Women's Basketball

Feb. 4, 2011

Recap |  Box Score

Michigan State Head Coach Suzy Merchant

On Kalisha Keane elevating her game in the last seconds of regulation and in overtime...
I would say she was really struggling tonight for the majority of the game. You have to give Wisconsin a lot of credit. I think they did a great job on her, really bodying her up on the perimeter.

You could see that they were going to switch it and they both ended up switching it and she shot it (the 3 pointer to tie the game in regulation) over both of them I believe. Kal's a kid that can get her shot off when people are hanging on her and around her, so she really is one of the few options that we have that can create her own shot angle when people are in her face.

She knows with her skill set that she has to read the defense. I don't think she has a lot of offensive weakness, so I think that gives her a lot of confidence to play at an even keel level.

For Wisconsin, I think Alyssa Karel and Lin Zastrow are the same way. I think both those two kids really know themselves extremely well and have confidence in what they do and stepped. Tonight I thought they were both really, really big for them.

On the differences from the two teams' last meeting, when Zastrow was out...
She's tough. She's physical. I think she's one of their best passers on the team. Besides being a scoring threat, she's hard to double. It's hard to double off of that team anyway, because they're good at shooting the ball and everyone has a perimeter threat, so there's not really a lot of options to double, but when you do double her, I think her greatest gift to that team is as tremendous passer. Even when there was one second on the shot clock, she read that, jumped up in the air and threw it to Alyssa Karel. It ended up being a shot clock violation, but not many fives really think the game and have that high of an IQ and the ability to pass the ball as she does. I think that's a weapon to her game that I'm not sure she gets enough credit for, as well as her defense.

On the Big Ten standings...
I think it's going to be an interesting race all the way through (to the Big Ten Tournament). You see all kinds of teams. In theory, you think that team should beat that team, but then they don't and vice versa. There's no easy opportunities. On the road, every team is going to give you their best shot and they're really tough.

Wisconsin is a very good team that's going to beat people. And you don't know who they're going to beat, but you know they're going to beat people. And now that we're done with them, it's kind of nice to see them and cheer for them.

Head Coach Lisa Stone

Opening Statement...
(Kalisha Keane) has made some game winners, we have all seen it. We didn't want to give up a three and we did. She is a big time player and she had to make a big shot. We needed one stop and that was it, but I thought we had a good look at the basket to end the game. But, they are a really good team, as physical as you can get.

I thought we did a better job on the glass in the second half. They speed you up, they are physical, and they don't let you get any driving lanes. We didn't get to the foul line until late and those were our only points down the stretch. Give them credit, they came in here and beat us on our home-court in overtime, behind the great play of Kalisha Keane, we gave her a career high. We have got to do something different if we meet them in the Big Ten Tournament.

Bottom line is I give our kids a lot of credit, we came back from down in the first half, really courageously. Got great minutes out of Tiera Stephen and Anya Covington in the first half, I thought they gave us great energy. In the second half we were controlling and you can't let a team like this back in the game, and we didn't put them away.

On trying to get Lykendra Johnson or Kalisha Keane fouled out...
We tried to, we really tried to. Credit them, they did a good job of staying in the game. We tried to get the ball inside, there is no question. When Keane is knocking down three's, the first person you want to look at is her, but Lykendra Johnson is scraping up glass. Those two are really good players, and I thought Brittney Thomas ran the show for them really, really well, outmuscled us up on top in the first half.

The thing is though, we fought back, and I gave our kids a lot of credit, they really did. This is only one game, we are battling for a conference championship and I am very convinced that we will respond from this. This one is going to hurt, because its overtime and it's at home. But, again, I give Michigan State a lot of credit, they did what they had to do, they made a big shot when they had to and we didn't respond."

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