Sylvia Hatchell Quotes (94 Quotes)

They love the environment of the big game. Even when we were down, it's just a special feeling that this team has to never give up. It's sort of like the wind. You can't see it, but you sure can feel it.

You could make a great Final Four just from the teams in our regional alone. Everyone seems to agree it's the toughest. But, we've played great teams all year and we'll be prepared. I think the strength of this bracket will help motivate our team.

There are differences between being quick and fast. I think there's no doubt Marion was faster, but as far as being quick, I don't know. It's a good comparison. Ivory is quick and she's fast, too. I'd say Marion is faster, but quick I don't know which one.

We had no idea she'd really be on there years later.

It was good for us to play a game like this. This is the sort of game that is going to help us prepare for Monday night.

We're happy with the win against a very good Boston College team.

She shoots like that all the time. She made good decisions and got good looks. It's not that unusual to tell you the truth.

People asked me all year how good this team could be, and I said all along they could be as good as they wanted to be. I really feel that way, this is a special group. They all complement each other so well, and the chemistry is great.

They made us play real ragged. They changed their defense a lot. They were aggressive going to the boards and got the ball inside. We sputtered probably more than we sputtered all year out there today. We got things going when we had to and we got big rebounds when we had to.

Candace Parker is a great player but she's not the entire Tennessee team. They have a lot of great players. I think you just have to have a good game plan and give them some different looks.

I didn't think we started the game the way we had all year. I was really upset that we didn't start better. I think that set the tone for the whole game to tell the truth.

I just think this is a real special group. They have a passion for playing, and not just playing but playing the way we play up and down the court.

She's in great hands with Dr. Taft and our sports medicine staff, so I wasn't surprised to hear that everything went well with the surgery this morning. Now she can get on the road to recovery. We look forward to having her back at 100 percent in the fall.

I'm really proud of our team. I thought we had a great year. Today, we just didn't play well.

I felt it in my heart. She came to my camps, and she made me feel good. She made everybody else on the court better.

That balance is the strength of our team.

I want people to fall in love with women's basketball, and that's one reason why we go up and down the floor. I want them to score a lot of points and make it exciting and fun.

We don't have the commitment to rebounding we need to have. We need to get better in that area.

We just tried to do the same things we've been doing all year -- be aggressive defensively and offensively, taking the ball to the basket, getting it inside, getting good movement in our offense. Defensively we threw some different things at them. I thought our kids played really hard.

Yes, Maryland is worthy of that. They are a great team. And they are young, so they are going to be tough for a long time.

We have watched Riverside, and they are a very good motion offensive team. It's a young team that has a lot of eager players, so we know we have to be ready.

I think the biggest thing was the rebounding. I can live with everything else out there. We'll straighten that out.

Sometimes we allow the cross-court pass sometimes we don't. Sometimes we allow the pass down the side sometimes we don't. The other team, they don't know what we'll allow, and sometimes we don't know, either. It keeps them off-balance, and that's part of our objective.

I don't like low-scoring games. I made the comment it's sort of like watching paint dry. I like to go up and down the floor, and that's what we are all about. I don't like slow games.

This is what you dream about as a player and a coach. I've been coaching 31 years, and this is what gets your heart pumping and your blood boiling to be in an environment like this.

We have a lot of respect for each other, and I think we make each other better. I really think that's one of the reasons why we're both here. We do so much to push each other and make each other better.

She has a passion for it, there's no doubt about that. And it's contagious. ... She makes people happy.

I am very confident with Alex and the rest of them out there. Alex has played a lot this year. She plays with Ivory, and I know when Ivory picked up her second foul and I took her out, we were behind at that time. Alex did a nice job running the team, and we got the lead back.

I don't really put a lot of emphasis or attention in individual awards.

(Monday) Roy Williams called, and we talked for 35-40 minutes, maybe longer. He told me, 'I lost the Final Four five times before winning it.' He helped.

I don't feel that old. You think about winning 700 games, but with the losses it's probably close to 1,000 games. That's a lot. But you know what I love it as much now as I ever loved it, and especially it's because of this team.

It's fun when we play each other because we have a lot of respect for each other, and we enjoy playing in that kind of environment. I've been coaching 31 years, and that's what you dream about - a game like that.

It's hard to play at 11 o'clock in the morning. We missed a lot of shots in the first half. I don't know -- I thought we had a some real good looks, and they just didn't go in.

The last few days have been wild, to put it mildly. It's been great, the attention, the enthusiasm over the team and our ranking. But everybody's going to give us their best shot.

It was Easter Sunday and I like to call it the second-greatest miracle. I never jumped so high in my life.

I've been doing it 31 years, this is nice. I'd like to have it the last game of the season. It happened to me one time before, and there's nothing sweeter than that.

I'm pulling for George Mason because they beat our guys. The more they win, it makes our guys look good.

We knew they would give us a good game. We just wanted to keep the tempo up. They had a lot of gas left.

I've been doing this a long time, and I've had a lot of great teams. Trust me, I know, any coach is only as good as their players. I've got great players, and I've got a great staff. They make me look good.

All the teams, they go up and down the floor, run the ball well, they have a strong inside-outside game. Just good balance, good flow. All four teams here are a lot of fun to watch play.

At times we looked pretty good out there, at times we were a little ragged. We had five kids in double figures, and that balance is a strength of our team.

I hope I get to use them one more time.

Her leadership has also improved. For a sophomore, she has shown a lot of maturity.

I don't see that they have any weaknesses really. It's an honor to beat them because they're such a great team.

I didn't feel we were in rhythm today, especially after Ivory got hurt. She's our spark that gets us going, and I just felt that the energy that we normally have just wasn't there.

They're about the only good team that's not (in our bracket). They definitely deserve to be a No. 1 seed, and maybe somewhere down the road we will get to play. But there's a lot of great teams. I just want us to keep playing the way we've been playing, and hopefully things work out where we'll be able to be in Boston.

To be honest with you, today I wish we had moved it to the Smith Center because I don't like to say no to all these people that need tickets. My cell phone, my e-mail, my office phone, my house phone -- every one of them right now has messages from people wanting tickets, and I have no tickets.

I've been in this league 20 years and every year we say it can't get any better, but this year we're just heads above all the other conferences.

I feel like the way we play, and having a player like Ivory, sells the game of basketball. Because I want people to fall in love with women's basketball.

I don't deserve this award. I learned a long time ago to surround yourself with great people and they make you look good. That's what I've done.