March 4, 2012

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2012 Summit League Basketball Championships
Post-Game Quotes
Women's Quarterfinal - #3 UMKC vs. #6 Oakland
March 4, 2011

Oakland head coach Beckie Francis

"UMKC is a senior-laden team. They've lost to us over the years and they came out and they showed that they wanted to do something this year. It's not our year I guess. I was really proud of the fight that my team showed and they showed that all year long no matter what they went through and I'm really proud of the effort."

on how much was experience a factor in this game "Huge. We've won a lot of games in this tournament as the Oakland women's program. I was nervous about going against UMKC because of so many seniors on that roster. The two years that we ran the table and went to the NCAA tournament we had some really healthy seniors. Having two seniors be taken out and didn't get to play the whole season because of injuries and to rely on, I think five freshmen, that youth really [can be a negative]. The positive is that they got tons of minutes and they got to play a lot this year because of injuries and that bodes well for our future."

on what was the big key to UMKC's 15-1 run early in the second half "I just think we couldn't hit shots. UMKC locked us up really well. I think Bethany sitting out for a lot of that with that fourth foul took her away. She's a very good player - that's an understatement- and some of her moves are aggressive moves so I have the feeling she attacked less, not trying to pick up a charge or something so, I think the foul trouble hurt her."

on IUPUI, Western Illinois and UMKC being in the semis, considering many people thought differently in the preseason "Well I think with the addition of South Dakota replacing Centenary that the league's RPI has really improved. Every night now, it's a gamble. It's a game that anybody can win. And I think that people are just beating people and you go through phases of confidence. It's really good for the league and the RPI's getting better. I think that's why you have that kind of a semifinal."

Oakland guard Sharise Calhoun

on the deficit in the second half and how hard was it to keep battling "Well it's not over until [the clock] says 0.00 and we still believed that we could come back. With my team, I just knew I could never give up on them. They've been there for me through everything. We have so much fight and we were going to fight to the very end."

on it being her last game and her success last year "It's just been a pleasure to have played in an Oakland University uniform. I have to thank coach Beckie (Francis) for just giving me the opportunity to spend my college career here. I've loved every single team, every teammate I've had. It was just a pleasure to play and I'll never forget this team. I wish Oakland success in the future."

Oakland forward Bethany Watterworth

on getting into quick foul trouble and how hard was it to watch from the sidelines "It was definitely hard. But I thought, in the first half my team, they came back and we got right back in the game despite me being on the bench so that shows the fight that we do have. Give UMKC credit. They were a good team and fought really hard."

Oakland guard Victoria Lipscomb

on becoming a jump shooter recently "Over the past couple weeks I've really been working with coach on shooting the ball a lot more. It was something that I knew I really needed to add to the team to help take some of the stress off of Beth [Watterworth] and help Sharise [Calhoun] out. I'm a confident scorer, I know I can score, and it was just something that I came out and did in hopes to help this team win."

UMKC head coach Candace Whitaker

"Great win for our program and this team. I'm excited to live another day and I thought we played well."

on people stepping up behind Dayon Hall-Jones "I think we have lots of options. Dayon [Hall-Jones] is our leading scorer, Eilise O'Connor can step up and have a big game, Kim Nezianya can have a big game, LeAndrea Thomas has proven to come in and have big games. We don't key on one person."

on experience "It's huge. This is the same team we had last year. A year older and more experienced, you've been in a program longer and you've been hearing the same things over and over again, they start to kind of click. You start to figure things out."

on depth of team "We are very deep. We can go deep into our bench. We can go small lineups or big lineups. We have versatility to mix things up."

on this game and regular season match-ups against Oakland "The first game was painful. We learned a lot. We were hoping we could do a good job defensively of playing shell defense, getting through screens, staying out of help on, rotating, block out and rebound."

on experience and few turnovers "There is nothing you can replace with experience. All of these seniors played as freshmen, most of them started as freshmen, so they played a lot of minutes. Eilise O'Conner is a year older, Ashli Hill is a year older and we have seen a lot difference in those two players."

UMKC forward Kim Nezianya

on beating Oakland twice in a row after losing 13 straight to them "Our coaching staff did a good job studying for them. We were rebounding, stopping their transitional was really important, we tried to do that tonight."

on executing with Bethany Watterworth on the bench "It was really important for us to attack their other players when she wasn't in. To build our lead when she wasn't in, we know she is so important to their team."