Lady Vols vs. Tenn. State Postgame Quotes

Tennessee Head Coach Kellie Harper

Opening Statement:
"I'm glad we got the win, didn't think we played great. We were a little slow out of the gates. I thought our effort and energy was a little bit lower than it needed to be to start the game. A lot of technical things that we can do better, and we will. Hopefully this is a learning experience for our team on how to be sharp and to be the best basketball team you can be. You can't take nights off regardless of your opponent, so I think maybe it's a learning experience after a win instead of a loss."

On what changed in the second and third quarter after the slow start in the first:
"I thought our defensive energy was really good in the third quarter. I thought we had a group that came in, a lot of our bench in there, and gave us great energy. They scored five points in that third quarter, and that's where our energy came from. We were able to make some buckets during that time but also just feed off our defense, and that was really a positive and good to see."

On what her message to the team was at halftime:
"We talked about their energy level not being where it needed to be and needing to take advantage of our pace. We talked a lot about rebounding; we talked a lot about taking care of the basketball. I think they understood. I think they were feeling it, but they're still young. I think it's sometimes hard to go from not playing well to turning that around and finishing strong. I thought they finished much better then they started, so that's a positive for us. So, they were able to recognize it and get out of it."

On what she thought the reason for so many turnovers were for her team:
"It wasn't really the pace; I think it was a mixture of things. I think it was a lot of casual plays, casual passes. We had too many three-second calls where it was just that we weren't aware of where we were at. (We had) a few offensive fouls with our screens, and then just not being physical and tough enough. We had some jump balls that turned over. So, it wasn't just one thing. If we were only turning the ball over in transition, we could probably live with that, but it's just turnovers all over the court. We can clean those up, but we just have to be focused and disciplined to do it."

On the process of resetting the rotation after the Zaay Green injury:
"Obviously that threw a kink into things, losing Zaay. Zaay is a very good basketball player, and she can do so many things both offensively and defensively, and she always brings energy. I think that's going to be a thing we will miss tremendously from her. But also, we went from six guards down to five, so our rotations are going to have to be a little bit longer for certain people. We may end up seeing Lou Brown a little bit on the perimeter, and therefore our post players are going to have to be ready, so we have some depth there to move Lou if we need to. So, we are still working on some things, trying to figure some things out. I think we have seen some good play from our guards. We have seen some play that they can improve on as well so we're still working on it."

On Geno Auriemma's recent comments:
"From my view point, I'm obviously only here now, and the 12 players I'm working with now are bought in. They play hard, they practice hard, they have good team chemistry. So from my viewpoint, Tennessee is a great place to be a student athlete."

On if being more efficient around the rim has been a point of emphasis for Kasi Kushkituah:
"We are working on keeping Kasi from dribbling. She likes to catch and dribble in the paint. She got a rebound tonight and dribbled. She's so powerful and so strong, but when she brings that ball down to the floor, she allows guards to play with her. So, we're still working on that with her. I think she's got some habits there that make her smaller. Hopefully we can continue to work with her about going and getting it and scoring without putting the ball on the floor."

On Rae Burrell and her contribution to the game without Zaay:
"The thing that you get with Rae is she's going to come in and make a play – it's going to happen. Sometimes they're negative, a lot of the times they're positive, but she's going to come in and give us something, and I love that. We need that coming off the bench. We need somebody coming in with fire, with energy, and as she continues to get more minutes and continues to get more comfortable, I think you'll see even better play from her. That's my expectation for her. She's really good, but she's still young in her basketball, to be quite honest with you. I think the future is really bright for her and our team with the role that she has right now."

On using a lot of different combinations tonight and why:
"Tonight, the substitutions came for various reasons. A few times it came from our typical, 'Let's get some subs in and get them some minutes.' There were a few times where, had I had one more guard, you'd have seen a line change. I was disappointed in how five people were playing. The subs came for a variety of reasons tonight, but I think that's the way you're going to see us play. You're going to see a lot of people in there, a lot of different combinations. That's how we practice. We practice a lot of different people together, so I think they're used to it, and it allows me to continue to find things that may work, and then maybe stick with those a little bit longer."

