March 16, 2009
The Arizona State women's basketball team (23-8, 15-3 Pac-10) earned a No. 6 seed in the Trenton Regional and will open up NCAA Tournament play against the No. 11 seed Georgia (18-13, 7-7 SEC) on Saturday (noon ET/9 a.m. in Arizona) at The Arena at Gwinnett Center in Duluth, Ga.
The Sun Devils are making their fifth consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament and their seventh in the last nine years.
Quotes from Arizona State head coach Charli Turner Thorne
On the matchup with Georgia:
“They have a lot of new players and we have a lot of new players. [Georgia head coach] Andy Landers is obviously a Hall of Fame coach. It’s a pretty tough matchup in the first round for a sixth seed. Georgia is a perennial powerhouse SEC team, but the bottom line is there are no easy games in the NCAA Tournament. This is why we play a tough preseason schedule and we will be ready.”
On the team’s mood:
“Well obviously our last game was a little disappointing and we didn’t play the team defense that we are capable of playing. It all starts with great team defense and if we can get back to playing great Sun Devil defense then that will help us more then anything.
“Offensively, I think we have a lot of weapons. I told the team that no one’s role on the team is changing with Dymond (Simon) out. Some people are going to take more shots, but it is really about locking teams down. We’ll be ready to do that come Saturday.”
On the team’s earlier winning streak:
“I’m obviously proud of our team and staff, in terms of our consistency with success. It is hard when you have injuries and there are a lot of things that happen in athletics that you cannot control. You just go with the flow and we have been very fortunate to have great players come in and continue the tradition. I think the hard thing is we were playing our absolute best basketball at Cal and then to lose a great player like Dymond (Simon) and having to regroup this quickly at the very end of the season is challenging. At the same time, we have six seniors on the team who play with a great sense of urgency and who really want to have a great postseason. We are going to be ready. We have some talented, young players and they are going to be ready.”