Don Bugbee Quotations

When you start out a tournament game like that you're in trouble. I called a 30 second timeout to explain the intricacies of basketball and how we're supposed to put the ball in the basket.

We're shooting the ball well. We're not going to rely on the three but we'll take them if they are there.

She's a very good defender. They (teams) throw everything at her (Coffee). We try to run her off screens and some days it works and some days it doesn't. She wasn't open a lot (tonight) and that's Morgan's defense.

Morgan was far superior to us during the year and especially tonight. They came to play did everything correctly and we did not. They did a superb job and just shut us down.

We talked a lot about the beginning of the year as a team that we were definitely going to rebuild a lot and whatever we can take out of our season each game we were going to take it and apply it not only to this season but next as well. The girls have played very hard.

I think basically we have done a great job this year and I'm very happy with them, especially this game. They played hard. They played with intensity. They played with determination. I'm very happy with these girls.

Overall, I was pleased with the way we played. North Branford was tough. They're always physical. In the fourth quarter we made it exciting by turning the ball over a few times because of their pressure.

Our AD (Rob Roach) suggested that Morgan was the number one team all season, let's just give them the trophy.

Liz, obviously, came out and shot the ball very well. I thought Westbrook did fine. Nobody could stop Rivera. She was throwing in everything.

We had an 11-0 lead but then we had an 11-point lead at halftime so they (Westbrook) essentially played us even, which I wasn't too happy with. But we were still in control of the game, which is fine.

We picked up the pace on defense and started playing like we can and we were fine.

We wanted to build on whatever we could get this year and we kind of exceeded our early expectations. Now that we're here we'll continue to compete and play hard.

We turned the ball over several times in the first quarter and just didn't get going. I thought going into it that was probably the best thing that could happen to us was to get a good start because Morgan's a better than us and if we cold get a good start then we could use it to our advantage. But when we don't it makes it worse because they just expand on it.

We certainly didn't expect that at the beginning of the year. We have essentially one person with playoff experience and that's Callie.

Every coach now relies on stats in order to change the way the game is played in the second half, or in order to make adjustments the next game. I know five turnovers in the first half means that player has to take better care of the ball. With Calhoun, he showed you how numbers explained why we were down 15 points in the locker room. Five turnovers in the first half means you?re not playing a lot in the second.

Once we settled down, I thought we had a chance. But when we were down nine points a few times with a chance to cut it to a five or seven point lead, we couldn't hit from the line. This is our first conference loss, and we have them down at our place in February, so all hope isn't lost.

Coffee broke out tonight. She only had one point against Westbrook. She's obviously very competitive and involved with the game. You can't hold her down very often.

They set the tempo pretty much all game. They pressed us and took us out of our game and we became nervous and started to panic. We're a young team and we're learning and always trying to get better.

They've been the best team in the league all year. My hats off to them. They were playing with emotion because of the circumstances and that could go two ways. It could go against them or for them and it clearly went for them.

They find your weakness and they exploit it.

They're all coming back. I can't wait to get going. We have a nice group coming in and we'll go with that.

They blocked a lot of shots in that third quarter. We also turned the ball over too many times. You can't do that, in general, and you can't do that against Morgan, for sure.

I don't know how we would have handled it if it had happened to us. It was a tragedy for the team and they did a good job handling it. My hats off to them. I have a lot of respect for Ed and the Morgan coaching staff. Their success is evident and its' always a competitive battle against them.