Pregame Press Conference Quotes: Holy Cross
3/19/2005 7:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 19, 2005
COLLEGE PARK, Md. -
Pregame Quotes
Bill Gibbons, Holy Cross Head Coach
On Crusaders returning to NCAA Tournament: We're obviously thrilled to be back in the tournament. This was a special year for us considering we had our first losing year in 19 seasons last year. We had our most challenging schedule in my 20 years because we played three teams when they were ranked in the Top 15 in Duke, DePaul and Connecticut. We were 5-8 and we had a great meeting in the Duke locker room at Cameron Indoor on January 2nd. With our first league game four days away I said that I believe in this team, but the experts are going to say Holy Cross is on the downside and they're never going to reach their three goals. They won't win the regular season, they got no shot at winning 20 games and they're going to miss out on the Big Dance again. I told the team we can make all three of those goals. You've got to band together as a team and we can make all of those goals happen. Of my 11 trips to the NCAA's this may be the sweetest because of where we came from.
On playing Ohio State: They're shooting 51 percent from the floor and 40 percent from the three. Obviously, Jessica Davenport is the Big 10 Player of the Year. They have both weapons, they have the inside outside threat. We have our work cut out for us. They are a terrific team. They are very disciplined and have a lot of weapons offensively.
Maggie Fontana, Holy Cross Guard
On Ohio State:
We think Ohio State is a really good team and they have both an inside and outside game and we know we are going to have to come prepared.
After loss to Duke how team was able to respond: After we played that game and we were in the locker room and we just didn't like that feeling. We lost pretty big and we just tried to remember that we don't want to be in this position again, we don't want to feel this pit in our stomach.
Brittany Keil, Holy Cross Guard
On facing Ohio State's athleticism:
Coach actually schedules big games during our pre-conference schedule just for this reason. When we get to the NCAA's we've played the better athletes and the bigger girls and the big teams so we're prepared when we get to these games. We're not surprised by how athletic and strong they are and we're ready to play.
Lisa Andrews, Holy Cross Center On being a 15 seed: The thing is Ohio State has all the pressure on them. If they're not up by 10 in the first five minutes then they're going to start sweating. If they don't worry about us, if they're saying Holy Cross is a small Catholic school in Worchester, Massachusetts then that's just what we want them thinking.
