Additional Quotes >> USA 94, Italy 60

July 26, 2011 • Puerto Montt, Chile

Jennifer Rizzotti (University of Hartford), USA head coach
On today’s game:
It was better. We’re still a work in progress and Canada will be another opportunity for us to get better and see a different kind of team than we’ve been playing. They’re big. They play more like us. They play some really great zones. They’ve really done a nice job defensively in this tournament and made it hard for people to score.

Were you pleased with the team’s effort tonight, especially with the energy right from the start?
I was really happy with our intensity and our focus. We talked a lot today about not just thinking about who we’re playing, but being more accountable on the defensive end for our own guy and playing screens better, just being more focused and getting better as the game went on.

Not only did our starters do a nice job, I thought our energy off the bench was the best it’s been the whole tournament.

You were talking in the locker room about the stellar play by Jordan Adams, Cierra Burdick and Ariel Massengale, can you expand on that?
I thought a lot of people played well. Obviously Breanna (Stewart) and Liz (Williams) scored points, but there’s a reason they’re getting a lot of easy baskets. Ariel was a tremendous floor general today. She had nine assists, she probably should have had about 15. She really got the ball to people in easy positions to score. Cierra and Jordan both brought tremendous energy off the bench. Their defensive energy, their communication with their teammates and then just being simple and taking care of the ball and making plays on offense. They did a lot. They brought a lot of energy to our team.  You can really see them coming together.

Canada won the bronze at the FIBA Americas U18 Championship, would you have anticipated this based on last year?
They have certainly improved a lot since last year. They’ve mixed their 17-year-old and 18-year-old team perfectly. They brought some great guards up from the younger team and they have that front court that’s big, strong and very talented from the U18 team. Their chemistry is good. They play really well together on both ends of the floor. It’s going to be a test for our kids. It’s a little bit of a rivalry. We didn’t get to play them last year and the kids wanted to, but they got upset by Brazil in the semis. I think they’re looking forward to it.

What will you need to focus on?
We have to do a good job of attacking their zone defenses. They’re big and they play that one-three-one defense. They send out two on one in the full court. Our execution is going to have to be good and we’re going to have to make it a game that goes up and down. We obviously have more depth than they do and more athleticism, so we want to take their bigger players out of the game and not let them get set in their zones. We need to attack right from the start, which I thought we did a great job of today.

Jordan Adams
(Mater Dei High School/Irvine, Calif.)
Were you pleased with the team’s energy from tip-off?
Yeah. It was a big improvement from last game. In our last game we got scored on in the first couple minutes. Even in this game we did, but we responded really well. We responded a lot better than we did the last game.

Was it more about pride after yesterday’s game?
Definitely, and we knew that we were not going to beat Italy if we had no energy. It was plain and simple. They have energy. They’re a team that runs on energy. We had to match it.

The U.S. has so many different weapons, how difficult does that make it for other teams to scout you?
Difficult. When we scouted China, they told us who the shooters were. And then other people who weren’t even on the scouting report stepped up. I know how difficult it was for us to guard them. So, for other teams it has to be hard. We had some people really step up today. Cierra (Burdick) stepped up today. Ariel (Massengale) ran the team really well and that’s something that’s not really scoutable. It’s just one of those days.

What do you know about Canada?
We’ve played Canada every tournament. I guess it’s a mix this year of the previous teams and their U18 team, but we know Nirra Fields is good. Their post game is a lot better this year. We’ll see how we match up.

Cierra Burdick
(Butler High School/Matthews, N.C.)
What was your motivation for coming out the way you did as a team today?
Just how we played yesterday. China showed us that we can’t come out lackadaisical and nonchalant, because we can easily get an ‘L’ and put an ‘L’on our record. We just had to come out with more energy on the defensive end and that just transferred over to the offensive end.

On the overall play of her teammates:
E (Elizabeth Williams) definitely stepped up. She was catching the ball and finishing well. The posts overall were all in double figures, so we were hitting shots that we were missing against China, which is really good. Ariel (Massengale) did a great job running the floor and really taking control of the floor like a point guard should and I was proud of her.

Can you see improvement each game?
Yeah. I definitely think we’ve improved since our first game, especially on the defensive end, as far as rotations and defending hard and really closing out hard. We’ve picked up the energy on the defensive end and it shows with the score tonight.

With nine games in 11 days, how difficult is it to prepare to play against so many different styles?
It’s extremely hard. I feel bad for the coaches, because you never know what team is going to bring what. If you look at the losses and wins of each team, it’s all different mish-mash. You never know what team is going to start, what five players. Everybody has their own type of personnel. You just have to prepare as best you can and make changes and adjust as you get into the game.

Ariel Massengale
(Bolingbrook High School/Bolingbrook, Ill.)
On today’s game:
Italy played hard, but today we came out with more intensity on defense and were able to get stops. We let that dictate our offense. After yesterday’s game we kind of took that personal, the way we played, and knew that we could do better. Tonight we were just competing against ourselves.

How do you remain focused and motivated to come out every game like that?
Whatever we did today, we need to do it again for the rest of the tournament. I don’t know what it was, it was a mind-set, we all just bought into what coach was trying to tell us. We’re halfway through the tournament now and now is the time to get it rolling for us to be able to win that gold medal.

The U.S. has so many different weapons, how difficult does that make it for other teams to scout you?
It’s very hard. It’s hard for our coaches to scout other teams, because you never really know who’s going to step up. Everyone on this team are great players and capable of doing a lot of different things. I feel that it’s really hard to scout us because you never know who’s going to step up that night.

And how hard is it to play nine games in 11 days?
It’s difficult. I think it’s more mentally difficult than physical, because your body might be feeling one way, but in your mind you have to tell yourself ‘we’re here to play basketball. We only have so many games left and for those games we’re just going to have to give it all that we have.’

Elizabeth Williams
(Princess Anne High School/Virginia Beach, Va.)
On the USA’s defense against Italy:
I think our team defense was great today. Our help was right where it should have been. Our rotations were good. Overall our defense was good and that really disrupted Italy’s offense.

How were you able to run against Italy, which is a fast team?
Just play solid defense. If our team defense works correctly, we can control them even if they have speed. We still have enough athletic players that we can do a good job.

On the game today:
We were really pleased with our intensity today. Coach told us to come out as hard as we good. It feels good when you play hard. It feels good when you play good defense, because then your offense comes. That’s how we were able to get easy buckets. We were pretty happy we played well today.