Junior guard Candice Wiggins
Can
you tell us about feeling the pressure lifted off you the way Cissy Pierce and
Brooke Smith were scoring early on?
"I don't think I necessarily ever feel pressure. I have trust in my
teammates. I've been playing with these two for my whole career here at
Stanford. I have faith in Cissy. I've been watching Cissy since
freshman year. She's been doing the same things, so it's good to see her
have a great start and a great game. In terms of Brooke, she always has
been great. Like I said, I haven't really been surprised, so I didn't
really feel pressure."
What does that do for you guys when you have somebody else - Cissy Pierce
- hit shots from the perimeter?
"I think it showed that she is a great shooter. She makes people be
honest because they can't just sag off of our guards. Tara [VanDerveer]
has said this before, and it's been repeated, but we have great perimeter
shooters on our team. I think it just builds confidence for our team,
knowing that we can hit outside shots."
Junior guard Cissy Pierce
Can you talk about the hot start, and hitting those first few shots, how were you
feeling?
"They were sagging off, and I got to the soft spots in their zone [defense].
I felt like I was wide open. They were five or six feet off me. I
didn't think about it; I just shot it."
Fifth-year senior center/forward Brooke Smith
You
and Kristen Newlin have both talked about keeping the momentum from the Pac-10
Tournament. So how was it getting off to that start today, with you and
Cissy scoring the first 22 points?
"I think we just want to come out and play with energy and play hard, just
pick up from where we left off at the Pac-10 Tournament. We were just so
excited to play. We hadn't played in almost two weeks, so we were really
ready to go. We just wanted to start it off well. I think we did
that today, and hopefully we will be able to carry that over into Monday's game
against Florida State. They will be a tough challenge for us, but I think
we will be ready."
You have one more game left at Maples Pavilion - can you reflect a little
upon that?
"I think going into the last couple of games at Maples, it was so much fun to
run out there and hear our fans and how much support we have from everyone
around. I think we have a great opportunity playing at home, and it's
definitely going to have my last game ever in Maples coming up. But I
think we went through that already with Senior Day here, so in a way I think
this is a little bit different. We're just excited that we have a great
opportunity playing here at home in front of our fans, and it can give us a
great boost."
You had a shot with a ball fake. You scored and ran down the court
with a big smile on your face. Was it just one of those days for you,
13-of-17 from the floor? What prompted you to smile?
"I just smiled because it went in - I don't know [laughter in the room].
My shots were falling, so that's always fun and exciting. I'm just trying
to take what the defense was giving me. They were playing zone defense and
they were leaving people open. We have to make them pay in order to get
respect on the perimeter. That opened it up for our post players and Jayne [Appel] inside."
How was it that you were able to make those shots today when the zone
defense was designed to double- or triple-team and crowd you?
"With most zones, you just have to find the openings. There are going
to be gaps and stuff. That is how a zone is played. You just have to
find the openings and make reads. That's how you get open looks.
They had to pick their poison somewhere. They had to double- and
triple-team inside, so they were leaving people on the perimeter open. I
think Mel [Murphy] hit a couple shots and different people - Cissy and Candice
obviously. Different people hit those shots when they were left open."
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