Ann Strother Quotes (64 Quotes)

I think this is a good win for us, but there's always something you can take from it. Obviously, tonight being up 19 and then letting them kind of come back and then having it down to the wire the last few minutes is something that we need to work on. And we need to develop some maturity if we want to be as good as we can be in the (NCAA) tournament.

It's being more mature and not kind of playing street ball or throwing it around or being careless with it. That's a good sign.

I'm really excited because I felt D made me a better player. When I played with her, I felt like I was playing at the best of my abilities. To get a chance to play with somebody who makes you better is going to be just a great, great opportunity for me.

It took some time to get going, but for the final 15-20 minutes, it looked like Connecticut basketball. That was really good to see. That play when Wolff hit the three was one of the high points.

This is one of the most important parts of the season no matter who we play because right now we just have to worry about us and what we need to do and try to get some sort of rhythm going in the second half of the season. Regardless of who we play right now, it's just a really important part of the season.

There were a lot of different moments you wish you could have again. The feeling all night was the victory was right there. Defensively, we did all we could. We really wanted it. Falling two points short is so hard to deal with. I don't want to feel like this again.

It feels good it feels fine. This is more preventative stuff than anything.

Connecticut fans are the best, especially here in Bridgeport. When we were here two years ago, we had unbelievable fan support and it's just the most unbelievable atmosphere to play as a college athlete. The fans are great.

I think when something like that happens you just kind of have to play through other people. You kind of feed off of them and just hope to get back and find yourself somehow. So that's what I tried to do and finally I feel like I'm kind of coming back.

It was never a part of my mindset, thinking that we were ever going to lose. I never thought of it that way, but it was more like we have to go on a run right now. We have to make something go our way right now.

I'm definitely fortunate to be in that situation and have that opportunity. I was really lucky to come in as a freshman and play right away. Probably sometimes I didn't deserve to be out there.

I think it was just a crucial play that we needed at a big point in the game. Either they were going to get the momentum back on their side and continue to kind of chip away at us and you could've seen something that happened the other night. It definitely was a big play. Coach called it up and Barbara set a great screen. I was wide open.

I don't really ever feel like I'm not feeling it. Even if you're in one of those slumps, I guess you just shoot your way out of it. Every time I'm open I'm going to shoot.

It's execution on our part. The fact we scored 12 points in the second half pretty much sums it up. We need to get back to working on executing and taking care of every little detail.

It's hard to put into words what Coach has meant to me and to all of us. He does more than just coach. The whole program at Connecticut is built on developing girls into women. With what he's done for the sport, all our players past and present, he deserv

It was a little frustrating because it was unexpected. Nobody really felt that we were going to go into this game playing as poorly as we did. There's no way to explain it. It's just an off night.

I think I was fortunate. I came into a situation as a freshman where I had the opportunity to play right away. And a lot of freshmen don't have that opportunity.

Shes definitely frustrated about not being able to play as many minutes in practice and in games as she would like to, but I think shes handling it really well. As long as she just stays positive, like she is, and does as much as she can, thats all we can ask for. Right now, were just going by how she feels day to day and hoping that her knee feels good for the end of the year.

When you play teams like that, they are more desperate. They're going to play with a sense of urgency.

Coach, we don't want you to give up on us.

That's just something we've been focused on doing, coming out, giving it our all. Just knowing that it's the end of four years, we want to make the most of every situation.

Sometimes you're just going to have games like that for whatever reason. And just for us to be able to kind of push through it and tough it out, it's definitely a good sign. It's a sign of maturity for our team.

I think that's what makes it so frustrating. You look at a game like tonight and you see how good we can look and then you say the only reason we lost tonight is because we beat ourselves. We let another team come back into it and we mentally kind of got shaken. I think that's something that's going to be the biggest thing going into the (Big East and NCAA) tournaments.

There was a time where nothing was really going on and it was kind of stagnant. I think we needed to get something going if we were going to win. So this was the time.

I think going into the tournament if it gets to that situation, thats something that I would definitely look to try to do. Make sure everyone is calm and try to step up and get us out of that little drought.

