Lady Vols vs. Carson-Newman Postgame Quotes

Tennessee Women's Basketball Head Coach Kellie Harper

Opening Statement
"Yeah, it's great to be back out on the court. (I am) excited to be able to progress forward with this group. Obviously, we saw some good things on the offensive end and I thought that we shared the ball well. I thought we were pretty efficient at times, offensively. Defensively, you just don't want to give up the points that we gave up, and the shooting percentage defensively is not where we want it. I don't want to take anything away from our opponent tonight, because Carson-Newman made some really tough shots and finished. They did a really nice job so for us, we'll find a way to be better and find a way to improve each and every day."

On how she felt the rebounding performance was tonight…
"Well, I thought we did okay. There were a handful of times defensively where we gave up an offensive board that we could have been a little bit more disciplined and taken care of that. I thought there were times that we really tracked the ball well, offensively. We'll go back and watch it and see. I think there were a few left out there, but I think it was a better start. We've been working really hard on it so it may have been actually a little bit better than I was anticipating tonight."

On the status of Jewel Spear and Tamari Key getting a few minutes in tonight…
"Yeah, Jewel (Spear) is doing well. It is kind of a day-to-day tweak of an ankle. We will see how she does this week. I expect to get her back pretty quickly. I don't know when she'll be 100 percent, but I think she's starting to progress where we need her to. I thought Tamari (Key) was good. I thought her minutes were very good for her. I thought we were able to extend her a little bit, push her a little bit and she did a great job communicating with our staff about minutes. It's just good to see her out there. Giving her an opportunity to get out there and make plays is what she needs to do right now."

On how nice it is to have the addition of transfer Destinee Wells…
"Destinee (Wells) is really good. I'd say I'm so happy she's at Tennessee. I think she's dynamic. She sees the floor, she scores well. She can shoot the ball and didn't shoot it as well tonight as she's capable but now she is just savvy and makes her teammates better."

On what she has seen out of Sara Puckett and what role she thinks she can fill…
"There is nothing shocking to us about how Sara (Puckett) played and how Sara looked. Sara has had a great summer and great fall. She's playing confidently. She's playing very strong. She's rebounding well and shooting the ball well. I'm really proud of her and she's got a voice and been a leader, so I am really excited about her game."

On how nice it was to see all 11 active players get minutes tonight…
"That's always fun to be able to see everybody get in and score. I think we're going to have a lot of different people that are going to contribute this year so I'm excited to see what combinations we can utilize and where we can go with that depth, but I liked the versatility and the lack that we have some options."

On what they could have done better on the defensive end tonight…
"I think that the first thing was just a little bit more urgency. That wasn't anything other than a feel. I wanted to feel like our team was hurrying to guard, I wanted to feel like it was a little bit more important to guard. I think we need to communicate better and more often on the defensive end, and then we had some sets of decent possessions defensively, for the majority of the shot clock, and then just got scored on at the end. At some point, you have to be able to guard one-on-one, so I would say one-on-one defense would be an area that we'd love to see our team be better at."

On what it means to wear the patches for Tasha Butts and Nikki McCray-Penson...
"I know that has been done here before but for us, we love our own. We love the Lady Vol family and love the people that have come before us. It's been a really tough time to be honest with you. It's been tough for our alums. It's been tough for both Nikki and Tasha's teammates in particular. Just life right? Just way too soon. We're reminded of that. It's like we got a gut punch is what I keep saying, it felt like a gut punch. To be able to put those patches on, it's just respect, but I love the fact that we can honor them in some small way. We do have some events and some upcoming opportunities to be able to do more, but we felt it was appropriate to put those patches on our warm-ups."

On what she hopes to see from her team against Team USA...
"To be quite honest with you, I'm not sure yet. Right now we're looking at it as a great opportunity to go out and compete against the best. And when we say the best we really mean it this time. One of our players was talking to me the other day and she said 'coach we're playing WNBA players' and I said 'not just WNBA players, the best WNBA players!', the best in the world. I think for us, I want to see us compete. I want to see grit and for us to have some toughness about us. Try to execute and just really get out there and fight. That's what I want to see. Unfortunately, we won't spend this week on Team USA, we've got to spend this week on us and where we need to get better because once we get to that game on Sunday, we're rolling at that point. There's no days off until after our Florida State game. Once we hit Sunday, we're on the go so we've got to make sure that we sure-up some things before that game on Sunday."

