Post-Game Quotes: Purdue

Michigan State head coach Suzy Merchant

On team surviving bad third quarter and being out-rebounded…
That was really disappointing. I think there's no question you have to give Purdue a lot of credit. That's one thing they do very well. The Harris kid (Ae'Rianna Harris), 25 (Tamra Farquhar). The fours and fives always kill. To me, sometimes when I watch us play, we go to the basket but we aren't really trying to get it. We have to fake go. These guys go, they get around people, they get under people. So we as coaches have to do a better job of getting our kids to be better offensive rebounders… number one. Number two, that was a big part of the game plan was to get those two kids off their fours and fives and then number 11 (Dominique Oden) is a really good offensive rebounder. For our team, we just didn't do it in the whole third quarter. That was the problem. We were fouling and we were letting them get second chance opportunities. So give them credit. They definitely came out and played harder and more aggressive. I thought that we did run through the motions a little bit. We got inspired and we made some huge shots, got some big stops, and I think those are good games for you to be apart. Certainly, it's better to come out on the positive side versus the negative side. It wasn't our best performance. I don't know if that was the unexpected time bomb that we had. Give Purdue a lot of credit.

On surviving Purdue's push and big shots being made…
It's big. Certainly there was one last night at the Breslin. The push and pull was right there. You could go to anybody and make plays or make shots or free throws. Those matter. You have to learn something about yourself. You have to be put in those situations where free throws matter, where a defensive stop matters. I thought our kids did a good job of executing our defensive game plan. We were switching every screen. We almost got our hands on a couple things that were… a five second count in an 11 second situation. Our kids did a really good job I think down the stretch of doing what they need to do to pull the win off. It wasn't easy for sure. I think we needed it. We needed an opportunity like that.

On sticking with same starting five during game…
I didn't plan on doing that. I really wanted to see more of our bench. I just felt like… I don't know if we were there yet. I thought Sidney played really well. Jenna was in a decent place… trying to get her going again and defensively I thought she did a good job against 32 (Ae'Rianna Harris). So I took her out, but I was worried about that kid getting away and that kid did get away from us a little bit so… I usually play a lot more kids off the bench. Sometimes it depends on how late they're performing and sometimes it depends on the kids in front of them. I thought down the stretch the kids that were in there, offense for defense, and at the end of the game were the right kids. I thought they had the most confidence. Plus they were pressing. Those three kids I started are three point guards. So if you can't handle a press with three point guards then that's a problem. I thought their press didn't really bother us. We had a couple missteps. I felt like Taryn, Nia, and Shay were handling the press. It didn't really affect us to the point where I felt like… uh oh… here comes the press. I just felt like, okay, let's get through this and where are we going to run. So, it's a positive thing on that end to.

On late plays at the end and five second call…
I thought we were getting the ball back the way Jenna described that when they were looking at it. I thought we were going to get the ball and for them to have to foul us at that point or we were going to have a spread situation, but when they said the ball was going back to them… Then the way they lined up… it was the one play I was probably the most worried about. They moved the shooter and then she released back out. You can get confused on it, but our kids did a great job of communicating and finding open people and forcing that action. We didn't practice that in our eleven. We practiced that in our regular defense so I was impressed that we really did a good job communicating. That's a veteran group that was out there, so they should've been able to do it. It was a big possession. I think a big lift for us in that situation to get a five second call.

On how big of a win this game was for the crowd…
These games are always so much bigger than basketball games. Like I said, I think the only regret that I personally have is that I would love to see the half time and what happens there because I think it's pretty powerful when you can have that opportunity but obviously I'm unable to do that. Someone in our Spartan family, our secretary Margaret, has been battling breast cancer for the past few years and she's doing well and obviously she's winning the fight. It just hits a little closer to home when it's someone in your Spartan family. It was kind of neat how the players wrote her name on their shoes today and played for her. It shows a lot about them and it makes you smile. You know that it means more than losing.

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