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The University of Utah Athletics
Quotes from Lynne Roberts Weekly Press Conference
1/16/2018 1:14 PM | Women's Basketball
Opening Statement...
"We are coming off an interesting weekend at home. We played a really good game against an exceptional UCLA team that is picked to win the conference for a reason. I mean they are the best team in the league. We played them well. It came down to the last couple of possessions and they made a few plays and we didn't and they got the win. Sunday we played USC, who is a very good team that is receiving votes in the top-25, and we just played kind of a twilight zone kind of game. We just weren't ourselves. It was weird. They got the better of us. We held them to 58 points and especially at home when you hold someone to 58 points, you think you should win, and so defense wasn't the problem. We just could not get going on offense. Coming in to that game we were averaging 81 points and we only scored 47. It was weird. Watching the tape back on Sunday afternoon, we were not recognizable in terms of what we had been all season. Sometimes that happens. I have a really good group of players that want to do right, so it was just one of those things. I don't know what the deal was, but we have to get past the 'why did it happen' and just move on. There are no issues, we just had a bad day and unfortunately it came at a bad time in terms of the opportunity we had to get a win against a really good USC team at home. You want to try and protect home court in this league as much as you can. So, bad time to have a bad day, but the season is long and you are bound to have games like that and you just have to move on."
On the atmosphere against UCLA...
"It was great. I think we had our record crowd since I've been here. I have not been shy since I got the job here about one of my main initiatives was to build the crowd. Gymnastics has it rolling, volleyball has it rolling, men's basketball obviously and football. This is a sports town and I want our games to be an event as well. The bottom line is that winning matters and the better we get the better our crowds get. I think our athletic department has done a really good job promoting our program and they have put effort into it and I appreciate that very much and it shows. UCLA came in ranked No. 14 and that helps, bringing in quality opponents with that brand name, but we are getting better. We are playing a fun style of basketball. The record crowd was great and we just want to keep building on it. I still firmly believe that we can be one of the premier programs in this conference in terms of atmosphere, we just have to keep pushing."
On what she's doing to help push the program as a national brand...
"Speaking engagements. I have yet to say no to a speaking engagement. I think with women's athletics the key is access. Fans come to a men's game to see a big, nasty dunk and they are not going to see that in the women's games, sometimes, but not very often. They come to the women's games because they feel connected to the coach, the athlete, the program. So, we try to provide as much access to our team, to our staff as we can so that fans get to know us. If we can create an atmosphere where fans know the Utah women's basketball team then they are going to come back and bring their friends. I think as much as we can get out in the community we hope they are going to come back and see us. But also I will restate it, we have to keep winning."
On how she plans to get things back on track after the USC game...
"As a coach it is a science. You have to know your team, your players, you have to know what is going on. When you come watch a game and see a team that looks like they are driving on square wheels, you think 'what's going on?' But when you are in the locker room, it sometimes is just who knows. Sometimes there are issues, sometimes there are chemistry problems, or injuries or whatever, so you kind of have a pulse on what your team needs. I felt like our team just looked flat. We were tired. I don't think we were physically tired, I just think we looked emotionally drained and out of character. So, what we did was take two days off. We were supposed to practice yesterday, and we didn't. They didn't have school yesterday because of the holiday, so they got yesterday completely off and we aren't practicing today either. As I said, we have really good kids and they want to do right as much as I want us to do well. The issue is not that, so I just wanted them to regroup, re-engage and re-attack. So let's get away from it, flush it and come back with some renewed energy. You can ask me on Friday night if that worked, we will see. It is not an exact formula and you have to just kind of need to have that pulse on your team because every team is different. If I had felt Sunday was a lack of desire of discipline, we probably would have been running yesterday and had a miserably tough and hard practice yesterday, but that is not what this team needed. You just have to know your team and do your best guess as to what they may need."
On Tori Williams...
"Tori was a good recruit for us, she was very highly recruited with a lot of Pac-12 teams recruiting her. She is from Boise, Idaho so we had kind of a good local tie. She is a good player. What I like about Tori is that she is really competitive. She twisted her ankle really badly during the Arizona game and she is telling me 'I'm going to play on Friday' when we played at Washington and I was looking at her ankle thinking 'no you're not.' And she ended up playing because she is that kind of competitor. I am sure it hurt and it still is sore and all of that, but she is just a competitor. Secondly, she is savvy. She understands the game. There are things that you can't teach as a coach. There are some things that as a player you get or you don't, you have a feel, all of these kind of coaching cliches. You read about these players that have a 'feel' for the game or that they are savvy, she has all of those things. Those kinds of players are fun to coach with how competitive she is and savvy like she is. I think she is going to have a great career here."
On what she wants to improve on with ball security and on offense...
