Jan. 3, 2002
Head Coach Chris Denker
"We lost by 10 points and we were down 9-0 after the first two minutes of the game. That was the difference tonight. Why we came out so sluggish, I have no idea. We talked about it. The girls don't know why, they're disappointed in themselves. I pleased with their effort from that point on. The first half was not a good half, but we kind of scratched and clawed and hung around for a little while until we could wake up. We dominated the game in the second half. At one point, we were only down by five, so at one point we had cut a 21-point deficit to just five. All-in-all, I thought that was our team that I had expected to see and hope to see every night, we just didn't come out that way in the beginning. It was more defensively than anything else."
On the beginning of conference season next week
"It's a whole new season. We're pleased to be 10-3 at this point, although we'd rather be even better, but records don't matter anymore. It's a whole-new deal in the WCC, everything counts."
Senior Guard Caroline Gruening (9 points, 7 rebounds, 6 steals)
"Chris made the point after the game we lost by 10, and after the first two minutes, we were down 9-0. So, it was all about the way we came out. I'm not sure why we did it, our two other losses were the same way. The biggest difference for us was that we came back and played a good second half, we didn't do that against Minnesota or Stanford, but we just need to not let it happen again, period. We can't just show up, we have to come out ready to play every game."
