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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Matt Insell Quotes
11/7/2014 | Women's Basketball
Ole Miss vs. Christian Brothers
November 7, 2014
HEAD COACH Matt Insell
On today's exhibition ...
"Obviously I am glad to see us come out and play that well. We have a young basketball team. I just told them after the game that we have a long way to go to get to where we need to be. But, this is a good step for us as we grow as a team. I asked them to come out and play with a lot of focus for forty minutes. I feel as though they did that. Christian Brothers played really well against us last year and they had a couple of those players back that gave us a lot of trouble. Coming out and being control of the game from the tip is what we need to be able to do with our pressure defense. We looked more like I want us to look defensively tonight. We still have a lot of room to grow and we will continue to do so. When you have a young team you know every day is a new day. We will enjoy this one, get into practice on Sunday and be ready to go again."
On the newcomers ...
"I really did not know what to think this morning. I know we have some really talented players. However, I did not know how they would react in their first college game, with the lights on. We treated this game like a regular game, not an exhibition game. We broke film down. We had scouting reports and went through things in practice. I was not sure what kind of carry over we would have. But I was very pleased with it. That is a big credit to the leadership of our veteran players. The veterans have helped the newcomers understand how to attack practice, attack a game, a pre-game practice and so on. We have a lot of young talent. We have to keep pushing them every day. Their growth is amazing. The sky is the limit for them and they are nowhere close to being as good as they can be. We just have to keep working every day. We need to celebrate positives and work on negatives."
On tonight's defensive performance...
"We put a big emphasis on defense. We can score. We could score last year. We just could not really defend. So, we have really worked for a solid month and a half now on defense. We have a long way to go, but I am very pleased in that area. I think we can continue to improve, but I cannot ask for a better effort than what our team gave tonight. We are going to cause teams to play wild. We are going to trap a lot and do many different things like that. We must be able to rotate. We had around 40 deflections tonight, and that is a big number. That is something I really harp on defensively."
On the amount of three-point field goals...
"We can really shoot the basketball. When they all get going together it is really something special. They definitely all got going together tonight. Kelsey Briggs is one of our better three-point shooters and she did not even take one tonight. So, that shows you have guards that can shoot it, post-points that can shoot it and so on. I feel like our perimeter play is getting where we want it to be. It is young. We started two freshman. Erika Sisk has not played in a year, and I could not be happier with her. She really brings the energy. She sets the tone defensively and offensively with her hustle. I could not ask for a better start from her."
