Michigan State University Athletics
POST GAME QUOTES: LAKE SUPERIOR STATE
11/5/2017 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Head Coach Suzy Merchant
On the effectiveness of the rotation…
We came into the season feeling really good about the depth of our team. We had a scrimmage as well at Toledo and really just tried to get everybody as much reps as I could. It's not often that you have a bench where you feel like you could go to where you don't lose anything. It's been a while. I've had a lot of really good teams here, but I feel like this group is really committed to that, and I think we're pretty deep. I'm just trying to the best I can to make sure that we keep bringing people, fresh people in and out so we can kind of put the foot on the gas.
On the defense in the first-half…
I mean, there's still a lot of things defensively we didn't do that well. Our thing was when we played at Toledo, I thought there was a couple things we needed to clean up and sure up a little bit. I saw signs of that tonight. The attempt and the effort was there to do them, but we still have to do a better job. I think when you look around the country, men's and women's basketball, I think everybody would say they don't guard the ball well enough. I'm sure everybody feels that way in coaching right now and that just takes time, it takes reps. That's one area. I did think we did a better job of trying not to foul people, where at Toledo just every hand-check was a foul. I just didn't want to get into a situation where they came off playing Western the other night and they shot 30 free throws. That's one of our goals defensively is not to foul people. We really needed to make sure we showed our hands to the officials on dribble drives or in the paint and stuff. I was proud of that fact but I still think there's a few things defensively that we have to get better at for sure. It's a long season.
On Jenna Allen's three-point jump shot tonight…
She's probably one of our best percentage three-point shooters which is kind of fun as a five. We have quite a few kids that shoot it pretty well. She's always had it. I think with her, she was so injured last year and I think a lot of her, maybe, field-goal percentage was a little bit… She had to sit out for six-weeks to start the season and then she had the teeth get knocked out. She was really trying to play her way into shape, and it's really hard to make shots when you're exhausted, I guess that is probably the best way to say that. I felt really good about her the whole time she's been here taking that shot but it was really nice to see her feel fresh and energized. I think she really knocked that shot down today and it's one we want her to take. She's really good at it.
On building off this exhibition game…
We have to study film. We had that Toledo scrimmage and that was a positive thing. It's a little bit different. There's no fans in the stands. It's ok to make a mistake. I could call a time out at any time, that kind of stuff. It was fun to see the kids come out with the game lights on and people in the stands. It's a little different feel. That was important. I think now, we just need to study the film and really start working on some of our weaknesses and things that we need to do better. We play a really tough schedule. We play a lot of major teams. We play a lot of teams that were in the NCAA tournament. We play UConn in less than a month. That's a fast team, so we need to make sure that we're able to do what we need to do to stay up with them. We're at Notre Dame, at Miami. We have a tough schedule with some other teams coming in here. You can never get ahead of yourself. You're never as good as you think, and you're never as bad as you think, either. It's trying to keep that even consistency and looking at the film where you can get everybody individually better, and then collectively, what things we need to continue to grow as a program and as a team.
On whether or not this is the starting lineup…
No. It's not a bad one though. We've had two really good starts. I think the beauty of this will be that it could be a matchup situation. It could be that we want to go really big. It could be that we want different situations if we're struggling a little bit. It's a competitive roster. The nice thing about that is that you have the ability to change it. I really feel good about the team understanding that we're all one unit. It's a really special group like that. Not that it's perfect. I will say that I think that this team is genuinely willing to play with each other and play for each other. No matter who starts, as much as I think they all want to, it's all about coming out and being the best group and the best unit they can be when they're out there and they give it their all and they can sub in and come back out. To answer your question in probably a long way, I don't anticipate that being what we do every single second of every single minute, you never know. It's certainly a group that I think has done a good job. We've gotten off to two really good starts and that's important that you get off to a good start when you start games and you have that kind of pop and energy.
