Terri Mitchell Quotations

We're honored to host the opening game of the new BIG EAST Conference. I know the Marquette community will come out and support us and get a taste of seeing what one of the best women's basketball conferences in the country is like.

We knew without Carolyn on the court, everyone had to do something extra. There are a lot of things Carolyn gives us that we needed to make up for, and we did a lot of great things tonight.

We are going to have to figure out a way in our future in the Big East to play with a team like Villanova.

We're happy about the win. But nobody is walking out of here thinking that's what Marquette basketball is all about.

She's somebody that's a winner. She's constantly in the gym working on her game. She didn't play well against Louisville. She didn't play like a senior and didn't lead the best she could. She had a quick turnaround, and we had two great practices. I wasn't surprised we went into St. John's like we did.

She was tenacious. She stepped on the court expecting to win every time.

Obviously, we never step on the court thinking we're going to lose. But if the game is going the other way we need to find ways to get better.

IBM Tucson is exceptionally interested in participating in many, many parts of the community, especially where we can focus on K-12 and higher education.

If I had to say why we started the way we did it was because we wanted it so bad. We knew what to do but we were a step slow on everything. And I just like how we grew in our confidence, we never lost focus on the game plan, and after the game got going, emotions were put aside and we just played basketball.

If the ball is always in one person's hands, the defense will key in on that person. Having multiple people handle the ball is harder to defend.

I thought we played much better in the second half, but we missed bunnies, shots our players would normally make, late in the game. These things happen. It's not the end of the world. You just change your focus and get ready for the next game. Like with a win, you have to forget about it and move on to the next game. You have to do the same with a loss like this.

People know that when they're playing for me and for my staff, our team will never give up. They're going to fight. Once we put two halves together, we'll be a good team.

The overall plan was to play our zone because we have so much respect for the athleticism of St. John's that we really needed a containment mentality.

When you're playing the seventh ranked team in the nation, you need to do something special to win. They knocked down their shots and we didn't.

We play everyone, and sometimes that throws the team's rhythm off. A lot of the time, it's the same mistake being made by different people.

We're coming out of this game knowing we have things to work on. But our effort and energy were great from beginning to end.

We are never going to give up and we're never going t look at the score and give ourselves a reason for not playing hard. We're playing to get into the NCAA tournament.

We just had to regroup and get back to the game plan of defending.

We will never give up hope that one day we will be able to compete on a consistent basis with the best teams in the nation.

We didn't let their runs shake us. It was 40 minutes of finding a way to win, and we did.

We are going to find ways to finish these games and win. When you look at scores in games like these and you correct a few things, then it's a single-digit game and anything can happen.

The wonderful thing about the Big East is that you have to be prepared to play against great players and great coaches every game. We were not fooled by Georgetown's record.

After the break, it doesn't get any easier for us. We're excited to play Rice, who is coming off a great season, and Virginia, one of the best teams in the ACC, at home. We know we have an awesome challenge after that in DePaul, continuing what has been a great series over the years.

All-American players go from four points in the first half to 20.

It's a focus for us. You want to be the queen. It's whatever we can do to get our players' attention.

It will definitely help us to play at Connecticut right before heading to the BIG EAST Conference Tournament. We feel that we will be fortunate to get a chance to experience that environment before embarking on the conference tournament.

It's not characteristic of our program to lose two at home, let alone three. That was our battle-cry coming into the game.

I just reminded them that we're a much better team with energy. We had been too busy analyzing (the game), and there had not been enough reacting.

I don't think any of them understood (college basketball) until they got used to the incredible focus it take, the scouting reports, all the film. It was a challenge, and now it's become routine for them.