Murray State University Athletics
Felton addresses media conference
1/31/2006 6:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
OPENING STATEMENT: It was a fantastic week for us. The best-case scenario, of course, would have been to go 3-for-3 (beating Tennessee Tech, Southeast Missouri and Samford), but to win two out of those three (Tennessee Tech and Samford, both of which were OVC co-leaders on those game days) was outstanding in my mind, not only for this year, but also for our program as a whole. I'm just so proud of our kids, the way we defended our home court. That's what's important. You go on the road, and you know it's going to be tough, and you try to take one.
We were very disappointed in our second-half effort against SEMO. In the first half, I thought we did a very good job, but in the second half, we had way too many turnovers. We did learn something from that game and brought it back to the Samford game, to stay with it for the full game.
ON THE OVERTIME WIN AGAINST SAMFORD: Shaleea Petty and Alaina Lee are only sophomores, but they've played a lot of minutes, so they've got that experience. They've been in that situation before, as has Gerraca Matthews. Joi Scott played with a lot of poise down the stretch. Ashley Nichole Hayes -- I can't say enough about her as a freshman. She wanted the basketball and was very confident, and we have a lot of confidence in her. I'm proud of them. They knew that we could score; they knew that they had a shot to win. The main thing is they refused to give up and refused to lose that game. That was important because they know how important it is to win at home.
ON THE THURSDAY GAME AT AUSTIN PEAY: (Beating two of the top teams in the OVC) gives us a lot of confidence, but we've got to go out and play. Austin Peay is playing very well at home. They just came off a loss last night (to Southeast Missouri), so they're going to be excited. They beat us 17 the first time (83-66 on Jan. 12). We weren't quite at full strength, but give them a lot of credit; they did a good job. Ashley Haynes is very tough to defend. She's as good as anybody, in my mind. We've got our work cut out for us. We need to bring our defensive effort like we did the first half at SEMO and for the full time last night, and that's going to be a big key for us.
ON ASHLEY BROOKE HAYES, WHO WAS SICK PRIOR TO TIPOFF OF THE SAMFORD GAME: Ashley Brooke has the flu, and is questionable for Thursday, so we'll just take it a day at a time. She's got the flu and secondary strep, so she's pretty sick right now.
ABOUT BEING TIED WITH AUSTIN PEAY GOING INTO THIS THURSDAY'S GAME: This is big. Every game is big. I'm not going to make this game any bigger than any other one. We know what a great opportunity lies in front of us. We still have the goal that we want to play the first-round game (of the OVC tournament) on our home floor, and we can do that if we take care of business. It's unrealistic to think that we can do that if we don't win on the road. We've got to win a couple of these games on the road to be able to do that. We're looking forward to that challenge, and looking forward to competing against Austin Peay at full strength and playing against them for 40 minutes instead of 10 minutes.
ON FREE-THROW SHOOTING vs. SAMFORD: [Murray State led the nation in free-throw percentage last week at .790, but shot .667 (14-for-21) last night against Samford, which was ranked fifth in the nation and shot .778 (14-for-18).]
Joi Scott missed four (she had a .778 percentage prior to the game and shot 7-for-11, .636). She was 7-for-11. We didn't do a great job at all, and that's not something we worried about all year: shooting free throws. Hopefully, that was our off-night for the rest of the season and we can get back on track here on Thursday.
ON THE CHANGE IN INTENSITY: After our Martin win (83-64 on Jan. 21 at Martin), we went into our Tennessee Tech preparation, and really in the preparation before Martin, the intensity picked up, and they started to really see that if they continued the way we were, that we weren't going to be successful. They just made the decision as a team that they wanted to be a brand-new team. They wanted to go out and play with a lot more emotion and be a lot more aggressive and start the games that way. We try to put them in positions to win, but as a player, you've got to really have that attitude.
Prior to the Tech game and then, heading into SEMO -- that was kind of a letdown -- but they got their focus right back on Sunday as we prepared for Samford. We're off today (Tuesday), and our focus tomorrow is kind of light because we play Thursday and Saturday, but they know what to do. At this point in the season, you're not going over anything new, really; you're just trying to polish everything up, and they're excited about it.
We want to keep them focused and keep reminding them that they can't relax. As well as played winning those two out of three, we definitely can't relax because we have no room to do that. We're not good enough to do that. They have to understand that we can't rest. Other teams might be able to take a break, but we can't. We've got to keep pressing forward and try to take this program to a new level.
ABOUT RELYING ON ONLY ONE PLAYER: We talked about that. We talked about it a little after SEMO. I said that I needed five people on the floor who are out there who want the ball, who want to score, who has the confidence to score, and they all can. They all bring something to the table, or they wouldn't be there. We talked about that and tried to get them all confident because I feel like if everyone's attacking, we're pretty hard to guard. We just stopped and watched Joi Scott play, and the defense didn't have to work very hard. We've done a better job of that in the last couple of games.
The same play we called at Jacksonville State, when we won it at the buzzer (Dec. 18), we ran the same play last night. Ashley (Nichole) Hayes is very comfortable in that position, and Joi Scott did a great job setting the screen. She does a good job of being a screener, and then going to be a rebounder. I think if I were playing against Joi Scott, I would think the ball was going to her. We went to another option, and it worked out great. We couldn't have drawn it up any better. We executed it to perfection, then went down and had a solid defensive stop.
I told them before the game that it was going to come down to defense, and they believed in that last night. I thought we did a very good job against that Samford offense, for the most part. I think it's something for us to build on and, hopefully, it'll keep getting better.
