University of Tennessee Athletics
Postgame Quotes: #2 Notre Dame 72, #7 UT 44
January 23, 2012 | Women's Basketball
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Jan. 23, 2012
HEAD COACH Pat Summitt
(On The Loss)
"We are very, very disappointed. But, it is what it is. We are going to have to get back to work and figure some things out. Just very, very disappointed."
(On the missed shots)
"We missed a lot of lay-ups. We didn't shoot the ball well, at all. If you don't shoot the ball well on the road things start to fall apart. That's exactly what happened."
(On Taber Spani returning)
"She gradually will get back. In a game like this, it's not the time to give her quality minutes. We have to get back to work. Everybody has to be invested in what we are doing. It's a very disappointing game tonight. We have to find a way to fix these things."
ASSISTANT COACH Mickie DeMoss
(On only being down 10 at halftime)
"We knew we had opportunities that first half. I thought our defense was pretty good. Notre Dame missed some shots they normally make. We were still in the game, shooting as woefully as we were shooting. We came out in the second half and Notre Dame fixed some of their offensive problems. We were not able to get the stops when we needed. We just couldn't stop the bleeding. We did not have the intensity on the defensive end to take away the plays that they wanted to run. They just had their way with us on the defensive end."
(On the thought if the team quit)
"I don't know that they did. Some individual players probably got frustrated and quit playing as hard as they normally play. As far as saying the whole team quit, no, I don't agree with that. It's very disappointing when you get down 25 or 30 points in a ballgame. Your pride gets a little hurt. Great teams find a way to score on the road. They find a way make shots, they find a way to get stops. Right now, we are not finding a way to make plays to win on the road."
(On going back to SEC play)
"First of all, we have to learn some lessons from this game, at least get something from it. We go back, we watch some tape. We see where we were picked part on the defensive end at times. Transition defense, things we have been talking about. (Learn) what it takes to be the No. 2 team in the nation. We have to learn from this game. We have to turn our attention to our next few opponents on the road. We have Alabama on the road and we have Georgia on the road. Our schedule is going to present another challenge to us."
GUARD Meighan Simmons
(On the game)
"I'm very disappointed in myself personally, not being able to knock down shots that I usually knock down, not playing lock down defense like I like against LSU. This is a game to learn from. We have a lot of work to do if we want to win a Final Four."
(On shooting struggles)
"I really think it's really just a lack of focus. We came in and we were energized, then we kept looking at the scoreboard. We weren't playing, we gave up early. We can't play games like this."
(On feeling at halftime, only being down 10)
"We had to get defensive stops and (we) didn't get any defensive stops. It's not a matter of how many shots you hit. We did not play defense today. Our defense was not very good."
(On defending Skylar Diggins)
"They just did a lot of back screens.We worked on it at practice, we worked on it at shootaround. We knew they were going to run a lot of back screens and that's what they did. We had to be aware and we just were not aware of where she was at all times."
(On what you learn from this loss)
"Never give up. Don't give up so early, no matter what the score is, you have to work. We have to play all 40 minutes until the final buzzer goes off. We can't expect to come out and say, 'we are Tennessee,' put our jersey on, we are Tennessee. We have to go out and play hard. We have to play Tennessee basketball. We have to go out there and play confident instead of playing down to the other team's level. We have to succeed and play better than the other team."
