Locker Room Chat: Courtney Walker sees good, bad in A&M's win

On the night as a whole…

“I didn’t think we came out with a lot of energy. We all seemed a little dead. We really wanted to pick it up in the second half and bring more energy. We fed off our transition. We weren’t getting out in the first half and our defense wasn’t very good in either half. We have to come out better on Tuesday.”
 

On what Gary Blair said at halftime…

“He just said that we weren’t doing what we wanted to do, which was transition. When we were in the half-court we weren’t really executing either. On defense we were giving them what we were trying to take away. We were looking to go inside out. We were trying to pound it inside because we had the size on them. We just couldn’t get some to fall.”
 

On her night…

“I just wanted to let the game come to me, not force anything, find what’s open and make good reads.”
 
“It’s a big deal. We knew she could do it — and she’s only a sophomore. So if you ask me, I’m going to tell her to break it for two more years. She’s a great point guard, and really good especially in transition tonight. She was really looking for that cross-court pass, as well as the half court. Like I said the other day, she knows exactly what she’s looking for. If the defender is going to play this way, then she knows what’s next. She dissects the courts very well.”
 

On the impact of Tori Scott in the starting lineup…

“Tori’s the most athletic person we have. By far, as in all-around, she is the fastest and most athletic. It’s really helpful because of her defense. She’s a big body, but she’s also strong. She can guard a guard or a forward. She’s been put in those positions all year to guard a four player who has size, but she’s a guard. We really trust her at that, but also on offense when people are off their game, she has stepped up. So Tori is a great person to have.”
 

On bench production moving forward…

“Coach Blair has really been harping on the fact that all games aren’t going to be perfect. We have to prepared for foul trouble or someone not shooting well. He’s been really been preaching that people have to be ready to come off the bench and have a good game. We have several players that are capable of doing that. Someone just has to step up and get it done. Chelsea [Jennings] and Tori did a great job of that today, we’re just looking at going deeper with that.”

On the James Madison matchup coming up next…

“We have our scouts, so we’ll look at that tonight. But based on the half that we got to watch, they are a really confident team with good guards that crash the boards well. Their wing players really crash the boards well and they got a lot of offensive rebounds from 20 and 24. We really have to block them out, because we’ve had some struggle with offensive rebounds from other teams against us this year.

"We’re really looking to run on them, too. They’re faster than North Dakota, but that’s one of our strengths and we want to try and make that happen.”