Lady Vols vs. Stanford Postgame Quotes

Tennessee Head Coach Holly Warlick

Opening statement:
"Give Stanford credit, they were tougher and more poised. We lacked attention to detail. We knew they were going to shoot the three, and we gave up 14. We did not rebound the basketball. We had 45 opportunities to rebound, and I think we had 12. We rebounded 20 percent of our misses. That is not very good. We just lacked a sense of urgency. We got beat at every position, gave five kids double figure points. We did not play very well today."

On the difference of rebounding in this game compared to the last few:
"We are not going. We are not going to the boards, and I do not know why. If you do not go to the boards, you are not going to rebound, and we did not go."

On if she thinks Stanford is a more versatile team:
"I do. They did not just shoot the three. They penetrated and got some and-ones. They are playing a great system, and you just cannot give up 14 threes. I'm just disappointed in that aspect of giving up threes when you know they are going to shoot them."

On Carrington's performance and the players not carrying out the strategy for her:
"Do not stop at her; do not stop at Carrington. Five players were in double figures. How have we won games? Defense. How have we won games? Rebounding. It was nonexistent tonight. They did nothing that we did not know about, that we did not practice, prepare for. They did not do anything that surprised us. We did a lot that surprised me."

On Tennessee's effort:
"We have not had an effort issue all year. Tonight we did. I would think that is a one-and-done, but we will see. We will see how we bounce back. I thought we were soft. It was the first time I have said we had a lack of effort."

On if confusion among players led to Stanford hitting 14 threes:
"There was no confusion. It is just get out and guard the three. I will have to go back and watch the tape, but I do not think that they hit a shot when we were in their face. I think they were all uncontested threes. I do not know how you can say confusion... (we know) they shoot the three ball. If somebody hits a shot in my face, then you've got to adjust what you are doing because you are not going to do that again. We just let it happen time and time again. I will have to go back and watch the tape to better understand it."

On Evina Westbrook and her potential of being one of the best players in Tennessee history:
"I thought Evina was the one player that competed tonight. She competed, and she has been doing that. It is tough when your point guard is getting the team to go where they need to go and she is your leading scorer. I loved her aggressiveness. I wanted her to take it about every time, because she was attacking the basket. She just played a solid game, but she has been doing that the past couple of games. I have been really proud of her."

On if she felt Tennessee's press would have more of an impact in the game:
"I think we didn't have any pressure. I mean, yeah, I thought it would (have an impact). When we turned them over and we started pressing and getting after them on the ball, we went up by two in the third quarter and then they came down and hit a two, hit a two, hit a three. I thought when we stepped it up and denied the high post, which we were supposed to do and deny one pass away, I thought it made a huge difference, but we just let them get too comfortable. You can't let a great offensive team get comfortable and we did."

On bringing Mimi Collins in:
"We weren't getting anything from Cheridene (Green), and I like her on the front of our press. She was rebounding, and she scored some pretty solid points, and we needed more. I thought she could give it to us."

On shooting 85 and if she felt the team rushed shots:
"We shot too many threes. We shot 28 threes. That's not our game... that's not our game. We shot way too many threes. Normally if you score 80-something points, you're pretty close to winning, but you have to guard somebody. We turned them over 20 times, and when you don't guard the three, the arc, those 20 turnovers are null."

On losing two veteran players from last year and the team being younger:
"I'm not going to give us that we lost two players. We've been playing pretty hard, and we've used our freshmen. They're pretty seasoned. Is this a learning game for them? Absolutely. We're going to get better. I know we're going to get better and this is going to be, as much as this loss hurts, we're going to learn from it. We're a majority of freshman and sophomores, but that's not an excuse for us. We've got to play the game the way it's supposed to be played. That's with a lot of effort and a sense of urgency and playing hard. Great things happen when you play hard. Overall, I just don't think we played hard tonight."

On some lessons to take away from a game like this:
"Stick to the game plan number one. Guard the arc. You can't let somebody get 14 threes on you. The importance of defense and how it can control the game, affect the game and rebounding. We end up shooting 40%. (We) shot the three-ball too much. You've got to make free throws and layups. I thought we missed a lot of shots around the basket. Your defense has got to step up. It's got to affect an offensive team, and we didn't do that tonight. We just didn't have it in us tonight for whatever reason. I don't know."

On if this makes her reemphasize the importance of the scouting report to the team:
"Absolutely. This is the type of game that you can just dissect and put it all out there. Absolutely. The scouting report is giving them a cheat sheet, and they chose to go into the game and not use it for whatever reason. We're going to learn from it. This is the first time I've seen them not have effort. We didn't win the basketball game, so it's a lesson for us. We'll understand the importance of the defensive end, the rebounding end, taking great shots, attacking the basket, the free throw, the everything. We'll learn from it. It's early in the season. Am I disappointed? Absolutely. Am I giving up on this team? Absolutely not. They're talented. They're good kids. They work hard, but today we didn't have it. We didn't have it, and we've just got to learn. It's a young team, and we've got to learn."

On if shot selection:
"I'll have to go back and look at our shot selection again. I just think we shot too many threes. We can improve in absolutely everything. We didn't turn the ball over; that's a positive. Just eight turnovers, usually we're in the 20s. There's just so much when I watch the tape that we can do better. Just got to do better."

