Coach Mitchell Post-Northeastern Quotes
Head Coach Matthew Mitchell Opening statement… “I
was glad to win tonight. It was good to get another game in the win
column. I was very pleased with the intensity in the first half. I
thought that first 20 minutes was really tough. We played really hard
that first 20 minutes and clearly we didn’t have as good effort in the
second half. That is going to be the challenge for this team, trying to
figure out how to keep the intensity going for this team and it’s not
easy. It’s difficult to do. So that will be a big challenge for us and
I think this group will be up to it so we’ll see what we can learn from
a varied performance tonight, some really good and some really not so
good.” On the second half energy being impacted from playing just two nights ago… “I
don’t think that was it. I think our second group, for whatever reason,
didn’t come with a lot of intensity. I thought Northeastern did some
good things and made good adjustments at halftime, but I think our
first team did well. Our second group was real subpar tonight
with low energy. If we don’t have everybody clicking it looks bad. I
don’t think that had much to do with it because kids that played the
other night played really hard tonight. A’dia Mathies, Amber Smith,
Azia Bishop all played with intensity, so I think it was more mental
than physical.” On the play of the two freshmen… “I
thought Azia, just the way she carried herself and her presence on the
floor, has been much better than what it has been. She made a lot of
freshman errors once she got offensive boards. She is in there mixing
it up but brings the ball down way too much. Those are things that can
be corrected with experience. I’m not that pleased with (Bria) Goss’
defense tonight, but one thing I found about Bria Goss is if you bring
it to her attention she will try to get it straightened out. I like
those two freshmen, they are good players.” On shooting 28 3-pointers… “Too
many. We really played poorly in the second half. Northeastern did a
very good job of making us take the shots they wanted us to take. I
didn’t feel like we were patient enough or aggressive enough trying to
get the ball inside. We’re not playing well with our zone offense right
now and that’s a lot of the coach’s fault. I have to do a better job of
teaching them how to play against the zone. It was a little bit of
fool’s gold. We really got off to a hot start from the three and then
just kind of fell in love with it and it didn’t look good there the
last 10 minutes, shooting too many 3-pointers instead of attacking the
paint.” On Keyla (Snowden) going over 1,000 points for her career… “I
think that’s a tremendous accomplishment. I think it’s an incredible
accomplishment for Keyla Snowden. She has had some terrific moments
here at Kentucky for a kid that was not originally recruited at this
level out of high school and now getting a chance to come back here and
play at a high level and be on an Elite Eight team and two NCAA
Tournament teams and hopefully this year will be a great year. I’m
really proud of Keyla, (because) she gets a lot out of her ability. I
think it’s outstanding. It is something you can be proud of and I think
being able to tell someone ‘I was a 1,000-point scorer in college’ is
terrific.”
|