Additional Quotes >> USA 131, South Korea 89

Jill Rankin Schneider (USA head coach, Monterey H.S., Texas)
On the game:
I remember thinking at halftime it was so unusual to have 70 points and only be up by 20. I thought Korea came out and really shot the ball well, especially early. They cooled off a little bit in the second half, and I thought our team did a really good job of adjusting after halftime, getting over screens and getting a hand up. It was an unselfishly played game on our part, and everybody was looking for each other. I think their full-court press hurt Korea, but they stayed with it pretty much the entire game, and we were just getting lay ups on the back end of it. Diamond DeShields, Linnae Harper and Lindsay Allen, they all did such a great job of seeing down the floor and finding their teammates behind the press. It was a nice way to open the tournament for us.

On the USA's defense:
It's tough when they pull out and shoot the ball from deep. It's really tough to help on penetration and still recover back to the shooter. We got out of our half-court zone trap in the second quarter and just went straight man. I just thought Korea did a really good job extending our defense, and then they were shooting the ball so well early in the game. We kept getting lay ups, but we were still only up by seven points or so. You give up 89 points, and that's not a real great job defensively. But I guess if you are going to give up 89 points, you need to score 131.

On the USA's press break:
I watched some other teams play and looked at their quickness, and I looked at the size Korea had and felt like it would be very difficult for them to match up with us in the half court, so I just kind of guessed that they may try and press us. You saw a little bit of our size advantage in the second half, where we were able to go over the top of them. We just did very well against their pressure. I think we will see a lot of full-court pressure from teams that we have a distinct size advantage on.

Lindsay Allen (St. John's College H.S., D.C./Bowie, Md.)
On the game:
It was really fun kicking it up to my teammates and having them finish. Hopefully we will be able to do that next game, but probably not because Canada will have their own style of play.

On the USA's defense:
I think we could have done a better job defensively, but they were just knocking down shots, and we were contesting. They are a great shooting team, and they made a lot of shots tonight. In the second half we tightened up and did a better job. We wanted to keep them under 80 points, but that didn't happen. We did get better though.

On her first international game:
It felt great, great to get a win, great to have fun out there, up tempo game, all of that.

Oderah Chidom (Bishop O'Dowd H.S./Oakland, Calif.)
On the team's first game:
In Italy, I was extremely anxious and anticipating this moment, preparing myself and getting used to the international rules, and the different style, so it was just a relief tonight. The moment that I've been preparing for this entire summer was finally here.

On the USA's depth:
There is no drop off when we sub. I've been on teams before that are really only five or six players deep, but with this team, it's just continuous intensity, and it's amazing to be a part of it.

Did you have fun in tonight's game?
I've never scored more than 50 points in a half, and to be continuously running the transition and to continue to run regardless of South Korea's adjustments, we never let that stop us. We continued to play our game and didn't let them hold us up.

On the USA's defense:
We usually focus on our half-court trap defense, and tonight we worked on our half-court man, so that will help us moving forward. We worked on stuff we weren't used to.

Diamond DeShields (Norcross H.S./Norcross, Ga.)
On the game:
I think the style of play was something we adjusted to pretty early. We knew they were going to play fast, but not that fast. Overall, I'm proud of the team as far as pushing the ball up the floor and passing to beat their press instead of trying to dribble through it.

On the USA's depth:
Depth definitely does help when you have fresh legs coming in constantly, and the coaches keep a good rotation. But I think part of the reason we never slowed down was because we couldn't afford to. They kept putting pressure on us through the entire four quarters, and we had no other choice but to keep pushing.

On the USA's defense:
I do feel like they earned their points. They shot extremely well, even when we did get a close-out or a hand up on it, they shot extremely well, so I give them credit for that. We did have some lapses on the defensive boards when we allowed second-chance opportunities. Other than that, they earned everything else. They are a great team.

Did you have fun in tonight's game?
It was fun. At one point, Lindsay (Allen) and I had a little moment -- she had the ball on the break, and I was like, 'lob me one,' and she threw it up for an alley-oop. That got the crowd into it. That's always fun. We did have lot of fun. Our post players got involved, and they scored a lot of points. Rebecca (Greenwell) had an awesome game. It was just fun. And you know, the leading scorer is going to change every game. Next game it might not be Rebecca, it might be Lindsay, it might be Kaela or someone else.

Rebecca Greenwell (Owensboro Catholic H.S./Owensboro, KY.)
On the game:
We got off to a great start against their press. We thought maybe at halftime they might do something different, but fortunately for us they stuck with it. We just scored all of our baskets basically in transition. I think we might have ran a couple of plays, but that's how we got our score so high -- running transition and breaking the press.

On the USA's teamwork:
We would get the ball and then launch it down the floor to our posts. That's why we shot so well.

On her game:
I love breaking presses like that. I just love scoring off of transition. That's probably my favorite way to score.

Did you guys get some confidence off of those easy buckets?
I think when you look at the score, almost everyone was in double digits, and everyone scored besides Jessica, who got hurt. So yeah, breaking the press gave everybody some confidence.

On the U.S. defense:
I thought we executed our press really well. It caused some turnovers for Korea, and I thought we did well on defense overall.

Mercedes Russell (Springfield H.S./Springfield, Ore.)
On the team's start:
They came out in a press, and earlier in shoot-around, we had worked on our press-break, so we just executed it. We saw they weren't getting all the way back, so we knew we were going to get lay ups.

Did you guys get some confidence off of those easy buckets?
When ever you start off a game like that, I think scoring will come easy. We got off to a great start.

On South Korea:
We hadn't talked much about them being shooters, but when they came out and they were shooting such a high percentage, we knew they weren't going to miss much. We talked about getting out and getting a hand up, and I think we made that adjustment in the second half.

On the team's first game:
It felt great. I think we played really well for it being the team's first game. Now we just need to get ready for Canada tomorrow.