George Washington University

Feb. 1, 2004

Recap |  Box Score

NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
January 31, 2004

GW 81
LaSalle 64

Postgame quotes
Coach Joe McKeown
[on Anna Montanana's triple double]
"You can play her at all five positions. So a triple-double, and double-doubles, are not all tha surprising...Assists are going to be dependent on her teammates to score. But she's like Joe Montana. When she puts the ball right there, it's not that hard to make the shot."

"I'd like to see her shoot the ball more. She's so unselfish, especially when teams collpase on Ugo or Val, and they're double-teaming Cathy. We need her, especially from deep. She can stand 25 feet out and make 3's all day."

"I call her point-forward. We want to get her into the offense--have Marsheik get her the ball and then let her create and make plays. We're pretty good when we can do that.

[on his 400th win]
"The first game I ever won [at New Mexico State] was in our own tournament against Nevada-Reno. The second game I coached was against Oklahoma, where'd I'd been an assistant. I recruited every kid that was there, so I wanted to beat them so badly. Oklahoma beat us by 3, and the kid who beat us--I kept telling our team 'Don't let her shoot.' Naturally, we left her open."

"We've had a lot of great wins here, but one of the games that got the program going was when we beat Texas, the first game of the year in 91-92. The second was when we played Stanford. They won the national championship the previous year, they were ranked #1, and they beat us at the buzzer. Jennifer Shasky got fouled on a 3-point attempt, but they didn't call it. I ran after the officials and bumped into Shaquille O'Neal, who was coming out with his LSU team to play UNLV in the next game. I remember Shaq saying 'That coach is mad!'...That was probably the best loss we had because it got us so much respect. A week later we're ranked 5th or 6th in the country. It got our program elevated to a national level, and we could start recruiting all the great All-Americans we had in the 90s."

"Dr. Chernak convinced me to take the job, and he's been an important part [of our success]. Over the last 15 years, through the ups and downs, he's been a loyal supporter of women's basketball. He had a vision in the late 80s and early 90s, when a lot of people were cutting back or didn't see any future. He felt this could be big, we could be pretty good in women's basketball and elevate our university too."

Anna Montanana
[Did she know she was working on a triple-double during the game?]
"I knew I was giving it out a lot, but I wasn't thinking about it and nobody said anything on the sideline. So when they announced it on the loudspeaker, I was like OK, great!"

[Did she think she'd get one during her career at GW?]
"I knew it was always possible. I've had a lot games when I scored in double figures. Sometimes you're lucky and every rebound comes to you. As for assists, I'll find someone open. Tonight I put it all together."

"I'm really happy. I'd be happier if instead of 5 of 12, [my Field Goals] said 9 of 12, something like that. But I'm very happy...I don't feel like I played a great game. There are others where I thought I played better. But this one--the stats say a lot."

[on how the team is relying on her]
"I know I can score, and I know I can pass. If I can do as much as possible, that's good. I know the main scorers are CJ and Ugo. But I'm there to help. If I could score 20 points, I would. If I score just 5, it's not something bad."

Cathy Joens
[on Anna's progression since arriving at GW]
"She's just an all-around player. She can do anything for us. It takes so much pressure off of me and Ugo when she can score, but she also passes and makes our jobs easier. If you took her out of the equation, we wouldn't be as good as we are now."

"You don't find players like that. Jason Kidd is one of the few NBA players who gets a triple-double all the time. She's been close in a whole bunch of games. You don't have somebody who can score, rebound, and pass the ball like that. It's rare in college basketball. I'm just glad she's on our team and not somebody else's."

[Is the team coming together at the right point in the season?]
"I think so. The St. Joe's game was kind of a wake-up call for us to come and be ready to play every game. We have 8 or 9 left. We have to focus, win the rest of the season and at least a couple in the tournament, and get in a good position for the NCAA tournament."