score most of our points and they weren't in a lot. It was really good for our team to weather that storm and have our defense win it. I also complimented that at the free throw line when most of our buckets weren't falling, we were attacking and at least trying to draw fouls. We knew they only had eight players and I credit them in being really smart and attacking."

On Pike's injury
"She looked like she was pretty good. Obviously, it showed that she didn't practice all week. I really don't like to try and play players when they don't practice, because it kind of showed in the first few minutes. If you follow Pike, you'd see that she wasn't herself. She was showing signs of frustration and I told her, that's why it's called practice, she just had some rust. I complimented Pike because when we needed her, she came through. She looked like 100 percent whole Pike in the last minutes, so she's fine for Monday."

On having Pike's leadership on the floor
"We needed that senior leadership out there because we had Sharise out there and she's a freshman. She's never been in the heat on a home conference game against a really good opponent. It was important that we could get Pike out there."

On intensity of game
"I credit that to our competitiveness, because North Dakota State beat us at the buzzer last year and we reminded the team of that, when North Dakota State celebrated on our floor like they won the national championship. Our players were mad they lost last year, so there was huge motivation. We really wanted to protect our home court and there is a lot of pride involved here at Oakland, so we needed that. There was no pregame talk and there was no halftime talk. They wanted to get stops, so I was very proud of their defensive performance."

On playing nationally ranked South Dakota State Monday
"It's going to be fun. It's going to be a great game. I think they have all the pressure. We know what it's like to be the number one team in the league and having everybody gunning for us, so I'll take this underdog role to the bank."

Sophomore Brittany Carnago

On game plan for stopping Jerri Penley
"We knew they had a strong post player, so it came from the guards and how they would pressure their guards. I was just trying to front in the post and I think the whole team did a pretty good job of shutting Penley down tonight. It was a team effort."

On how teammates helped her out
"They just knew how to get me open. They were setting screens for me and we have some very good passers on our team and they were getting me the ball."

On keeping poised during intense play
"We just stayed focused and kept trying to get stops on defense. We played Oakland basketball. We played our game."

On how the team responds to Jessica Pike being on the floor
"She was very important. When she's on offense, she draws defenders onto her. She gets other girls open and she makes awesome cuts and screens. She can shoot it too, so when the defenders are sagging off of her, she can knock it down."

On playing with four guards
"It was a little bit different because Hanna is a fast player, but with Sharise in, she picks up the pace of the game. She liked to push it and it was more of a running game, I felt. Other than that, we're used to playing the whole team together, so we have a really good flow."

North Dakota State Head Coach Carolyn DeHoff

On team showing heart
"That they did. We talked about that at the end of the game and we're back to being inconsistent from half to the other, where last week we were one-and-a-half and this time we just did not come out in the first half. We addressed it before the second half and they responded. That's what you ask as a coach, you come out and respond and that is what they did. We cut the game to seven with the ball in our hands to give us an opportunity to cut it to five or four."

On what was wacky in the first five minutes or so

"Well hard to say where they were from a mental state in terms of getting themselves ready at the tip off. We got the tip and turned it over with a shot clock violation. That doesn't set the tone very well for you to start the game. So whatever we were thinking from that to transition back on defense, and they went at us and kept going at us, and we just didn't change what we needed to do until we addressed it (in the second half)."

On having so many turnovers

"Most of it is things we continue to talk about in terms of fake one to make one. You can't catch the ball and if their hands are high, throw it high. You have to fake it high so then their hands stay high and go low, or fake it low so their hands go low, and then go high. The other times we are late seeing things. Somebody might call look inside, and by that time it's too late, so they have to be better at seeing openings when we talk about it. When the bigs are open on the cracks, they have to come off whether we're in dakota or bison, they've got to have their heads up so that they can see their bigs on the crack."

On having Nicole Vigil in the game to give a three-guard look

"Well obviously from a ball-handling standpoint it gives us a couple of kids who can attack the rim offensively. We also don't lose much defensively with Nic (Vigil) in the game. It allows Katie (Birkel) to move over to the three where she did a nice job. We made a couple of adjustments to get her quick hits there and our kids did a nice job."

On Katie Birkel's performance

"She is capable of that (scoring 13 points and making a career-high three 3-pointers).We had our rip call for her off of a stagger on the baseline side when we cut it to seven and she had a nice look. It didn't go in, but you have to take that shot, it's a wide open shot, you believe it, you shoot it, it just didn't go in. So we need to just continue to execute, take the shots, and eventually they will go in."

On Oakland's poor shooting in the second half and how much of that was attributed to NDSU's defense

"We started to pick up full court and put a little pressure on them. Also we were much more disciplined with our roles in terms of who we were guarding and how we were supposed to be defending them. So making that adjustment, and sticking to it, then we kept them in front of us. That was nice to see from our kids. But then they got to the free throw line, and some of that was our lack of boxing out, to allow them to get second and third opportunities which put us in a scramble mode where we became a little bit undisciplined when we were closing out on kids that weren't our normal matchups and they got by us and got to the free throw line."

On digging themselves too big of a hole

"Exactly. We talked in the locker room that especially on the road you cannot dig yourself that big of a hole to start the game and expect yourself to be able to get back in it. That's kind of back to who we were at the beginning of the season as far as our inconsistency from the first half to the second half. We played good for 30 minutes last game and this game we played a good second half. So we have to get back to understanding that it's a game of two halves and we have to be consistent in both halves."

On missing their leading scorer (Abby Plucker) on how much that affects the team

"It has a tremendous amount. You can tell sometimes there's a sense of scrambling or urgency on the player's parts to make things happen and it's not best for us to play outside of ourselves. Obviously when you don't have another scorer that they have to defend, Inger's (Hodgson) had some tough nights here right now."

On coming back after being down by as many as 17 points

"That's been the consistency with this team is their fight and playing hard every time out and not giving up. This again was another opportunity for us to get buried, and they were like `no, we are not going to let this happen.' So they settled down, got some good looks and shortened the lead. That's what we take from this is that these kids are fighters."

On Oakland's pressure defense early causing problems

"Especially in the first half. They got out in the passing lanes and we weren't reading the pass so they were able to draw the fouls. We were fading away and they were able to step in to the passing lane to create easy layups for themselves."

On Oakland having a dry spell for a long time on feeling like they were still in it

"Yes and I believe the kids felt that way too. In terms of the way they executed for us to get good looks, led us to believe that the kids felt that we had a chance. Then now we were getting defensive stops, and holding them to one and out. That obviously propels you offensively."

North Dakota State center Jill Zaruba

On the mindset of the team when they were down 16 points
"We were trying to pick ourselves up, get focused, we tried to huddle up, get going, be more aggressive and pressure their guards that were pressuring us."

On scoring two quick buckets to cut the lead to seven
"The energy level skyrocketed for a while and we were able to get defensive stops, (Katie) Birkel got some tips on some passes and that energized us and we were like, `ok, we're going to get over the hump this time.'"

On being able to play the game like they were one-point down
"Basically calm down. Gather ourselves and refocus. One thing with our team is that we never give up. We try to go hard all the time, no matter what the score is."

On Oakland's Brittany Carnago
"She's a very aggressive player. She never quits working, which kept us on our toes."

On Carnago being one of the better big players they have faced
"Each team is so different and they way they attack, so its' difficult to judge one player to the next. But she is definitely a good player."