Pre-Tournament Quotes from Russ Rose
Nov 28, 2017 19:48:45 GMT -5
psumaui, traveler, and 4 more like this
Post by nyline on Nov 28, 2017 19:48:45 GMT -5
We've posted pre-NCAA Tournament quotes from Penn State Head Coach Russ Rose, given during the media availability on Tuesday. Here's the link.
We think it's a really interesting set of answers by Coach Rose, and hope you'll take a few minutes to read the entire post.
And here are some excerpts:
We think it's a really interesting set of answers by Coach Rose, and hope you'll take a few minutes to read the entire post.
And here are some excerpts:
On playing in the NCAA Tournament
It’s always a very exciting time of the year. You anxiously await the bracket. And then you start preparing for the upcoming matches. Once you start playing, it goes very quickly. We’re excited to be at home. We’re thankful that the University put in a bid to allow us to do that — we don’t take that for granted. We look forward to starting the event on Friday evening.
On the importance of playing at home
I think it’s beneficial. I think some teams play better on the road than they do at home, because there’s less distraction on the road. In our case, last weekend [playing Wisconsin in Madison, and Minnesota in Minneapolis] was a really tough trip. You’re playing two teams that were ranked in the top 7 or 8 in the country for most of the season, in sold out gyms and getting back [to State College] at three-thirty in the morning. Those aren’t the sort of things that if you had to say how you’d script it out right before the NCAA Tournament, that you’d say “This is how I would do it.” The one good thing is we’re home now. There are some teams that are traveling today because they play on Thursday. Had we been in a situation like, that I think it would have been even more challenging. I think being at home has some benefits — everybody is familiar with things; there’s always the impact of a crowd. But it’s how you play, not who you play.
On heading into the Tournament following the successful weekend against Wisconsin and Minnesota
Those are two really good teams, with great personnel, and certainly challenging environments. Minnesota had only lost one match at home and I think Wisconsin had only lost two matches at home. So to be able to compete like that, and to bounce back — we lost the first game to Wisconsin and lost the third game against Minnesota — I thought showed some good resilience. We had different people step up in different ways. I thought Ali Frantti passed really well. Haleigh Washington continues to hit at a really high clip, and Tori [Gorrell] played really well against Minnesota. It’s a collective effort. We can’t really depend on one or two people. People can look at the stat sheet and say it’s Haleigh and Simone, but those are just two of the players that carry a heavy load. Other people carry heavy loads as well.
It’s always a very exciting time of the year. You anxiously await the bracket. And then you start preparing for the upcoming matches. Once you start playing, it goes very quickly. We’re excited to be at home. We’re thankful that the University put in a bid to allow us to do that — we don’t take that for granted. We look forward to starting the event on Friday evening.
On the importance of playing at home
I think it’s beneficial. I think some teams play better on the road than they do at home, because there’s less distraction on the road. In our case, last weekend [playing Wisconsin in Madison, and Minnesota in Minneapolis] was a really tough trip. You’re playing two teams that were ranked in the top 7 or 8 in the country for most of the season, in sold out gyms and getting back [to State College] at three-thirty in the morning. Those aren’t the sort of things that if you had to say how you’d script it out right before the NCAA Tournament, that you’d say “This is how I would do it.” The one good thing is we’re home now. There are some teams that are traveling today because they play on Thursday. Had we been in a situation like, that I think it would have been even more challenging. I think being at home has some benefits — everybody is familiar with things; there’s always the impact of a crowd. But it’s how you play, not who you play.
On heading into the Tournament following the successful weekend against Wisconsin and Minnesota
Those are two really good teams, with great personnel, and certainly challenging environments. Minnesota had only lost one match at home and I think Wisconsin had only lost two matches at home. So to be able to compete like that, and to bounce back — we lost the first game to Wisconsin and lost the third game against Minnesota — I thought showed some good resilience. We had different people step up in different ways. I thought Ali Frantti passed really well. Haleigh Washington continues to hit at a really high clip, and Tori [Gorrell] played really well against Minnesota. It’s a collective effort. We can’t really depend on one or two people. People can look at the stat sheet and say it’s Haleigh and Simone, but those are just two of the players that carry a heavy load. Other people carry heavy loads as well.
