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NC State Women's Basketball

LOCKER ROOM REPORT: Wes Moore

February 1, 2021
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No. 4 NC State women’s basketball again made history Thursday night, beating the No. 1 team in the country on the road for the second time this season in a 74-60 win over Louisville. It’s the first time in program history the Wolfpack has beaten a top-ranked opponent twice in the same season. 

There was plenty for head coach Wes Moore to like, from a dominant defensive effort to four players scoring in double figures. Moore spoke to the media via Zoom after the game, here’s a full breakdown of everything he had to say. 

Wes Moore 

Opening statement

I’m just really proud of our kids. It’s been a really tough three-week stretch and then obviously losing the other day. I just couldn’t be prouder of our kids. I think I’ve got so much respect for Louisville’s talent and the job that Jeff Walz does. As I said coming in, they deserved to be No. 1 in the country. It’s just one of those nights. That’s what happens. We did a good job defending, and then what about [Dana Evans]. I mean, holy cow. She just takes over ball games, obviously. 

I just thought we did a great job defensively, on the boards. Those are the things we have to do to be successful. Obviously having Elissa Cunane back was a big plus, having four people in double figures and a lot of people contributing, it was just a great team win. Like I said, really proud of them. 

You said you thought Louisville deserved to be No. 1 coming into the game. You guys haven’t lost a game at full strength. You beat Louisville and you beat South Carolina. Do you think you deserve to be No. 1? 

I’ll leave that up to other people. We’ve just got to make sure we continue to get better. I was concerned coming into this game, because I felt like we looked tired, we looked sluggish, after the layoff and all. So we needed to get our mojo back so tonight I thought we did that. It’s great, obviously for our players to be mentioned in the rankings and all that. But let’s face it, at the end of the day, it doesn’t mean a whole lot right now. It’s all about March, April and all those things. But again, it’s neat for our program to do some things we haven’t done in a while. Coach [Kay Yow] built this program, and it was great for so many years. We’re trying to get it back to that level.

How did you guys bounce back from the overtime at Virginia Tech with such a good defensive effort? 

I think that’s it. I think we had a lot more urgency. I think we made a few mistakes, but for the most part, we kind of executed the way we wanted to defensively and did a pretty good job on the boards. We were so concerned about Louisville’s transition that we didn’t really let our guards go to the offensive boards much, but our post did a great job of getting us some second-chance points. We did a nice job on the defensive end. They’re such great shooters, you don’t want to give them a second chance. So again, I think part of it’s just urgency and flying around. Doing the little things. We have to do that. We always talk about, in a perfect world, we try to hold people to 30 points a half, 60 points a game. We hit that target right on the dot.

If we can continue to do that defensively and rebound, I felt bad in the loss, I felt like I didn’t help them much on offense. We stood around a lot. I’ll take a lot of the blame for that. Again, Louisville’s so good. To come here, I think two years ago Asia Durr may have outscored us by herself. It was a pretty tough night. I’m proud of the way our kids bounced back, happy for our seniors. 

Does this team believe in themselves to make winning a national title a legitimate aspiration? 

I hope they do. But again, my biggest concern is that we don’t stall out. In our loss, I thought we stood around a lot. Just offensively, we weren’t aggressive. We’ve got to continue to get better. The great teams that we’re trying to associate with at this point, they’re going to be better in March than we are right now. We’ve got to make sure that we’re doing the same thing. So that’s my focus, getting better. As a coach, when you lose, you think of so many things you should do better. You look in the mirror, you wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and you can’t go back to sleep thinking about it. What we’ve got to do is make sure those things that we’re trying to do to to get us to there, we keep grinding for. 

Did you expect Elissa play as much as she did? How was the energy she brought in the games she didn’t play? 

I thought Camille Hobby did an awesome job for us in the loss. Definitely, it was not the sole reason for us losing, but it was great to have Elissa back. Now, with Elissa, you feel confident putting Camille Hobby in also, and that’s going to help Elissa. I think that’s going to keep her fresher. Thirty minutes is a good target. I know what you’re saying, though. She was basically off for three weeks. A lot of it was just based on feel. In the first half, we got her out a couple of times. She did look a little winded. Adrenaline can do a lot of things for you too. When we were going down the stretch, I think she was pretty locked in.

That first quarter helped set the tone inside having Elissa back out there. Was your initial plan to just see how she would react? 

We want to work inside out. A lot of that’s based on Elissa’s talent. But that’s just the way I’ve always felt like you should play the game. We want four guards though that can shoot the 3 and that can take you off the bounce if we spread you out. But we like to get it inside and work it back out. Elissa does give us confidence. I think it’s great to have a tandem like that that we can to. It was a tough matchup, because Louisville went big a lot of this game, and that’s hard on our four player sometimes to match up with that. I thought between Cochran and Dixon, they really tried to go in there and pound it some, and we had some tough matchups. The biggest thing was trying to hold them to one shot. That gives you a whole lot better chance.

What did you think of Jakia Brown-Turner’s performance? 

Yeah, you know Jakia is a special player. We’ve been wanting her to expand her game. Last year as a freshman, she didn’t play like a freshman. Especially in the conference tournament. We would not have won that without Jakia. We want her though to continue to improve and continue to score at all three levels, not just at the 3-point line. I think she’s getting there. She didn’t shoot the ball well in the first half. Not many people did, to be honest with you. But the second half, I thought Jakia down the stretch hit some big shots for us. That’s what we need. She’s a great shooter. We need somebody that can spread the defense a little bit when they are trying to help on Elissa, and create the kind of space we need. Jakia can step out there and do that.

 

 
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