Feb. 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, I feel very good coming out with this win, Wisconsin is a good team, and this was a defensive battle I think by both teams. Both teams excelled very well. I’m happy with the way we controlled the boards. We had a plus 14 rebound margin. I told the team, first thing I told them, that’s 14 more opportunities we have for the ball because we did a better job of boxing and crashing. I thought we crashed very well, had 11 out of 32 opportunities there. So did a pretty good job there. Only 14 turnovers. Happy with that. I thought Kamille Wahlin had a really nice game for us. I thought she shot the ball so strong, she just looked strong every time she took the ball. As far as Wisconsin, we feel bad for Tara going down with the injury. We hope she’s going to be okay. But that’s a hard thing to bounce back from during the middle of a game.
Q. Kamille, what was working on the jumpers? Seemed like you had the same exact play about five or six times there.
KAMILLE WAHLIN: The coaches were telling me to attack, you know, to see they have good outside defense, but they just told us to attack. And if they didn’t have to pull up, and I just found some good spots that I could pull up without any out defense, so that helped a lot.
Q. They went on a run in the second half when you called a time out, I saw a lot of finger pointing; what was going on in that time out?
COACH BLUDER: We just asked them to play a little bit harder. Just wanted them to go a little bit harder than they were going right then. I thought that Wisconsin came out of the locker room with a little bit more intensity than we did and just tried to bring it out.
Q. What were you guys trying to take away, anything specifically, defensively in the first half?
COACH BLUDER: We didn’t want them to get good looks inside. Their post players are very active. I mean, Lin Zastrow is a 55 percent field goal shooter; so we had to keep the ball out of her hands. I thought we did a pretty good job of making her kick it back out. You know, we also wanted to limit Karel’s touches because she’s so good offensively. And then she got into foul trouble a lot which had to play a little bit more zone, which is good.
Q. You shot Karel down a little bit in the first half and second half she scored a little bit more; that just her shots falling?
COACH BLUDER: You know, I think there’s a differential in minutes played between the two halves, I’m not sure just a couple minutes is the only thing. You know, I’m not sure if it was. She got some scores early in the second half against our zone, and at that point we wanted to go back to play her because we didn’t want her getting into the groove of being able to score off of that zone; so we put Kachine back on her and I think that is good for us defensively.
Q. Jaime, what did you think when you were leaving the court?
Jaime Printy: It was kind of weird, it was a low scoring game pretty much the first half and we kind of went on a run the last four minutes. Sometimes that happens and both teams were playing pretty good defense.
Q. Can you talk about 13 points tonight, playing a lot?
Morgan Johnson: Definitely a different feeling playing a little bit better. You know, it was definitely a little bit slower paced game. I thought we did a good job pushing the ball. But it’s just one of those games where it really felt in the groove and like I could contribute a lot more than I could last week, not feeling so well.
Q. What was the difference with the defense, because sometimes it just seems like they were missing easy shots, but what were you guys doing?
Kamille Wahlin: I think we were trying to create a little bit more chaos. Against Northwestern, we felt like we did a good job of getting deflections and steals, and so I think we tried to do it again today. But also I think we had some really good traps on the inside and we kind of controlled the paint in that way. And so by controlling the paint, I think it kind of disrupted their offense a bit, and also Kach did a good job of getting all of her screens and stopping Karel in the first half, keeping her out of the paint, too.
Q. Players, did you assess anything psychologically with them after Tara went out? Did they seem a little loss or anything? Coach said they lost their equilibrium for a while.
Jaime Printy: I think it’s always hard when it’s one of your key players. Knee injuries are tough. I think they also did a good job of sticking together as a team and playing throughout the game. But it’s always tough when you lose a player.
Q. Jaime, what does it mean, three in a row now, kind of feels like you’re on a roll a little bit with two games left to play.
Jaime Printy: Yeah, it feels really good. I mean, like we all say, we are on a win streak and we just want to keep it going and finish out the Big Ten play, hopefully with these last two wins to take us into a tournament with a pretty good seed.
Q. You are at 20 wins; does that feel good and sound good?
COACH BLUDER: It sounds good. And I think Jeff pointed out to me during the week that this might be of the fastest we have ever gotten to 20 wins since we’ve been here. I had not realized that until Jeff said that, but yeah, it feels really good and I think it just shows where our program is right now, and hopefully that’s consistent thing, over four years, that’s pretty consistent. I feel like we are in a good place right now.
Q. What are you going to do, what are the plans?
COACH BLUDER: Yeah, you know, the players actually get two days in a row, they get Sunday and Monday off, which for them this time, they don’t really get two days off in a row and I think that’s really good for you mentally just to get away from the game for two days. So we have three days right now that might be hard to keep them motivated in practice. So we are going to have to add some new things to give them a few more wrinkles, but some more things to think about. I also think when you’re in a season, you don’t get to work on your fundamentals as much because you’re always preparing for your next opponent. So this is a good chance to work on some fundamentals, which they probably won’t want to hear right now.
Q. Going into a break, did you offer any carrots?
COACH BLUDER: No carrots were offered, no. (Laughter).
Q. Do you like having the long layoff like you’re about to have and how do you battle that as a player?
Morgan Johnson: I think it’s a good opportunity to work on some things individually and as a team that we have not been clicking on, or like Coach said on fundamentals and it gives us a chance academically. We are not travelling and we don’t have games to worry about; that’s coming from me. (Laughter) That helps a little bit.
Q. Kamille, can you just talk about your performance, given that Wisconsin is one of the best defensive teams in the conference?
Kamille Wahlin: I think Wisconsin is really keen on Kachine and Jaime, and I feel like that kind of opened things up a little bit for me. They had put their really good defenders on those two players, and I tried to score but also create for them like try to draw their defenders off on me. It’s really just from game to game depending on how the other team is playing defense. Tonight, I was just able to find my shot, and who knows what will happen the next game. You just try to go from game to game.
Q. Hannah did not have the goggles, the first half…
COACH BLUDER: I was surprised about that, too. But I saw her right before the game putting contacts in. And the last time I heard, she was not supposed to wear them but now she got a pass that she can wear them just for games. She can wear the contacts for games but the goggles for practice for the next month.