On Kamera Harris and what she's seen from her:
"In practice, she's actually been one of our most consistent defensive players in the post, so that's been really positive. The other thing that's been happening recently is that she's actually shot the ball really well from 15-16 feet, and having a post player that can knock down some outside shots is a real positive for us. Obviously, when we're going low minutes – we're not playing Jaiden right now- that opens up another spot, and Kam has stepped in. I thought she had good minutes at Notre Dame and was able to have some good minutes today."

On how she plans to support Zaay Green with her ACL injury:
"I've been trying to talk to Zaay daily about her injury, and see where she's at. One of the hardest things in my opinion, and my experience, that she's going to have to deal with is staying engaged in the team when you feel a little bit removed. I know for me, that was a big challenge. I've seen that with some former players. The good thing is, Zaay is a big personality, and you can't miss her. Hopefully she will continue to be that for the team. It doesn't just help her teammates, it helps her. I think it helps her stay positive, because going through ACL surgery and rehab is hard. It's really hard, and it feels long and drawn out, because you want to be out there with the team. We continue to encourage her daily. I've talked to her about being there for her every step of the way, and I think it's different when you've got somebody to talk to that's been through it."

On the teams response to the Notre Dame win, and if that was the reason for the team's slow start tonight:
"I think we had a little bit of a letdown coming off of the Notre Dame win. Everybody was so excited, so elated. There was so much emotion and energy put forward for that game. We came back and had a practice yesterday. I didn't love practice yesterday. I just felt like we were going through the motions a little bit, that we weren't locked in as well as we needed to be. We talked about that during practice, and I think it carried over into the game. Lesson learned for our team, they need to understand that when we're talking about practice carrying over, that's what we're talking about, and I think they can see that."

On Jordan Horston and if she plays as well in practice:
"I think she's a playmaker. When we get the ball in her hands, I think she's looking to make a play. As she continues to get more college minutes, you're going to see her getting better, and she's already pretty good. She can make shots, she can create, get people open, she can defend, and as she gets a little bit more savvy, you're only going to get that with experience, so I think you're going to see her game continue to improve. We need her on the court making plays for us."

On what she's learning from the team as the season progresses:
"I think we're still learning. We have said for several months now that our biggest challenge is going to be adversity. I think we handled our first piece of adversity. And our first piece was not Notre Dame, it was playing without Zaay. I think that was the adversity that we had to handle, and I thought that we handled that very well. I think now, one of the next pieces for this team, in terms of our growth as a basketball team, is becoming consistent. We've proven that we can play at a pretty good level, pretty elite level. We've also proven that we can play very average. So how can we become a more consistent basketball team? I think that going to be one of our challenges moving forward."

Redshirt-Senior Forward Lou Brown

On the team's consistency and focus:
"Coming off a big win (at Notre Dame), it was a fun for us, but ultimately, at the end of the day, we just want to continuously keep getting better. We had a good win against Notre Dame, and we had a good win tonight, and tomorrow we're just going to get back at it and keep moving forward and keep finding ways for this team to get better consistently."

On what the team was happiest about after the game:
"I think tonight we played well and got the win, but tonight wasn't one of our better games. I think we're a little bit unfocused and that showed to start, but one thing we were happy about was we were able to come back from that as well. Going forward slow starts are not going to be something we can accept, but tonight despite things being in a bit of a slump at the beginning we were able to bring ourselves out of that and continuously move forward."

On the culture and environment at UT:
"Right now, all I can say is that we have a good team, and we love our coaches. It's a good environment for us. That's what our purpose is, and that's what we're worried about now. We're worried about what's going on this year. We're all happy to be here and to be apart of this program. I think that's going to show when we play. It'll also show that we have chemistry with our team and a good relationship with our coaches."

