Post Game Quotes: Hillsdale

MSU Head Coach Suzy Merchant

On Nia Clouden's performance…
I wasn't surprised by it. We had that scrimmage against Notre Dame and obviously we had the whole preseason. So the things she does, like playing downhill like that is pretty natural to her. I was a little impressed by her ability as a freshman to just run the team. She's a pretty quiet kid, but she has a commanding presence when she's out there. I wasn't sure how that was gonna go; we've got two veteran guards on each side, with Taryn and Shay. She struggled a little bit against Notre Dame early when we scrimmaged them as far as taking care of the ball, but that's a whole other level. They're national champions, they've got five stars back. To see her bounce back was great. She almost had a triple double in her first game in uniform. She's a talented kid and she works hard. It's obviously shown and she's done a really good job for us.

On how Nia, Shay and Taryn can piggyback off each other…
You know Taryn has never been an attacking downhill point guard, at times I think she's capable of it. She worked on it this off season. When you play like that, you're gonna get to the free-throw line so that obviously helps and that's one thing we're able to do really well. So the fact that she plays so downhill and she can spot those kids is great. She's also really good in transition she just goes until somebody stops her, and if they don't, she can take a hit and get to the free-throw line. I think Taryn and Shay enjoy playing with her (Nia). She's got a high motor and she plays at that same kind of aerobic pace. Those three can play night in and night out and be fine.

On their defensive performance…
I give them a lot of credit (Hillsdale). They were conference champs in their league. They're picked to win it again. They went to the quarters of the NCAA tournament. He's a really good coach (Matt Fritsche). You saw what they were doing. They'd run that four or five out and just take us out from under the bucket and hold the ball until under ten seconds, and then just shoot threes. That's not an easy thing to deal with whether you're division one or two. I was a little bit worried about our defense early on but I think the second half we did a better job at defending the arc. They hit seven threes in the first half and only three in the second. We adjusted a couple of things defensively, but for the most part we really just did a better job of settling in. That's one side of the ball that we have changed some things. It was kind of hard to see that. I think it'd be easier to see if you saw our scrimmage against Notre Dame. When you're moving like that, it's like a shell drill for thirty seconds. It was a really good game plan, there was no question about that; they packed the paint. We have a lot of areas we need to improve on, on the defensive end, but one thing is hopefully being better at guarding the arc.

Players Mentioned

Nia Clouden

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