Additional Quotes >> USA 112, Venezuela 49

July 23, 2008 � Buenos Aires, Argentina

USA Head Coach Carol Owens
On the win:
A win is always good, and I thought we made an improvement from the first to the second half. We got a lot of the kinks out in the first half, and you can only do that through playing. We obviously had the height advantage, and if we don't take advantage of that shame on us. That was our goal going into the game, and it freed up our guards a little bit towards the end. We made some improvements in terms of transition defense and knowing how to execute with the ball in transition in the second half. So, we're really pleased with the win, but not satisfied of course. We still have a ways to go, and we need to continue to work on our defense and our rebounding, which are things that need to continue to define this team.

On the team:
I think we haven't spent a lot of time on defending screens, and we need to do a better job defending that and containing the ball. Teams are going to drive on us, and we need to be able to contain without fouling. We put Venezuela on the line far too much, and we really need to improve on that.

On Canada:
We have some things we need to work on in our shoot around tomorrow morning. Canada is a good team. We are going to have to work extremely hard. It won't be an easy game like it was today. They have some good post players that are being recruited by schools in the United States, so we have our work cut out for us.

Skylar Diggins
On the competition:
It felt good to get out on the court and play, but we still made too many little mistakes. We were able to score easily tonight, but it's not going to be the same game against Canada tomorrow. It felt good to win. Now it's one down and four more to go.

On the post play:
We tried to establish our inside game early on, especially since we knew we had a height advantage. We set screens and moved the ball to make it easy for us, and we were able to find the bigs when they were open.

On the team:
We've been with each other long enough now, two-and-a-half weeks, that we know how to respond to each other. We know how everybody plays, and it was pretty cool to finally be out on the court together and play a game after all that practice.

Alyssia Brewer
On the post play:
Once we got the ball down low, we just seemed to dominate. They couldn't compete with us physically, and we took advantage of that.

On the team:
We had chemistry from the very beginning of the game, but we struggled with turnovers and we gave up too many offensive rebounds.

On Canada:
I think playing Canada will be much tougher. They are closer to us physically, and we play the same type of game. We need to cut down on our turnovers and continue to rebound if we want to win.

Lynetta Kizer
On the game:
Coach told us to run the court and rebound, so that's what I was focusing on. Our guards did a good job finding us bigs when we were open, and I was just trying to deliver. I think our guards also did a good job of pushing the ball up the court, and we had a lot of fastbreak points as a result.

On Venezuela:
They were physical on the free throw line before the ball was released, and that was a little hard to adjust to, but they weren't very physical with us during the game.

On the win:
We can feed off this win, but we have to remember that there are much tougher teams out there. It feels good to win big, but we have to keep working if we want to win the gold medal. We worked really hard to get here, and we can't afford to lose focus.

Nneka Ogwumike
On the game:
I've never seen the scoreboard go past 100 in a game before, so I was pretty excited. We didn't have a very good first half, but we worked hard. We took what Coach Owens told us in the locker room onto the court in the second half, and it paid off.

On the first half:
I think we just had a slow start. We were scoring, but we were letting too many things on defense get away and we weren't hustling as much as we were getting outhustled. Coach Owens told us we weren't getting the job done, so we put our minds to it and made changes in the second half.

On playing Canada tomorrow:
Nothing is guaranteed. That last game doesn't matter anymore, and we are focusing on what's next. Right now, we are just going to take it one game at a time and try to win the gold medal.

Nikki Speed
On the game:
It took us some time to figure out how Venezuela was going to play and to learn how to listen to the coaches during a game. Now that we have the first game under our belt we understand how to play together and with the coaches, and we can put everything together for our next game.

On the post play:
We were able to get the ball where we wanted, but it definitely wasn't a wide open court. We just worked hard to find the open player, and we did that much better in the second half.

On the win:
I think the big score will just pick us up even more for tomorrow, not make us overconfident. Of course it does feel good to win, and we can celebrate that for a little while. But tomorrow is another game, and this one doesn't matter anymore, especially the score.