Junior Forward Rennia Davis

On a slow start coming off a big win on Monday:
"I think you try to just move on to the next game, but sometimes it lingers. That was a big win for us at the time, but for us, we just try to stay consistent. That's something we're still working on, so I think as the game went on we were able to do so, but with the slow start we just have to pick it up."

On what the quickness of Tennessee State causing problems for UT:
"Well, I think we're pretty fast too. Honestly, as a team, we are still working on the consistency piece of our game. It could've been the lack of focus, or several different things. We just have to get it right."

On working on turnovers:
"I think, at times, we play ahead ourselves. We try to make the homerun plays a lot of the time. I think we need to learn to play fast but also learn to settle down when necessary. I think a lot of our turnovers are unforced, so it's all on us."

Head Coach Jessica Kern

Opening statement
"First and foremost, let me just say how gracious we are that this game has gone back to being a series. That is something we would absolutely love to do and keep it in state. For our players, we are again making an attempt to make it into postseason play. We will not play in an arena of this size or in front of a crowd of this size until postseason play, so I am extremely grateful to start this series again, and I think my young ladies played hard; but hard was, obviously, not enough. We will go back to Nashville and look at the stats, but if heart was a stat line, I would choose my team all day long. We got some stuff to work on, but I think we gave it our all tonight. We fell short, but we will be okay come Monday."

On her mindset coming into the game against Tennessee:
"This is the biggest team we will see. We also play the University of Arizona this year, but hands down, this is the biggest team we will see. It works into what we do. We like to play position-less basketball. We didn't shoot well from the outside because we had to exert too much energy from the inside. I think this is a game you want your players to see early. That is the good part about film. We get to go back and watch. I was not happy with our transition basketball. We did not run lay-ins very well. But there are three people I really want to give a hat off to, getting up six inches in the paint, Jaden Wrightsell, Takya Bennett and Ashley Primas. It is really tough to be a passer inside, and I think they set their guards up for some form of success."

On how she can use this game as momentum going into the season:
"When you're going through your bumps and bruises at the time, young people along with coaches don't understand that it is a life lesson. When you take over programs, you inherit schedules, and that is what we did. We took it under the chin quite a bit last year. We have a very attractive preseason schedule. We get to go back home, and we get to play again on Monday. This was a humbling experience because I think, especially at the mid-major level, you get used to certain level of competition. You need to see where you want to be in March, and this is where we want to be. We want to be in post-season play, so we I like that we get to press the reset button early and go home on our floor in front of a great crowd on Monday and go for it."

On what she thought they accomplished tonight:
"On any game, we are not looking to have anything less than 40 rebounds and against one of the biggest squads in the country, to be two shy isn't too bad. Twelve turnovers for our second time out is pretty impressive as well. And it is always nice to see a new person, Deaja Richardson, shooting pretty decent from the outside as a freshman. So when you are able to pull things like that away from it, we know a lot of the things we need to work on, but there was a lot of good things that happened as well. The tempo of the game was what we are going to do. We are going to run, run, run. But we are going to get back to it, and I think it is going to start with us… more specifically, more game-tempo type shots. We had open looks, but we just couldn't knock them down."

Junior Forward Jaden Wrightsell

On what it meant to play in this arena and this environment:
"I think it was a very humbling experience, not just for me, but for my teammates and some of the ones who didn't know Pat Summitt. To come in and go to the statue and see what it is really about, to play on this court, really brought us together in this humbling experience. I feel like we grew as a team today, and we took key moments remembering why we are playing basketball and who we are playing for."

On if they went to the statue as a team before the game:
"We sure did. Shoutout to social media. We are all over it."

On how they were able to get so many rebounds:
"Our game plan was to continuously box them out. We are an offensive team ourselves rebounding-wise. We like to go get rebounds. We are always in the paint. That was the key. Not because they are tall or not because they are big, we just stuck to our game plan, so it really helped as we boxed out and went for every rebound we could really get."