Jan. 6, 2013
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COACH BLUDER: Congratulations to Michigan. A very well played game. I thought they were excellent today. They shot the ball well, they’re patient with their offense, they defended well, kept the ball out of the paint. I thought Sam Logic played well for us. She tried to do everything she could. When we were down big in the second half to bring us back, just appreciate her efforts out there so much.
We’re disappointed with this loss. Our defense wasn’t there. We got out rebounded. We have to regroup. It’s a long Big Ten season. We had a good thing going and we let it slip right here today. We’ve got to be ready for every Big Ten opponent. I just think we weren’t ready today to play. That’s my fault. If they’re not ready to play, that’s my complete responsibility. We’ll have to turn around and do a better job against Wisconsin on Wednesday.
Q. Morgan only got seven touches, one a layup. What were they doing?
COACH BLUDER: They did a good job of clogging up the lane. She was 3 3 the first half. Second half tried to go into her. First couple possessions we had turnovers. Not the first possession, but the second and third time we tried to get the ball to her, we had turnovers. Made us gun shy going inside. They did a good job of knocking the ball away in the ball passes. Again, good job with them. We probably could have ball faked a little bit better before we made the pass. Again, I think Michigan came in here ready to play. They played harder than we did. That is heartbreaking to me because I’ve always prided us on Iowa plays hard no matter what.
Q. Talk about Samantha’s play.
COACH BLUDER: She was doing everything she could to try to get some energy into this basketball team. I appreciate that so much. I thought she left everything on the court. She was one of those players, she was getting steals for us, taking the ball to the hole. I thought she had great energy on the floor the whole time. That needs to become infectious when somebody is playing like that.
Q. When you would make a rally, they seemed to answer. How much is that them?
COACH BLUDER: I think it was their night. When you begin the game with Kate Thompson playing so well to begin this game, but she had some really good looks, too. They did a good job of getting her open. Rachel Sheffer took over in the second half, did a great job offensively for them. Some of it was their night. If you look at their shooting percentages, only about 3% higher than they usually are. This is a team that shoots the ball very well. They’re patient with the ball. They work the shot clock. They understand you can’t score if they have the ball in their hands.
Q. It was a rough night shooting for you guys. What Michigan did, was that something different defensively from other teams or they executed well?
COACH BLUDER: I think they executed well. We’ve seen zone on and off throughout the year. So it’s not something that’s a shock to us. We knew from film they were going to play us in a zone defense. I think if we would have hit some of those shots early, I think it would have given us a little more confidence in those shots that we usually hit in the first half. Build confidence for us.
Q. (Question regarding Thompson and Sheffer.)
COACH BLUDER: Thompson had 17 in the first half. We only held her to 2 in the second half. That was good. We were more aware of her in the second half. Too bad we didn’t start the game off like that. Sheffer really got loose, though. She’s a good player because at post she can hit threes, she’s strong inside, she can attack the basket really well. I thought she did a really good job. But I thought we did a better job on Kate in the second half.
Q. (Question regarding going on the road to Madison.)
COACH BLUDER: It’s going on the road. Now we’ve got to be able to regroup and win on the road. We won a couple on the road. We know it’s more difficult to play on the road. You have to be prepared, more focused on the road than when you’re at home. We’ll take it forward, do a better job of getting ready.
Q. What did you think of Morgan and Jaime?
COACH BLUDER: They’re such a nice inside/outside presence. Very few teams have such a good inside/outside presence. We didn’t demonstrate that tonight. But we’ll go back to the drawing board and we’re going to keep working at it. They’re very, very good. Most people would love to have a post like Morgan that can catch about every pass that comes her way. A three point threat like Jaime, it makes it so hard to sag in on Morgan usually. Again, today wasn’t our day as far as that. We’ve got to learn from it, watch the film, hopefully we can get ready for the next time we play them. We got an opportunity to go to their house now.