Postgame quotes from CSU vs. UTSA

CHARLESTON, S.C. – Charleston Southern women’s basketball head coach Julie Goodenough speaks about her team’s 75-73 loss against University of Texas at San Antonio Friday night at CSU Field House.

ON THE RESPONSE FROM THE TEAM AFTER FALLING BEHIND EARLY
They did show a lot of fight. They stayed with the game plan and didn’t lose their heads. They continued chipping away at the lead. I was really disappointed with the way we started the game. We can’t allow teams to come to our home court and hit every shot in the first five or six minutes like we did. We’ve got to have some urgency and some defensive intensity.

ON SWITCHING TO A ZONE DEFENSE AFTER STARTING IN A MAN DEFENSE
It slowed down their drives a little bit and made them shoot more outside shots. I felt like in the second half we started allowing too much driving against our zone, but I think that was a big key to slow down their offense a little.

ON THE FRESHMEN POINT GUARDS HELEN TERRY AND SHAY JONES
We’re asking a lot of them. They don’t have anybody in practice to follow as an example. They have to learn things on the fly and we’re throwing them right into the fire. We’re really exciting about how they’re responding and they’re getting coached harder than anybody else. They are making some freshmen mistakes and we’re going to have to be patient and understanding of those. I tell them everyday that their hard work is going to pay off and as long as they keep going hard, good things are going to happen.

ON THE STRUGGLES SHOOTING FROM THE OUTSIDE
We were getting open looks from the three-point line in our gym where we practice everyday, and we have to be able to knock those shots down. We really beat ourselves with missing some shots that were wide open, and not picking up some of the defensive rebounds that we really needed down the stretch. UTSA is a really good team who is well-coached, and they really pushed us to our limit tonight. Just one possession here and there was the difference in the game. Hopefully, losing a game this close early on will be a good learning experience for us and will help us understand that we have to value every single possession.¬

ON THE QUICK TURNAROUND TO PREPARING FOR MERCER
Hopefully the quick turnaround will be a good learning experience for us. We just want to take some of the mistakes that we made today and overcome those tomorrow. We want to try and play with a little more energy in the first half tomorrow. Both teams expended a lot of energy today, so we’ll see who is maybe is a little more mentally tough with our challenge against Mercer.