George Washington University

Feb. 20, 2003

Recap |  Box Score

NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL February 20, 2003

GW 89 Dayton 52

Postgame Comments

Coach Joe McKeown
on GW's success in transition

"We really stress 'running from the shoulders up.' You don't have to be fast to run, but you have to know where to go and understand the game. I think our kids are doing a terrific job of that."

"When Ugo runs, it brings the whole defense with her. And with CJ or Ana or Lindsey spotting up, it's like having Jerry Rice and Tim Brown on each wing and you've got everybody stretched out. When we do that, we're very hard to defend. When we don't, we're getting better at grinding it out from half-court. We stress execution in practice. In the NCAA or Atlantic 10 tournament, there are games that you're going to have to win 52-50, not 89 to whatever."

on the home-court advantage
"That's what you're shooting for during the regular season is to earn that advantage in the A10 tournament. This is the first year we've had that formula in a long time. It gives you an incentive to win the regular season to win the highest seed, then be able to host the championship game. If we do that, there will be a great atmosphere. Of course, last year, we lost in the quarterfinals, so I'm not looking past anything."

"Its going to be important when games get physical for us to execute and score. When we go on these runs, it's mostly in transition. And we're very good at that. But we keep preaching to them in practice every day--you've got to be able to execute. In March, teams know everything you're doing, and they're just as big, strong, and fast as you are. We challenge our players in practice every day, and they've accepted it.'

Cathy Joens

on GW's success in transition

"It's really fun playing transition, because I think that's when we're at our best. The ball is moving and everybody has the opportunity to score. That's hard for the other team to defend because we have so many threats--inside and outside."

on the team's position at this point in the season

"We're in a good position now. There are always things that we can work on. The loss to Xavier showed us that we're not invincible. We need to come in and focus because this is the time when we really need to win."

Ugo Oha

on GW's success in transition

"It helps when our post players run the floor hard. That gets the defense up into the lane and we have our shooters--Lindsey, CJ, Ana--just waiting for Marsheik to find them. That really kills a lot of teams because they don't want to leave the paint, but then the shooter is wide open. For our shooters, outside shots are like a layup. That's really hard for teams to guard."

Dayton Coach Jaci Clark

"When we turn the ball over like that, you're in transition defense the whole time and they're like sharks in the water. They have three people going down there, against our one 'safety.'"

"We were in transition the whole game. We got it down to 12, then turned the ball over and gave up an and-one. That turned the tide right there. It made it a 15-point game and away they went."

"You have to take care of the ball and get shots at the basket. They're a really good shooting team so you already have to get more shots at the basket than they do, and then rebounding. We didn't do any of those things today."