On if the game against Team USA will reveal who isn't intimidated by the spotlight...
"Oh for sure. We'll find out who will compete. I'll never forget my first game. My first college game ever was against the 1996 Dream Team, Team USA. I'll make sure to share this with our team: I had the ball thinking 'I'll throw it to the post' because I was very much a rule follower (and Pat [Summitt] told me to throw it to the post so I was going to throw it to the post), and as I was looking to the post, Nikki McCray, the best defensive player in the world, took the ball from me and went and shot a layup. That was my introduction to, I don't know if it's college basketball or USA basketball. I'm not really sure. I got an introduction though. That was certain. But that's my recollection of that game. Hopefully the players will have a more positive one than I had. It's something that's going to stick with them forever. What an unbelievable opportunity for them."

On Edie Darby getting an opportunity on the court...
"Edie's good and Edie's better, so I think there's going to be some opportunities this year for her. I think she understands that she can play. I think she's gotten a little bit more physical. I think playing against our practice guys has really helped her. I'll tell you what: if shes' on the court and she gets a shot, I think it's going in. I know she missed a couple tonight, but when she shoots, I believe it's going in. She's smart. She's also very savvy. I'm excited for Edie."

On the team's shot selection tonight...
"We have an interesting dynamic. I think we took a lot of open threes that we're going to have to live with. We're excited about those. I think we rushed maybe a couple of them, and we might just need to move on somewhere else. At the same time, I thought our team did a good job of sharing the ball. I thought we did a nice job with spacing offensively. There were a few post-feeds that turned into turnovers that we've got to clean up. We will. I think we probably had 23 or 24 good ones to be honest with you. There weren't too many bad ones. We may have to be a little bit more judicious if we're in a tight game where the shots aren't going in. We've got to watch that percentage. But we've got a group that can make threes, so I think right now we've got to give them an opportunity to be confident and take them."

Tennessee Junior Guard/Forward Sara Puckett

On how important it is to have every player score on the team tonight…
"I think it shows that we have depth. Everybody can come in and do their role and part. If somebody is having an off night, we know that we can put somebody else in and get the job done. I think that's really important down the stretch because it is a very long season. To be able to have several players that can step up, knock down shots and finish the game is really important."

On allowing Carson-Newman to shoot at a high clip in some quarters and how they can improve at defense going forward…
"We definitely allowed some, and we talked after each quarter, throughout the game and after the game. We know that's something that we need to be better at. They were hitting some tough shots and making shots. We just have to be better in that area and be more disruptive on defense; that's a big thing for us. We're going to home in on that some more because it's something that we need to be better at."

On how excited she is to start off her season like this…
"Very exciting, because I was able to do it with my teammates. We were all able to share the ball, and it just came to me. I was going with the flow of the game; that's my main focus this year is letting it come to me, being a great teammate and creating for them as well. It's exciting because it's crazy that it is my junior year and it's flown by. I'm not going to take anything for granted and I'm going to be in every single moment with my teammates and my coaches and enjoy it all."

Tennessee Fifth Year Forward Rickea Jackson

On how big of an impact Sara Puckett can be on this team…
"Sara has been doing great in practice. On the court, it was nothing new to us. She does this in practice. She's such a great shooter and teammate. She just wants to get better each and every day. I feel like she's consistent. She goes hard, she's a bulldozer. You get out of her way when you see her going for a rebound because she'll knock you over even if you're her teammate. She's been doing really well and we're very proud of her. It opens up the door for us, because you have to respect her shot. She can drive and do everything, so you have to respect her in every aspect of her game."

On seeing Edie Darby have some meaningful minutes tonight…
"It means a lot to see Edie. Her hard work is paying off. Edie is such a great teammate, and she works hard every day in practice. This was nothing new to us. Edie does this in practice, and she's been really consistent. She's been doing really good in practice, so it means a lot when you see her hard work paying off."