Tennessee guard/forward Meme Jackson

On what prevented the Lady Vols comeback:
"Usually when we get down, we fight back and give more effort, but tonight we did not give the effort we wanted to give."

On DiJonai Carrington's performance:
"We knew what they were all capable of doing - knocking down open shots, and we were not getting out and contesting shots like we were supposed to. That is how she ended up with (33 points)."

On what allowed Stanford to pull away:
"They were making shots, and we were not. So, we cannot keep trading baskets with them, and that is why we dug ourselves in a hole."

Tennessee guard/forward Rennia Davis:

On what she took away from the game:
"Just finishing. I think a lot of shots I took in the first half I was able to get to the basket but was not able to finish. I feel like maybe if I shot the ball a little bit better, maybe if a couple of us shot the ball better, we could have won the game. Even with so many defensive mistakes and so much confusion, we still could have won the game. Just being able to finish through contact."

On their defensive play:
"Like Meme said, the effort was not there for a full 40 minutes from a collective five. I think there were times where we had five people on one page, but then there were times when there were two or three people that did not know what was going on. They maybe ran to the paint versus running to the shooters in transition, just small stuff that added up."

On how switching impacted the defense:
"Well we typically switch depending on which lineup is in the game, but I think today was just too much confusion on defense. We were switching defense a lot, but that is just a part of the game. I think tonight we just were not able to do that for a full 40 minutes."

Stanford Head Coach Tara VanDerveer

Opening statement:

"Obviously, this is a really big win for our team. We are excited. It's always a really big challenge to come to Knoxville and play Tennessee on its home floor. The fans really got into it. Holly Warlick does an excellent job. She has an outstanding young team. I am really proud of our team with how we battled. We shot the ball well, and we did a lot of other things well as well. [Thirty-three points] was a career high for DiJonai Carrington, who played a super game at both ends of the floor and rebounding. This is a great game for Maya Dodson to come out and shoot the ball on this stage and shoot the ball so well and rebound for us. I'm really proud of our team."

On the balance of her team in the game:

"We do have some really good balance. We have used the analogy of an orchestra having different people with solos. DiJonai had a really good game. Kiana Williams was in double figures. We got help off the bench. Maya Dodson and Jenna Brown came in and gave us some good minutes. Lacie Hull coming in and going 5-of-8 shooting and 4-of-5 from three isn't too shabby. That is a freshman who really stepped up to the challenge. Getting 14 threes out of 24, I would take that any day of the week. That was awesome. We did a better job from the free-throw line. We tried to keep them off the glass. They still had 12 offensive boards. We ended up out-rebounding them, which was a huge thing. They are a scrappy team, but everyone on our team just tries to do their job. There aren't any selfish players. We have very unselfish players who are willing to make the extra pass and do the dirty work, play defense and rebound."

On what she said to the team after the Gonzaga game:

"Gonzaga is a very good team. Our team learned an important lesson there and took it to heart. We didn't like how we played at Gonzaga. We needed to play harder and smarter. We had to show a lot more resilience. We had a big comeback but didn't hit some shots we needed to make. Our leadership that had been there embraced tougher practices and sharper criticism. It's been for a good reason, because we knew we couldn't play like that and be successful. Credit to our team for being coachable and listening. They want what we want. No one felt good about that loss."

On her take on Tennessee and how Evina Westbrook played:

"Evina is a terrific player. She's tough to guard and can score both on the inside and outside. She had a great game. They are still adjusting to playing without the two seniors they had last year. That is a big change for them. She is terrific. I think we worked really hard against her, and she still had a really good game with 10 assists, only four turnovers and 29 points. She is an outstanding player."

Stanford Guard DiJonai Carrington

On the way she started the game shooting:

"Every game, we prepare very hard for what teams are going to give us. We knew we were going to get a lot of drives to the basket and had to finish. My teammates did a great job of allowing me to get into position to where I could finish."

On if she was surprised by all the open shots she was getting on the perimeter:

"I was actually. After the first two 3-pointers, I figured they were going to start coming out a little bit more. I hesitated on one because I thought they were going to come out, but they didn't. I took the shot and hit it."

On the momentum the team had coming into the game after the win over Baylor:

"We know we have to take things one game at a time, but we definitely used that as momentum and leverage to push us forward. I think we were excited about that win and were happy with how we played, but we knew this was a whole new challenge. That game didn't matter anymore. After tonight, it will be time to move onto the next game. We can't just be happy that we beat Tennessee and Baylor. We have to be ready to beat the next teams that we are playing."

On the confidence of the offense after a game like tonight:

"We are a confident team, but we are not content with this. We are not content with anything that we have done. We know we have so many weapons from the inside-out and the outside-in. We have shooters, drivers and offensive rebounders who can finish. We have some many weapons. We just know that each night is someone's time to shine, and everyone has to play their part that night, and it will be their time to shine the next day. We have a lot of confidence in ourselves."

Stanford Forward Maya Dodson

On Tennessee's defense not affecting Stanford's scoring:

"We knew they were really good, defensively. When they were going on their run, we knew we could break their press and keep doing what we were doing. By the fourth quarter, we could break their press for the most part and run our offense. We just had to do what we came to do."

On getting to play close to home:

"It was great to see my parents. A lot of people came out. It was great to be on the East Coast again and be close to home. Once we play Buffalo, I will go back home. It's great to be on the east coast."