Lady Vols vs. Wofford Postgame Quotes

Tennessee Head Coach Kellie Harper

Opening statement…

"I'm proud of our team and our focus coming off of a well-earned Christmas break. I thought our players responded well. I thought we had a lot of energy in practice yesterday, and I thought we had really good focus to start this game. Going into this game, Wofford's lowest offensive point total was 67. For us to keep them to 53 was a really good job by our defense."

On how the team came ready to play after a long break…

"I think they needed the break. I think the break was good for them. What we did after our game at Stanford was stayed in Palo Alto for the evening, practiced the next day, and we were able to have closure from that game. If we hadn't stayed over, that would've eaten on everybody this entire break. We were able to have some closure, move on, get a good workout in before we got on the plane and head back home. I didn't know how they would be, but they came in great yesterday. I really thought they were about as good as they could be having a layoff. Sometimes those first practices back, you just have to grind them out. Although it was a little hard early on and they were winded, they had great energy the entire time. You can just tell they were excited. They're still giddy. They're just happy to be here and happy to play and enjoy it this time."

On how beneficial it is for Justine Pissott to be catching stride going into SEC play…

"We have so much confidence in her ability to shoot the basketball. There is no doubt in my mind if there had been a camera on me when she got the third one, before she even got the ball I was clapping because I knew. That was an awesome find by Jordan Walker. She just hit two, let's find her for a third. I'm so proud of Jordan Walker finding her and making a great pass. I knew it was going in. We have so much confidence in her. Everybody knows when you come in as a freshman, the level defensively is another notch higher. That's what she's been working on. She's gotten better at it, and I thought she did a much better job tonight. She's just improving. Like I've said from day one, she's really good. She's going to be really good for us. I'm proud of her, her improvement, her focus and her fight."

On if the tough early schedule will prove to be beneficial for the team in the long run…

"I don't know. I tossed that one back and forth in my head. Did we overdo it? Is it right? I don't know if we'll know that until the end of the year, to be honest, once we get some games under our belt. We definitely know exactly who we are because of the competition that we play night-in and night-out. I think early on, we got punched in the teeth. We had to figure ourselves out, and it took a while. I think now we know who we need to be. We are starting to get that. It doesn't mean we've arrived by any means. I think you want to know. You want to figure it out. The tough competition and the challenging schedule forced us to do that really early. Hopefully our players feel good about where we're at now."

On how pleased she is with progress of the offense…

"I'm really excited about how we've progressed in that area offensively with our efficiency and our ball movement. There were so many possessions today that I was just so proud of. I couldn't cheer enough for them. They came to the bench, and I was like, 'Great ball movement'. It got us open shots and good looks. When you're taking those rhythm shots, you're shooting a higher percentage. We shared the basketball. We got the ball inside, they doubled us, we found the right man. I'm really proud of our players selflessness, but at the same time our aggressiveness. I think it's been pretty. We've played some really pretty basketball. Not all the way through obviously, the fourth quarter we have to clean up some stuff. We had some really nice possessions."

On the idea of a lineup combination that consists of Jasmine Franklin, Jillian Hollingshead, and Rickea Jackson…

"We have our starting lineup and then we have our substitution that really brings those three in together a lot of times. I think they play well together. Jillian and Jasmine Franklin, especially at that four and five, communicate well together. They were calling and executing some switches on some defensive possessions. I was really proud of that. We can move Rickea around. That lineup puts her at the wing. We are bigger with that lineup because she's now on the perimeter and at least a three player at that point. I think it gives us a lot of options. Rickea didn't go rebound until the second half, but when she goes to rebound like that that's three really good rebounders as well.

On what the team needs to do in the SEC opener…
"We want to go down there and play the way we need to play. I don't want to be cliché, but play our game. That's what we need to do. We want to go down there and play with confidence, but also like I said today, with urgency on every possession. I think we started the game today like that. I haven't really gotten fully immersed into Florida scout yet because of the preparation here. I know their personnel and I know what they're doing right now. For us, it's going to be a challenge. I think the first lesson is this is the SEC. You better not take a night off because if you take a night off you don't come home with a win. I think our players understand that, at least our returners will definitely understand that. Like these two (Jordan Horston and Karoline Striplin) mentioned, they remember last year. We turned the ball over time and time again and just couldn't get stops. For us it starts with the defensive end and then we got to do a great job on the boards, and we have to take care of the basketball."

On how important improved free throw shooting is going into conference play…
"We have a little thing called 'project free throws'. We want to make sure that we're doing our job, making sure that our players are taking accountability for theirs and getting up extra free throws. Some of them actually got some extra ones up over the break. We have to make sure we maintain that. It's a good number for us. We didn't get to the free throw line nearly as much in the first half. We talked about needing to do that, did a better job in the second half and were able to get in there and knock a lot of those down. We're going to need them. We're going to need them because free throws could easily decide the games."

On the importance of the whole team being invested in rebounding…
"I think that is who we need to be. I think we need to be across the board a good rebounding team. That's on both ends of the court. Some games they're going to lend itself more to guards rebounding, some may be to our post. We got to have players that are physical and players that are aggressive for us to be out-rebounding our opponents, which is what we need to be doing."

