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No. 14 Iowa 69, No. 22 Nebraska 61
Pinnacle Bank Arena (Lincoln, Neb.)
Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015
Coach Connie Yori
Opening Statement
“That was a lot like the game in Iowa City. I want to compliment our team for their effort. For our effort. Iowa is a great basketball team with a lot of really good players. They’ve got offense at every spot. But our kids are great. We had a chance to win that game, even without Rachel (Theriot) and with Hailie (Sample) going down for a period of time. I just want to compliment our kids, and they try really hard.
I can’t feel any worse for our seniors, but there’s a next game. We’ve got a really big game on Sunday, so we have to look forward to that. Since Rachel has been out, we’ve been in every game. The Maryland game was a two-possession game. We had a chance to win at Rutgers and we had a chance to win tonight. You’re searching a little bit to try and get the ball in the right people’s hands at the right time without your starting point guard, and that’s a little bit of a struggle.
I want to compliment Iowa for all that they did, but I want to compliment our team for being gritty. In coaching, you always want to win, but what’s important is putting in the best effort that you can. On our defensive end and on our rebounding, we did a lot of really good things. We turned it over too much and that hurt us. They had a lot of big shots. I don’t mind losing when you try hard and give your best effort. Yes, you’d like to have a possession back where you step out of bounds because those types of possessions will come back to haunt you, but this was not about a lack of effort or a lack of trying. Iowa is good and they have a really good team. They’ve got a good point guard, a good offense, good shooters. They’re a good team. There is a reason why they are where they are.
All five of last losses have all been to top 25 teams. And all but one of them was close. So we’re in the hunt.”
On what has been the biggest focus of the last few weeks
“Well it’s only really been 10 days since Rachel got hurt. I think we’ve gotten better offensively since the moment she got hurt, but we’re just not quite good enough. I mean we’re playing three top 25 teams in a row. So we’ve made some strides, but in the meantime we just need to guard and get better on offense. It’s not easy to guard every possession against a good offensive team. I know they scored 69, but they are capable of scoring 85 on any given night. We just need to guard and hopefully we can begin to make some strides offensively and find a way to have enough of the lead so it doesn’t have to become a possession game at the end. They were denying Emily (Cady) the ball late. So anyways, just keep working. That’s all you can do. Keep trying. And we haven’t faulted our effort for even a second with this team.”
On the status of junior guard Rachel Theriot
“It’s day to day. And I don’t know about Hailie for sure, but she did go down. She came back in, though. When Hailie goes down like that, you know she’s hurt. Hailie doesn’t do that. She’s one of those really tough kids. We’ll see I guess tomorrow how it feels. Sometimes you can play through that, but tomorrow will be the telltale story.”