On how she thinks the team did in rebounding tonight…
"I don't think we did as well as we wanted to do in that area. I thought that was an area of improvement, but we'll just keep working on it. We have players that can go get those rebounds. We have the tenacity, it's just the will and effort to do it. We're just going to keep working at that."

Tennessee Senior Guard Destinee Wells

On her first game as a Lady Vol…
"It felt pretty good. I was a little nervous at the start, just because I'm nervous before every game. I feel like we came out and played well together. We played great as a team, and we took a step forward tonight. It was my first game, and it's kind of crazy that I'm not in Tennessee Orange after playing them my sophomore year. It felt great to be out there tonight. I feel like we did really well."

Carson-Newman Head Coach Mike Mincey

Opening Statement…
"Always enjoyable for our kids to come down here in the location of where they all grew up and played high school basketball. As always, appreciative of Coach Harper for having us down here. Good environment to play in, one like we won't see the rest of the year. Not only the environment, but obviously the team and the size that we went up against today. Proud of our kids. If you've never gotten to do it, it's a tough lineup for us. Tough thing to do to come in as a Division II program, out-sized in a lot of different areas, a lot of different positions. Really proud of one through 14, how all of our players came in, didn't play scared, played pretty poised and most importantly was able to put the ball in the bucket. We had a hard time stopping them clearly. They could put certain lineups on the floor we couldn't matchup with. Coach Harper, she takes it as a scrimmage, and that's what it is. She rotated all of her players. I don't think they played more than 20 for them and nobody played more than 20 for us. It kind of became a pickup game there in the second half with both teams getting opportunities to score. Of all the things I'm proud of, we shot the ball really well. 48.3 from the field, and from the three, did a great job there. Obviously on the boards, the assist-to-turnover ratio we kind of got murdered."

On the offensive production Carson-Newman had today…
"Absolutely, that's one of the things we pride ourselves on is being able to score the basketball. It doesn't matter how the lineups are changing for Tennessee, they're all at Tennessee for a reason, they're SEC caliber players. Like I tell them, any play that you can make in this environment, when we get back to our level y'all will be able to do it there, too. Scoring 72 is a lot, again Coach Harper could've changed the game up as much as she wanted to, she would've been in control of that. She's trying to get everybody opportunities to play. We're still evaluating our players the same as she is. You're right, being able to score, we struggled at times last year when Lindsey (Taylor) got hurt and Makayla Alvey was out, but now that we have everybody back our scoring has picked up in the three scrimmages that we've had this preseason."

On Karli Hayworth's performance so far…
"She's obviously real shifty and quick. She hit one three I think, but I don't know what her numbers were. One of two from the three. We've had practices where she's hit multiple threes, six, seven threes in a practice. Again, when she gets back to our level, she's going to be able to really flourish because she's one of the fastest kids that we're going to see not only in our conference, but in our region. At this point, she's playing behind Tori (Rutherford) and Braelyn (Wykle) a lot of times, so she doesn't have to be thrown into the fire, but she's someone that is going to get minutes for us this year and she'll be a big contributor."

Carson-Newman Graduate Guard Braelyn Wykle

On what her experience like playing at Tennessee…
"It was definitely fun. This is my third time playing here, so kind of used to it. The big lights and playing against people who are a lot taller than me. It's good experience and like Lindsey (Taylor) said, we've got a lot that we took out of it, and it's going to be a good year, I hope so."

Carson-Newman Redshirt Freshman Forward Lindsey Taylor

On the goals she has for this season…
"Just make the best of it. Being out for a year, I struggled with it a lot. Being back with the girls, they're such an amazing group of girls to play with. Coach (Mike) Mincey and Dusty (Nickles) are such great coaches and just being back and being able to get back in the swing of things slowly, it's been great."

On what it means to play at Tennessee as a Maryville native…
"It's a really cool experience. Like I said last year, I got to play in front of all my friends, a bunch of family is here. We all kind of are from this area or two hours or less. Seeing all of our family here and being able to play, it's such a great environment and experience that high level of team. It's great."