"We have to take care of the ball. I also want us to see us get back to playing with a little more swagger. We scored 70-plus points against UCLA, so we scored the ball against one the best defenses in the league and then we sputtered on offense on Sunday. So I want to see us play with a little more offensive fire, but we have to take care of the ball. Arizona State is going to challenge us with that because the turn people over a lot. We had a tough one with them here when we lost by two and had a chance to win it at the end, but they beat us. So, we want to take care of the ball and take good shots, but play with a little more swagger on offense. Our defense will always be what it is, we are pretty consistent in that."
On having success on the road in conference play and if she notices a difference with the players on the road...
"I haven't thought about that. We were good on the road in Washington, we got the sweep. There is a disadvantage to being on the road because you don't sleep in your own bed, there is fatigue from flying and there are things that can happen, you are shooting on rims that you are not used to, all of those things, but the one good thing about being on the road is there are no distractions. You don't have your family, your friends, your boyfriend or going to call, you can just be about the task at hand. Also, there is that together time because you are with your teammates a lot, so sometimes you can kind of lock arms and be more of a tough-minded group on the road. I thought we did a really good job of that in Washington and we are going to need to do that heading down to Arizona."
On if she uses Utah gymnastics and their crowds as a model for what she wants women's basketball's crowds to look like...
"I've talked with both Greg and Megan about that. A couple of things that is different with gymnastics is that they have four or five home meets a year where we have 15 home games. So, it is a little different in that, however I think the formula is similar in that they have become and event. They have become something to do and you don't just go to a gymnastics meet to watch Skinner do the beam, they go because it is an event. That is the formula that we can look for. It has become the thing to do with your family. It is just the snow ball effect of if it grows, it grows and then the momentum just gets huge. Talking with them, it was a lot about just pushing to the community and getting out there. Groups, kids, families and then create an event that people want to come to. And also when they were just getting off the ground a lot of it was free, just getting people in the seats, so that is a lot of what we want to do. I think women's sports is evolving and changing in terms of the athleticism. People are impressed. People that haven't been to a women's athletic event in 15 years come to one of these games or meets and they think 'wow, these women are impressive.' So that is our goal, to get them in the door, obviously winning helps, but yes, without question that is a blue print we follow. They have been great with us and just trying to help in any way they can. This points to that this is a sports town and we don't have any competition when it comes to women's basketball, so it is up to us to keep moving the needle so that every year we are just better and better. And as the wins get going, which they will, then I have every confidence that we can get this thing off the ground in a big way."
"We are coming off an interesting weekend at home. We played a really good game against an exceptional UCLA team that is picked to win the conference for a reason. I mean they are the best team in the league. We played them well. It came down to the last couple of possessions and they made a few plays and we didn't and they got the win. Sunday we played USC, who is a very good team that is receiving votes in the top-25, and we just played kind of a twilight zone kind of game. We just weren't ourselves. It was weird. They got the better of us. We held them to 58 points and especially at home when you hold someone to 58 points, you think you should win, and so defense wasn't the problem. We just could not get going on offense. Coming in to that game we were averaging 81 points and we only scored 47. It was weird. Watching the tape back on Sunday afternoon, we were not recognizable in terms of what we had been all season. Sometimes that happens. I have a really good group of players that want to do right, so it was just one of those things. I don't know what the deal was, but we have to get past the 'why did it happen' and just move on. There are no issues, we just had a bad day and unfortunately it came at a bad time in terms of the opportunity we had to get a win against a really good USC team at home. You want to try and protect home court in this league as much as you can. So, bad time to have a bad day, but the season is long and you are bound to have games like that and you just have to move on."
On the atmosphere against UCLA...
"It was great. I think we had our record crowd since I've been here. I have not been shy since I got the job here about one of my main initiatives was to build the crowd. Gymnastics has it rolling, volleyball has it rolling, men's basketball obviously and football. This is a sports town and I want our games to be an event as well. The bottom line is that winning matters and the better we get the better our crowds get. I think our athletic department has done a really good job promoting our program and they have put effort into it and I appreciate that very much and it shows. UCLA came in ranked No. 14 and that helps, bringing in quality opponents with that brand name, but we are getting better. We are playing a fun style of basketball. The record crowd was great and we just want to keep building on it. I still firmly believe that we can be one of the premier programs in this conference in terms of atmosphere, we just have to keep pushing."
On what she's doing to help push the program as a national brand...
"Speaking engagements. I have yet to say no to a speaking engagement. I think with women's athletics the key is access. Fans come to a men's game to see a big, nasty dunk and they are not going to see that in the women's games, sometimes, but not very often. They come to the women's games because they feel connected to the coach, the athlete, the program. So, we try to provide as much access to our team, to our staff as we can so that fans get to know us. If we can create an atmosphere where fans know the Utah women's basketball team then they are going to come back and bring their friends. I think as much as we can get out in the community we hope they are going to come back and see us. But also I will restate it, we have to keep winning."
