Dec. 6, 2011
San Diego State Women's Head Basketball Coach Beth Burns
Opening Statement:
"We are coming off of a really difficult trip, really no excuses. Could have and should have really played better at UCLA, was not surprised at Washington State as we have not shown the ability to really assimilate what we need to on a back-to- back, short rest kind of situation. We have to get better, if the whole class flunks the test, I fault the teacher. I take full responsibility for our lack of performance to this point; we are working hard at it every day in Viejas. We will have a great opportunity to be home. We've been gone a lot and had a lot of games in a row. We're kind of looking at this first pocket of seven games as one and now we have a chance to come back and reassess. We back to being 0-0 as a squad and (starting) spots need to be earned again. We will probably have a new line up coming out against USD."
On if she's dissapointed about the team's progress to date:
"I'm not displeased. We have seven new people and they are young. I think the only constant is that you are going to be inconsistent. I think that has been the biggest challenge. The real positive is that we have lots of good parts; we have lots of good players. I'm really excited about what we can and will be, but that's a process, because everybody learns at a different rate. I think more than anything what we're most pleased with is that we did do a good job with recruiting. We have good kids and talented kids. We just need to continue to get better. Excuses are what they are, they don't help you win a game and nobody really cares."
On upcoming game against USD:
"I usually like it when it's over. It's funny there are so many things that are important to you and this becomes important this week. It's not something you think about a month ago and not something I'll think about next week. I said that to the team yesterday, usually this game has a lot of things connected to it. A lot of time in our league we're not sure who we're supposed to dislike, who's our rival. I don't know that they feel about the rivalry because they're so young and really, we're not playing good basketball. I haven't addressed USD in practice yet. We are really focused on ourselves, but come Thursday night it will be fun."
On USD:
"I think that they are doing really well. For us, preparation-wise, I haven't seen any of the people they have played. They've played back East. They played Columbia, Fordham, Colgate and Louisiana-Lafayette. It's a little hard since I have no idea who they've played either. Some years, they've had the better team and we've won and some we've had the better team and they've won, which is pretty typical of these kinds of games. That's the beauty of basketball; you've got to put the ball in the hole. Both teams will be really excited to play and I think it will be a really high level game regardless of anything that's around it."
On USD senior point guard Dominique Conners:
"She's a senior point guard. We have a term in our vernacular; she's the head of the monster. As she goes, they go. She can hurt you in a lot of ways. She's a great defender, she's a great speed guard, she gets to the free throw line and she can foul out two and three players. She comes from great program at (La Jolla) Country Day and she's used to winning and believes she going to win every game. She wins games, if it's a tie game and there's the last shot, I bet you she's going to take the shot and more often than not she'll make the shot. I think when your leader and your point guard plays with that kind of swag and that kind of confidence, it trickles down to everybody else in the program. She's been a terrific athlete at USD and I hope for her, other than Thursday night, she has a great senior year."