On what has been learned about the team through a tough non-conference slate…
"This team, I think they really want something as a whole. I think we've learned they need to be pushed and challenged, which is what we did with our schedule. We can really ask a lot of them in practices and continue to find more and I think they'll respond. I think that's been the biggest thing. They have no quit, they have not backed down, they have not given up. We may not have always been good in those stretches but boy they bounced back. They have some resiliency, and they have a lot of belief in each other. I think that's important because if you lose that you've lost your season. Throughout the non-conference schedule, they did not lose that. That's what I'm really proud of and because of that we can really just continue to push them and ask for more."

On if the Stanford game boosted belief in each other…
"Yeah, I do. There are no moral victories at this level, they walked away knowing that for 29 and a half minutes we did what we needed to do, but just lost our focus the last ten. That's where we have to take another step. I think that's going to be our challenge as we kind of move forward. It's putting together forty minutes of basketball."

Senior Guard Jordan Horston

On not being rusty for this game after a break…
"Just having that time off and being able to come back and play a game, we just want to take advantage of that opportunity. Like Coach (Harper) said, we were the only SEC team to play today, so we wanted to make the best of that and get everything that we need to get done, learn from it, grow from it and be ready for conference play. We were all excited to play again. We haven't played since Stanford, so it was good to get out here and play basketball."

On getting off to a good start in SEC play…
"It's like a new season. We want to start the season off with a win and we didn't get to do that this year, so we can try and start the conference play off with a win. Florida is a great team. We saw what happened last year. We can't take advantage of them and we just have to start off strong if we want to finish strong. I'm excited for conference play. I feel like we are moving in the right direction and we can go where we want to go, but we still have room to improve. It's a day-by-day thing, we need to stay locked in and stay together. I feel like we can do anything."

On getting Tuesday's win before conference play starts…
"It's a good thing going into conference play with a win. Of course, it's good to be on the winning side of things, feeling good. We still have things to work on. I always say that. I always feel like we can work on things, we can always get better, but a win is a win and we'll never take that for granted."

Sophomore Forward Karoline Striplin

On the team's defensive progress…
"I think that's just been a really big thing that we've been focusing on and it was really nice to see that pay off. Obviously, we came up short against Stanford, so I think that this game we were really focusing on it and I hope that's going to be the case in the future too."

On the offense's progress…
"Everybody was really confident shooting the ball today and everyone was confident in their teammates. I think that's something really special when you know the person next to you is going to knock the shot down and believe in each other. That's just showing how far we've come, just team-comradery wise, and it was nice to see it pay off."

On the team's biggest area of improvement…
"Taking care of the ball. Obviously tonight, we weren't as low as the Stanford (game) and the game before that, but just taking care of the ball."

Wofford Head Coach Jimmy Garrity

Opening Statement…
"It wasn't the performance that we really wanted to have here, but we played a team in Tennessee that is really, really talented. They're really long. They're athletic. They're strong. We typically pride ourselves on shooting the ball well. Tonight, we just didn't shoot it well. To be honest with you, that's more of an indication of how Tennessee guarded us. We did some good things. We had 11 turnovers, so that's a positive. We set some goals that we were close to, but at the end of the day, Tennessee's length, talent and strength were just a little bit too much for us. I think it's important for our players. They grow up seeing Tennessee, the history, the great players that have come through here and the national championship banners. For their college experience, we want to take them to play teams like that. For our two seniors up here, Jackie (Carman) and Lilly (Hatton), they're great leaders. It's all about that college experience. I wanted them to have that experience of playing on a court that they grew up seeing, with the legends that have coached here and the players that have played here."

On the difficulty that comes with scouting Tennessee…
"When you look at their roster and start putting the scout together, they have 11 players over six feet. We have two and a half. So, the size jumps out at you right away. On film, they look big. Of course, in person, they look even bigger. As big as they are, their guards are 6-3. They can shoot three's. They can post you up. They can score at all three levels. This is, without a doubt, one of the most talented teams in the country. When they get clicking, they can go a long ways in the tournament. Their record is not anywhere indicative of the kind of team that they are, can and will be. They're well-coached. They play really, really hard. I told our team this, as we're friends with Coach Harper, I don't think they took us lightly. I think they really prepared as best as they could. They knew they were playing a good team. We'll be in situations like this for conference play. Our league right now is a one-bid league. We have to go win the tournament to win it. I really like our chances with how we're playing and our approach to the game. I think this will help us down the road, too."

Wofford Guard Jackie Carman

On halftime adjustments that benefited Wofford's offensive production…
"I think as a team, we just kind of came together through adversity. We understood that there were highs and lows in the game and we said, 'Forget what happened in the first (half) and just do what we can in the third (quarter).' We like to play 10 minute games, just taking it one step at a time. I thought that we really came together and capitalized on our nonnegotiables, being great teammates and just getting the energy back up for the Terriers."

Wofford Forward Lilly Hatton

On playing on 'The Summitt' Tuesday night…
"We have several players from Tennessee, so this is huge. Their families are here. But, even for the players that aren't from Tennessee, we know Pat Summitt. We know the legacy. We can see the banners. Getting a chance to play against a team that has a great history and also is currently a great program, you're always excited for that. I wish we could have given them our best shot, but we're excited to be here. We were excited to play. We went to the (Women's Basketball) Hall of Fame Museum, so we know the history that's here. We were really excited to get a chance to play here."