Jan. 16, 2011
- ‘Kash’ Alexander: All-America Candidate
- Vote ‘Kash’ For Premier Player Award
- Women’s Basketball – W.I.N. Video
- Buy Women’s Basketball Tickets
- Iowa and the Big Ten Network
- Big Ten Network: Free Hawkeye Video
- 24 Hawkeyes to Watch
PARDON OUR PROGRESS! As friends of the University of Iowa and fans of the Hawkeyes know, the UI Athletics Department is well into a multi-million dollar revitalization of Carver-Hawkeye Arena. This important and exciting project has reduced for this season the number of ticket windows that are operational on game nights. Fans attending the home events of the 2010-11 UI men’s basketball, women’s basketball and wrestling teams are invited to avoid game night delays by purchasing their event tickets online or in advance of game day. If your schedule doesn’t allow for an advance purchase, we recommend you consider arriving at the Arena a little earlier than originally planned. Go Hawks!
COACH BLUDER: Well, you know, this was a game I thought that was hard to get into a flow of the game. I don’t have want to complain about a 20 point victory but at the same time I thought we had too many turnovers. I thought there was a lot of fouls called in this game and could just never really get into the tempo. Our offense didn’t get much flow because of all of those fouls called but at the same time I thought our defense was good. I thought Kash did a nice job on Davis. She’s a player that could have 30 easily and I like it that she held her well below her average. I thought we did a good job rebounding. I mean, our crashes almost equaled their defensive rebounds. That’s a good sign. But overall, it was a win, and we did some nice things defensively I think.
Q. To have such an uneven game, what is the focus during the layoff?
COACH BLUDER: Yeah, these guys didn’t even know we had the eight day layoff coming up here. Just because of we have the bye on Thursday and Sunday’s game is moved to Monday because it’s being on ESPN2. We’ll get a couple of days off now actually right now. School starts again on Tuesday. So that will be nice for them. But I think at this time of the year, we can put in a couple of new wrinkles, but at the same time it’s just cleaning up some of the turnover issues we had today. But we are not going to change a lot in this time. It’s just really shoring up on the fundamental whenever you have a game like this.
Q. Kamille and Morgan both had foul trouble in the first half. How important was it for Trisha and Rogers coming in?
COACH BLUDER: I have circled that, I really like we had 17 bench points today because sometimes our bench has not been very effective, and today they were. I was happy to see that. With the fouls, Morgan picked up it elevated Jade to second person, and I thought she went in and did a great job and made the most of her minutes. You want to see that out of your players when they come off the ben ch and I was really happy for Jade. I thought she came in and played very well.
Q. What kind of strategy did you have with Davis; what did you want to do defensively with her?
Kachine Alexander: She’s got a pretty, I guess awkward shot. It’s kind of like behind her head, so you have to always be on her no matter what. She’s very strong. I didn’t kind of know exactly how strong she was until getting into the game. So I knew I had to keep her out of the paint as much as possible and make the tough spots that she would want to take.
Q. Best strategy for a last second loss is a win; any extra emphasis or desire to win by 20 so you don’t have to worry about it coming down to the last possession?
COACH BLUDER: We just want to execute and win. We don’t ever really set like numbers as far as points or spread or anything like that. We always want a decisive win because I think it puts doubt in their mind. The next time we go to player lace place, to know we put a 20 point loss on them kind of plays with them a little bit mentally; so hopefully we did that today.
Q. Jaime, what was the emotion after that that very, very tough loss at Michigan State?
Jaime Printy: I mean, it stunk and it was a heartbreaker. Every loss sucks but especially when you lose at the buzzer. I think we came back to practice the next couple of days and had really good practices. Yeah, kind of a sloppy game tonight but we came out and showed that we can bounce back and we always do.
Q. With Jade as a freshman, what do you think…
COACH BLUDER: She can thank Morgan for getting her out of it because when Morgan picked up the foul trouble, it elevated her from third post to second post. So now we were using her in our rotation. It’s hard to get minutes when you’re third in the depth chart, very hard. And she got elevated to second in the depth chart when Morgan picked up the foul trouble, and she took advantage of it and I admire that.
Q. I haven’t talked to you about Trisha since she came back, but how hard of a decision was it for her to come back? What do you want to see from her and what can she provide this team?
COACH BLUDER: I don’t think it was a hard decision for Trisha at all and Trisha wanted to play with Kachine. She wanted to have the opportunity to play with Kachine during her senior year and I think that was her motive 100%. She locks up to Kash lot, and I think really wanted the opportunity to be a part of this team this year. When I would like to see from Trisha, obviously, is to get back to where she was last year, backing up our point guard, coming in, playing great defense. I thought last year that there was times where she was our second best perimeter defense player. You know, is she there yet? No. She’s got a ways to go. It’s hard to get back into shape at this time of the year. We would love to have her see that and just come in and take care of the ball execute the offense. Today she knocked down a big three, so it’s nice to see her scoring and get that confidence, as well.
Q. Does it help you staying at the two or not?
Jaime Printy: Yeah, I’m definitely happy that Trisha is back. She’s a great backup point guard and it helps our whole team that everyone can just stay in their own position. So I think it definitely helps.
Q. What does it mean knowing that you if had to sit down for a couple of minutes and that the bench was able to keep it going and not eat into the lead?
Jaime Printy: It’s awesome. I love it. I love it when everyone on our team gets to play and everyone scores. It’s great having that confidence in the backup players.
Q. Kash, going into the break on a good note?
Kachine Alexander: It’s a great just win overall. You know, bouncing back from that tough loss with Michigan State, we did not hang our heads on that loss but at the same time, you have to keep looking forward and in the Big Ten you’re going to have tough nights like that. So I’m very proud of our team for coming out with this win and we are going to work on our fundamentals on this eight day break and go to Ohio State.
Q. Is the break coming at the right time?
COACH BLUDER: I think our team would rather play on Thursday. I think players would rather play than practice. We are going to have two byes during the year. We will welcome them whenever they come. It’s kind of unusual that the Sunday game got pushed to Monday. Ideally that would have been on Sunday and been a little bit nicer because next week is going to be a tough stretch having three games in a short amount of time.
Q. I know ten and nine is not bad. Is Morgan in an offensive funk though the last couple of games? She seems a little off.
COACH BLUDER: Yeah, you know, maybe. You know, again, I thought Morgan stuck with a couple of plays today that she messed the first but she stuck with it and got the second one. I’m glad to see that. She’s not giving up. I think sometimes mentally it can be tough when you miss some shots you’re used to making. I thought she hung with it. The fouls is the situation I want to go back and watch on film, because those are things she has been avoiding that I would like to avoid.
Q. Kash, you made the second cut for the Wooden Award; how does that feel?
Kachine Alexander: That’s a great confidence booster coming off my injury and not really I guess coming back for the whole first season of basketball, and now kind of making that I guess cut from this season. It’s an honor.
