Nov. 2, 2007

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Kansas Quotes

November 2, 2007

Kansas 2, Missouri 1

Head Coach Mark Francis

On outlook for the Big 12 Tournament:

"I was telling the players, after the first month of the season I think if you would have told anyone outside our group that we were going to finish in the top three in the conference they would have laughed at us.  It's truly a credit to the players that they were able to re-focus and look at the start of the conference season as a brand new start.  That's not easy to do in our conference.  But they have definitely regained confidence in themselves and in each other and that's the main reason why we have been able to turn it around." 

"We are going there to win it.  If you look at our conference, the second through eighth seeds will be decided on today's games.  That's how close the conference is.  So any of the eight teams who are going could win it; and that includes Kansas.  As well as we're playing right now I think anything less than winning the tournament would be disappointing."

On the win against Missouri:

"Missouri is a very tough team to play.  We got a couple of breaks today but we really played well, especially in the second half. Our girls probably deserved to win.  I was proud of our players; down 1-0 going into the half they really felt that we could still win the game.  That belief is going to help us going into the tournament next week."

On the second half:

"We changed our formation late in the first half to adjust to some things that they (Missouri) were doing and I think that really helped us tactically.  In the second half I think we had more of the play.  We were getting to the ball first and we weren't getting beat and I think that had a lot to do with the end result."

On implications of winning the conference tournament:

"I think we have to win the conference in order to get a bid to the NCAA tournament.  If we win the conference tournament I think we will finish up 10-9-4, which would entitle us to an automatic bid.  Our mentality going into the tournament is to win the first game, but our goal is to go in and win the thing."

On senior day:

"When you win it's great; if we had lost it would have been a little tough on them (seniors).  But obviously with a win, especially against Missouri, it was really special for the seniors to finish on that note."

On Katie Williams's performance:

"This year we've had different girls step up at different times.  Katie score one goal on Sunday and then two today.  She was aggressive, attacked the box and got the job done.  In situations like this we are waiting for someone to step up.  In the first half we have two of our starters go down (Missy Geha and Kim Boyer) and are out of the lineup.  Someone else needed to get the job done for us and Katie did a great job being on the end of those two goals today."