On how she plans to get things back on track after the USC game...
"As a coach it is a science. You have to know your team, your players, you have to know what is going on. When you come watch a game and see a team that looks like they are driving on square wheels, you think 'what's going on?' But when you are in the locker room, it sometimes is just who knows. Sometimes there are issues, sometimes there are chemistry problems, or injuries or whatever, so you kind of have a pulse on what your team needs. I felt like our team just looked flat. We were tired. I don't think we were physically tired, I just think we looked emotionally drained and out of character. So, what we did was take two days off. We were supposed to practice yesterday, and we didn't. They didn't have school yesterday because of the holiday, so they got yesterday completely off and we aren't practicing today either. As I said, we have really good kids and they want to do right as much as I want us to do well. The issue is not that, so I just wanted them to regroup, re-engage and re-attack. So let's get away from it, flush it and come back with some renewed energy. You can ask me on Friday night if that worked, we will see. It is not an exact formula and you have to just kind of need to have that pulse on your team because every team is different. If I had felt Sunday was a lack of desire of discipline, we probably would have been running yesterday and had a miserably tough and hard practice yesterday, but that is not what this team needed. You just have to know your team and do your best guess as to what they may need."
On Tori Williams...
"Tori was a good recruit for us, she was very highly recruited with a lot of Pac-12 teams recruiting her. She is from Boise, Idaho so we had kind of a good local tie. She is a good player. What I like about Tori is that she is really competitive. She twisted her ankle really badly during the Arizona game and she is telling me 'I'm going to play on Friday' when we played at Washington and I was looking at her ankle thinking 'no you're not.' And she ended up playing because she is that kind of competitor. I am sure it hurt and it still is sore and all of that, but she is just a competitor. Secondly, she is savvy. She understands the game. There are things that you can't teach as a coach. There are some things that as a player you get or you don't, you have a feel, all of these kind of coaching cliches. You read about these players that have a 'feel' for the game or that they are savvy, she has all of those things. Those kinds of players are fun to coach with how competitive she is and savvy like she is. I think she is going to have a great career here."
On what she wants to improve on with ball security and on offense...
"We have to take care of the ball. I also want us to see us get back to playing with a little more swagger. We scored 70-plus points against UCLA, so we scored the ball against one the best defenses in the league and then we sputtered on offense on Sunday. So I want to see us play with a little more offensive fire, but we have to take care of the ball. Arizona State is going to challenge us with that because the turn people over a lot. We had a tough one with them here when we lost by two and had a chance to win it at the end, but they beat us. So, we want to take care of the ball and take good shots, but play with a little more swagger on offense. Our defense will always be what it is, we are pretty consistent in that."
On having success on the road in conference play and if she notices a difference with the players on the road...
"I haven't thought about that. We were good on the road in Washington, we got the sweep. There is a disadvantage to being on the road because you don't sleep in your own bed, there is fatigue from flying and there are things that can happen, you are shooting on rims that you are not used to, all of those things, but the one good thing about being on the road is there are no distractions. You don't have your family, your friends, your boyfriend or going to call, you can just be about the task at hand. Also, there is that together time because you are with your teammates a lot, so sometimes you can kind of lock arms and be more of a tough-minded group on the road. I thought we did a really good job of that in Washington and we are going to need to do that heading down to Arizona."
On if she uses Utah gymnastics and their crowds as a model for what she wants women's basketball's crowds to look like...
"I've talked with both Greg and Megan about that. A couple of things that is different with gymnastics is that they have four or five home meets a year where we have 15 home games. So, it is a little different in that, however I think the formula is similar in that they have become and event. They have become something to do and you don't just go to a gymnastics meet to watch Skinner do the beam, they go because it is an event. That is the formula that we can look for. It has become the thing to do with your family. It is just the snow ball effect of if it grows, it grows and then the momentum just gets huge. Talking with them, it was a lot about just pushing to the community and getting out there. Groups, kids, families and then create an event that people want to come to. And also when they were just getting off the ground a lot of it was free, just getting people in the seats, so that is a lot of what we want to do. I think women's sports is evolving and changing in terms of the athleticism. People are impressed. People that haven't been to a women's athletic event in 15 years come to one of these games or meets and they think 'wow, these women are impressive.' So that is our goal, to get them in the door, obviously winning helps, but yes, without question that is a blue print we follow. They have been great with us and just trying to help in any way they can. This points to that this is a sports town and we don't have any competition when it comes to women's basketball, so it is up to us to keep moving the needle so that every year we are just better and better. And as the wins get going, which they will, then I have every confidence that we can get this thing off the ground in a big way."
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G
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