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5/4 BAYLOR (4-0) 86, RV/19 DePAUL (3-1) 72
Sunday, Nov. 22, 2015
Ferrell Center (Waco, Texas)
Attendance: 5,637

BAYLOR POSTGAME QUOTES

Baylor Head Coach Kim Mulkey
Opening statementà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"Obviously, when you shoot 63 percent a lot of that is in transition because of the style that they play defensively, and then they got in that zone and we took some bad shots, but for the most part I was pleased with our offense. Now, as much as I was not pleased with how many points we gave up, I keep in perspective what I've asked them to do. They shot 82 threes coming into today, and we wanted to limited how many they shot and made today, and we did that. When you do something like that, particularly early in the year when you're trying to gel, you tend to play one-on-one basketball and their style of play makes you look bad, and a lot of that takes place especially in transition. I thought the two bigs gave us some big moments. [Kristina]Higgins twisted her ankle in the previous game so I was cautious to play her. I thought Niya [Johnson] has to be absolutely worn out. I ask so much of her. If nothing else, it was an entertaining game offensively, but I can't tell you anything impressive defensively."

On turnovers caused by DePaul's style of playà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"Sometimes it was over-passing, sometimes it was just fumbling the ball all over the floor, and sometimes it was even inbounding the ball. We just have little things that we need to clean up and be more fundamentally sound. I don't care if it's DePaul's style of play or not, but keep in mind I'm short-handed a little on the perimeter right now. I'm asking Nina [Davis] to play more minutes, I have to get confidence in [Dekeiya] Cohen and continue to give her more minutes, and that's about the only five perimeter players I have to work with."

On the fast pace of the game and shots taken by Baylorà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"Real early we took quick shots that can kind of be fool's gold. We hit threes early, but didn't really have good ball reversal or take our time. It's great when you hit those, but eventually you're going to miss those because fatigue is going to set in. We're going to run, we're not a team that's going to walk it up just because we have bigs, so we're going to run, but just not run wild. I thought there were times where we did run wild, so I'm just glad we won. I thought we had a very good crowd, considering everything today, and I'm proud of our football team."

On Kalani Brown getting more comfortableà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"Well, Kalani's big. You're not going to block her shot much, and I thought [Beatrice Mompremier] was getting up and getting some balls. I put them both in when there were about seven minutes left and told them this game is not over. Normally, I would leave who we had out there and see if we could get it above 20, but we have to have those bigs out there and get them those valuable minutes. What I told them was going to take place did take place. They played outstanding on the offensive end but they weren't getting back in transition those last three minutes. Those were teaching moments and I told them I'm watching them on the defensive end and I wanted to know if I could rely on them in a tight game. So neither one of them got back in transition, neither one of them picked up, but it was teaching moments for those two."

Junior Alexis Jones
On 21 turnovers but shooting a high percentage in this gameà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"I think we all had a great performance today for the way that DePaul was pressing. I know everyone was pretty tired out there trying to get open every single possession, so I think we played pretty good against a team that presses for 40 minutes and we played good as a team."

On turnovers mainly being in the half-court offense instead of caused by the pressà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"At the end we started having a couple of turnovers but a lot of them were us probably just moving too fast but that's just what DePaul's defense makes you do ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢' ¬" play a fast game. A lot of it is just moving really fast and seeing a player and thinking they're open at that time."

Junior Nina Davis
On DePaul being a tough team to put awayà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"First, we have to give all the credit to DePaul. They're ranked in the top 20 so we knew they were a great team. They play with a lot of fight, they have a great coach, and they're just a really great team. They pretty much press for 40 minutes so they're in great shape, they like to shoot threes so we knew it would be a big challenge, but I'm proud of my teammates and the way we kept fighting and finished it off."

On perception of the team this yearà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"It's a great feeling, though. I'm really excited for this team this year. We have a team where everyone can score and everybody plays good defense. It's hard to guard us. Most teams have one or two players and you can kind of key in on them and stop them to beat the team but with us, we had five players in double figures today. The freshmen played great, Jones came out on fire, Kristy [Wallace] played well, and Niya does what Niya always does. All of the parts just make us hard to stop."

DePAUL POSTGAME QUOTES

DePaul Head Coach Doug Bruno
Opening statementà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"This is an excellent Baylor program. So obviously you are playing very talented athletes, very talented players and a very talented coaching staff. So we knew that this was going to be a very difficult task for us because they are very strong at the basket and they have very talented guards who can get the ball to the players at the basket. [Niya] Johnson and [Alexis] Jones are just special guards and they create difficult matchups for any team. I love the DePaul basketball team, yet we are not nearly the size of Baylor so we have to extend the floor and not let them just walk down the floor and throw it in to the bigs like they did at the beginning of the second half. I was proud of our players for leaving it on the floor. We still made too many mistakes, both defensively and offensively, that are fixable mistakes ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢' ¬" mistakes caused by a very good Baylor basketball team. I think we have a chance to be really good, and I think Baylor is really good. You have UConn out there, and you have the group chasing UConn and I think Baylor is in that group chasing UConn. The young lady sitting next to me, Megan Podkowa, is a really special player. We had a lot of good possessions and if you break the tape down, you will see a lot of good possessions and some idiotic possessions. If we can start putting those good possessions together, and limit the idiotic possessions, I think we have a chance to be really good."

On what stood out in the gameà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"Just looking at the game, we have to keep people at the free throw line. You know that when you spread the floor, there is a chance that you will give up some easy baskets ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢' ¬" we did ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢' ¬" but we also gave up some easy baskets in situations where we did not need to give up easy baskets. There are some situations that are correctable and I don't know if that will show up in the box score. I'm guessing that we got out rebounded badly, and there are some rebounds that you can't get, but there are some rebounds that I thought we just looked at. We are not going to get any bigger, so the size of players that we have need to go get the basketball. They scored a ton of points in the paint. I thought in the second quarter we settled for too many threes and in the first quarter we were getting to the basket. We did not have our three point shot really cooking in the first half. I thought we got to the rim well in the second half; we had some good offensive plays in the second half that were getting to the rim. We never really got the three point game going. We had maybe six threes. We never got that going like we needed to."

Senior Megan Podkowa
On Baylor's lengthà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"Obviously, it is going to be really tough to defend them when they are that tall. On some possessions, I thought that our guards did a good job denying their vision into the post so it was difficult to get it to the post. It was a tough matchup, but I think we could have been a little stronger on getting some rebounds. "

On how this game will help in the long runà ¢Ã¢' ¬ ¦
"I think it will help us a lot later in the season, especially in our games coming up, like UConn and Notre Dame, but first we have Chicago State and Colgate. I think that it taught us where we are right now and where we need to get better, what we need to work on, but also what we are good at. It will definitely help us later in the season and it taught us what we need to do."