It's so hard to feel that my college career is over. It will be hard to watch the Final Four on TV. The seniors have been through a lot. We won two NCAA titles but this isn't the way we wanted it to end.

It's definitely different having to go somewhere for the first time, not being at home for the first two games. But that's kind of exciting, too. No matter where you play, no matter who you're playing against, it's tournament time and that's always fun.

Anytime you have a point guard who can get in there and draw a lot of defense and kick it, it makes it easy on the shooters. Shes really matured a lot from last year. I think she realizes now how important she is in our offense and what abilities she really has to make everything work.

If you asked us after the North Carolina game (loss in December) if we would get to this point, nobody would have believed it. But we all worked so hard to get here.

I think that's the way that coach has always, kind of something he's always been know for. He knows how to prepare a team for this time of year.

A lot is riding on this game, definitely. A conference title is behind it. Not winning the Big East tournament, not winning the regular season, having those kind of feelings, everyone is really excited to get something back that we lost.

Monday's game means nothing if we hadn't won tonight. There were a lot of emotions coming out of the ceremony, but when it was time to play, everyone was ready to go.

To play like that in front of so many people who have made the program what it is, you just want to go jump in a hole.

She even makes sure we have panty hose on when we go to banquets. She just wants us to be our best and do our best and look our best all the time.

We all came here because we wanted to be part of this program. It's about tradition, about the players who have been here.

He's somebody who's going to tell you exactly what he thinks and when he thinks it with the goal in mind that he's trying to make you better. It's pretty much all straight forward, whatever he's thinking and whatever is on his mind. I think sometimes that there's probably things that he wants to say to us that he can't, too.

Its hard to explain the situation and how youre feeling because theres so many different emotions and you have no control over it. So you feel useless really, like theres nothing you can do, but its exciting.

This last stretch was good. Although we didn't play tougher teams, it was an important stretch. We could start to build some momentum going into the conference.

Obviously, there's a certain amount of time you have to put in before you're even allowed to be nominated for something like that. Realistically, I think that it's something he should have and could have gotten a lot earlier if the time restrictions hadn't been put in. I think he's always acted like a Hall of Fame coach.

They're definitely not going to take any back steps right now. We have to be ready for them to come out and play with everything they have at this time of the year.

Overall, it felt like we didn't come and play. We wanted to build off the LSU game and it felt like we took a step back. We were scatterbrained for whatever reason. We'll get it back. We all know what we have to do.

We all left that meeting kind of feeling renewed. He just kind of laid it all out on the line. I think the most important thing that came out of it is that it's not too late for us to really make our mark and to make the postseason go the way we want it to. And I think we've all just made a conscious effort of being better leaders and doing whatever we need to do for our teammates.

You look at Barbara, Will, all of us, this is when Connecticut starts to play. When the tournaments come, this is when we always play our best.

Shots weren't falling. I felt like we had a lot of good looks and we couldn't get them to go down. It wasn't easy, and we made it harder on ourselves than we needed to. Defensively, we've been pretty consistent all year. It's something we could always rely on. Offensively, we have work to do.

It's really frustrating, even more so as a friend, because you want to see her have success. But to her credit, everything she's done, she's done on her own. She's really grown and been able to forget about mistakes and play without those inhibitions.

She's more experienced. If you look back at some of the mistakes that she made earlier in the season, she's not making those kind of mistakes any more. Having played in the North Carolina game, having played in the Rutgers game, against a team like Georgia she's going to face some quick guards again and she's going to be ready this time I think.

Actually, it's more exciting to see somebody you haven't seen. The Virginia Tech game in the second round was a little nerve-racking, because you know what they're like and how dangerous they can be. You know almost too much about them. This time of year, its fun to see someone you don't know anything about.

It feels really good to have this opportunity right now. But we still have things we want to get done. We're not just happy making it to the Elite Eight. That's not going to be a successful season if we end there. So I think we're taking that as an opportunity and we're ready to continue to build on it.

I think were all realizing that its the culmination of our last regular season. This is the time where every senior in the past had to step up and make things happen (Wills) been playing like crunch time for the past couple games.

It's gone on for a long enough period of time. They know what to expect. Things that we're going to have to come back here for and finish up, they're really understanding.