Pat Summitt Quotes (94 Quotes)

We were pleased we are able to get the tempo up at times. You have to control the paint and we did that.

We've just been a very poor defensive team in a lot of games.

It's all recruiting. Not just a Duke or North Carolina. You've got Maryland in the mix. The people at the top have forced everyone else to elevate their intensity and recruiting, and that enhances their opportunity to compete at a different level.

She has played a key role for us this season. Now, it's time for this team to step up and find out what they are made of.

We feel like we get everybody's best shot because we're Tennessee, but we have to learn how to give everybody our best shot.

I think this team has had two tough lessons. We'll see if we learn from it.

What she's found is that you give these post (players) the basketball, they're very unselfish. If they don't have a good 1-on-1 opportunity, they're kicking it out.

As a great long-range shooter, she has drawn the best defender, usually the most athletic, sometimes players with a lot of size. In essence, with her ability to shoot the ball the way she can, she has become a target for every team we play.

She's like me. We're extremely competitive. But we're good enough friends so that we've been able to compete knowing that when you do, you know there's a winner and loser. But the friendship goes beyond basketball.

This Georgia basketball team statistically is very impressive. They shoot the ball well from the floor as well as the free throw line. I'm impressed with their speed and quickness overall as a team and they're not at all shy at putting up the three-ball and that extends and challenges your defense.

In most of my coaching years, I've called time out. But I've found it very difficult at times to get the ball back inbounds. You just have to trust your team. I think I've changed my philosophy in probably the last three years.

Candace commented that she had a lot of shots that seemed to go halfway down and come back out. We had to grind it out, and I wasn't particularly happy with that, but was proud at the end. Our ball movement and player movement was stagnant at times.

They are very familiar with our program and our philosophy, ... but when you have been in the game as long as I have and been on television as much as we have, I think everyone knows pretty much every move we make.

I think they took ownership of what did or did not happen. Obviously there was a glaring lack of leadership during the game, which was I thought a real factor in how we responded and our lack of being able to pull together during some adversity. I think we'll learn volumes from this loss. Now we understand how much better we have to be at that level.

And we talked Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday ... we talk all the time. But did we talk about playing each other No, because we had a different agenda.

We know it's going to be a pretty hostile environment, but our team has been exposed to that. All the players that have played here understand that we go on the road.

If you can control the boards, you usually have a great deal of influence on how many possessions you get, how many opportunities you get from that. And I thought we got a lot of opportunities.

Obviously I'm very pleased with the intensity, the enthusiasm on the bench and everyone who got on the court. We played well together.

I'm really proud of what this team has accomplished this year. They have faced tremendous adversity and come through it. They have great character and have been a great group to coach.

The friendship goes beyond basketball. When she lost her husband, and I lost my father, it was like I knew I'd be there for her and she'd be there for me.

This team should not have lost back-to-back games. Kentucky was better tonight. This team has to understand that they just can't go out there and play. They have to execute a game plan and be mindful of one possession at a time on offense and defense.

I learned so much from Sue about the X's and O's of the game of basketball.

I didn't hesitate to put her in. I just thought we were slow, we needed to be in the attack mode and she put us in it right away.

When she took off, I thought she's going to try to dunk the ball. I was good with it. I thought she just committed to it a little too early.

At Duke, they played great and we played bad. At times, North Carolina overwhelmed us with their speed and quickness.

You have to control the defensive boards if you want to win at this stage. I'm concerned about ball control and being on the boards. That's a way you can control the tempo of a game.

We have a mutual respect for this game and working with young people, not just on the basketball court but to see these young women become confident and successful in career opportunities beyond basketball.

She made playing basketball fun due to her ability to connect with her players. Personally, I am going to miss her tremendously and I know the game is going to miss her.

The ladies had great energy today. The communication was key, and I could definitely see an improvement in their physical condition. They had an incredible off-season in the weight room.

We have to win that basketball game to have a chance to win the league, and that's still our goal.

We've built this fan base not on scheduling patsies. We've built it on bringing in the top opponents throughout the country from a lot of conferences and our fans deserve that. We also think that to be the best you have to play the best.

(The loss to Florida) hopefully will make us refocus on our defense. We have been a poor defensive team all year. That is our biggest concern -- defense and turnovers.

Our philosophy has always been you better pack your defense and your board work on the road. Because those ugly nights and those poor shooting nights you just have to grind games out. Today, we just had to grind it out.

She got a concussion. She was out today. We'll evaluate her to see if she'll be back tomorrow.

You could put our entire basketball team and our entire coaching staff in one room, and she has more poise and more composure than any of us. It shows up on the court. I could be about to lose my mind and she's just calm.

Obviously it's always good to get a win. We have to get better. You don't fix it in one game.

Obviously, we are devastated by the loss of Alexis.

I think their bench is probably a little more productive at this point in time than ours has been. We've been very inconsistent there. That's where we have to be better in terms of matching their depth in being able to put up numbers off the bench.

I just want her to play the game under control. And for her, it's much different from any player I've ever coached in that she can be flat-footed and go up and dunk. So it's not like things have to be perfect in her basketball world for her to dunk. If she goes up inside and dunks it, more power to her.

We have a different agenda. But she's a very dear friend of mine. I'm really proud of the year she's had. She's done a great job with her basketball team and with the North Carolina program.

They're a solid basketball team. They've got all the parts.

It'll be interesting to see how we respond after a tough loss.

Management wanted to go into a different direction.

First was our lack of commitment to making stops on the defensive end. I think they (UT players) had another lesson handed to them on defense.

You don't win a basketball game in the first half, but you certainly can lose one. We just dug too deep of a hole. We were just trying to get back into the game and they just answered everything. A lot of those plays were huge.

A typical, I think, Georgia-Tennessee match-up is on the way because they like coming down and we like to push tempo as well. So it's going to be a big test for us. We've had some down-to-the-wire games this could be the same.

We weren't good in any aspect of our game tonight.

I was pleased that we managed to make some adjustments because they were getting good open looks against us and we weren't communicating as well defensively.

You have to make shots. That's the bottom line.

I don't think I've mentioned it to the players one time,