Michigan State University Athletics
Post Game Quotes: Wisconsin
2/21/2018 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Michigan State head coach Suzy Merchant
On potentially being a 10-seed in the Big Ten Tournament and having a first round bye…
Yeah, I mean, I think our kids definitely understand what's at stake. Certainly they know Purdue is a really good team, especially when we play them on their Senior Night, so that's never easy. I don't think you can worry about outcomes. I think sometimes if you come into a game saying we have to win the game versus focusing on the details of the game plan, that's the difference, and I think that's sort of what we look at. We don't worry about what seed we got placed. We've got to play somebody, sometime, and if we have to play an extra game, we have to play an extra game. We have the depth to handle it. I think that's important to understand too.
On Jenna Allen and Taryn McCutcheon coming through on Senior Night…
Yeah, they definitely did. I thought down the stretch they were really big. I mean, Jenna had 14, basically second half points and I thought Taryn just was like, 'we're not losing this game.' A couple of those 3s she hit, she just had an attitude about her and a presence about her. You know, it would've been ideal if it came from the senior class. I do think Branndais (Agee) had a pretty solid game from a rebounding perspective. She ended up, this year with her last game, with a double-double here, which is a pretty positive thing for a senior.
On what makes this class special and what it means to get a win on Senior Night…
I think what makes this class special is just the differences between all the players. You have everything from a walk-on to Branndais who's a sixth-year kid, to a transfer, to kids in our state, outside of the state. There's just a lot of different, unique individuals, but I also would say that I think that they came together really as a group and I think Lexi (Gussert) is a big reason for that. I mean, her love of Michigan State, how much she enjoys being a Spartan. I think it just really exudes and everybody else can't help but love it and I think it really brought those other four kids in the mix with her.
On how this win helps the team moving forward…
They're all big, right now especially. I mean every game matters. It wasn't the best game we've played, but certainly we had to make some plays to kind of pull away and I thought we saw some really good things as well. So onto the next one. Purdue is really, really good at home and we're going to have to make sure we bring high energy and then whatever happens in the Big Ten tournament, whoever we have to play, we play.
