Post Game Quotes: Central Michigan

Michigan State Head Coach Robyn Fralick

Opening Statement
Overall, a great team win for us today. I was proud of us. We were a little shorthanded. I thought Central [Michigan] played really well, gave us a good game, and I thought we showed some good fight.

On Theryn stepping up…
I thought she got us off to a great start. Just really aggressive, she's fast, she's got good size and she does a good job getting to seams to create for herself and create for her teammates, draw defenders and find people. I think that was her first career start, she played a lot of minutes, we asked a lot out of her tonight and she I thought she did a good job.

On whether the style of play changes based on player availability…
The way we play is the way we practice. I think it's hard to just change the way you play, and there's a trust in that, there's a pace in that, there's a seamlessness in that. I think we finished with 29 assists, so it's hard to be able to change the way you play. We just need to be able to play the way we like to play and be able to do it for longer periods of time. Obviously, a lot of our kids played more minutes than they normally do and that's O.K.. Challenge changes your capacity too and I think when you're challenged, you can also rise to that.

On the discussion in the second half when Central Michigan started to come back…
Our third quarter defense was pretty bad, so, I think they had nine points in two minutes to start the third. So, we didn't have a great start to the second half, but we hung in there, we stayed composed. At that point in time, they were hitting some threes, and some of them were in transition and they were being really, really aggressive in transition, we needed to be a better job of slowing the ball down and getting matched. But you've got to be able to keep playing. I think we came out of that timeout, and there were some things that they were hurting us on and that we had gone over and there's some details in doing it right and I think we were able to string together possessions after that. And then, a big credit to Mo (Moira) Joiner, I just thought every time the momentum of the game would change, she'd make a play.

On the identity she wants her team to have when building a program as her own…
Well, culturally, we always talk about our five core values. That's be a great teammate, manners matter, trust, toughness and commitment and those are things we talk about every day. I always say, easy to talk about but hard to do, and they challenge all of us. As humans, we're always in pursuit of getting better and those help us and guide us to constantly remind us of that. In regards to basketball, there's just a style that we play. I think really good basketball players and really good basketball teams have automatic habits. The game is fast and fluid and as spectators and coaches we can sit there and pause it and say this, this, this, but the reality is the game is fast and fluid, so you have to have good habits and you have to be good at things that happen all the time, so that's what we try to be good at.

Central Michigan Head Coach Kristin Haynie

On being in the Breslin Center again…
Before the game, I was feeling all of the emotions. Excited, nervous, happy, proud and the crowd that we had was awesome. There was a lot of Chippewa fans there and obviously a lot of Spartan fans. So, just the warm welcome that I got was pretty amazing. This place is always home and will always be special to me.

On her embraces with some of her former players on the MSU team…
I just told them to keep working. They have a good team. They were short today as well. We don't have our starting point guard as well, so we've been playing with seven players the last few games too. They fought, they dug in, and they're not used to playing that many minutes because they play pretty even, so they fought and I'm proud of them.

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