Rutgers Coach C. Vivian Stringer Notches Win No. 800
Feb 27 | Women's Basketball
PISCATAWAY, N.J. - Rutgers head coach C. Vivian Stringer joined exclusive company on Wednesday evening, earning her 800th career victory as No. 4/4 Rutgers beat DePaul 60-46 at the Louis Brown Athletic Center.
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(Jim O'Connor/NJ Sport Pics) |
The crowd of 4,801 was given signs adorned with '800' and rose to feet with chants of "CVS' with a minute left to salute the Hall of Fame coach. As the clock reached zero, senior Essence Carson tossed the ball - a commemorative, for sure - to her coach.
"I just appreciate that I have the opportunity to do something that few people can do; and that is to work with young people and affect their lives and to feel success every day when you see them do anything," Stringer said after the game. "I'm really, really blessed. I've been blessed with great players and coaches. Not only from the players that are here, but the players over the years. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I've been the most fortunate person in the world, because every day I wake up and I'm so excited to coach basketball."
Essence Carson (Paterson, N.J.) had a season-high 20 points and sophomore Epiphanny Prince (Brooklyn, N.Y.) added 15 for the Scarlet Knights (23-4, 13-1 BIG EAST).
DePaul, which averaged just under 80 points a game prior to facing RU, had season lows in points and field goal percentage (.305). Missy Mitidiero paced the Blue Demons (18-9, 7-7) with 21 points, all seven of her field goals from long-range.
Rutgers took a six-point second-half edge (36-30) following a pair of free throws from Carson with 10:18 remaining. DePaul forged an 11-5 run to tie the game at 41-41 on a triple by Mitidiero with 6:47 to go.
Rutgers answered with a 10-0 surge over the next three minutes to pull away and earn the historic win for Stringer. Prince had five points during the run.
In a dismal first half by both teams, the Blue Demons took an 11-7 lead following a field goal from Natasha Williams with 14:07 on the clock.
DePaul went cold - missing its next nine attempts and committing seven turnovers over a 9:15 span- as Rutgers rolled off a 13-0 run. Prince scored eight of the 13 over the spurt and sophomore Brittany Ray (Bronx, N.Y.) capped it with a free throw at the 5:47 mark to push Rutgers ahead, 20-11.
RU would not score, however, the remainder of the half as DePaul closed to 20-16 at the break.
Stringer became the first African American coach in Division I to reach the 800- win milestone.
POSTGAME NOTES
' Rutgers held DePaul to 16 points in the first half, which marks the second lowest total an opponent has scored in a half. The lowest came against Temple on Dec. 30 when the Scarlet Knights held the Owls to 14 points.
' RU has held every opponent this season ' 35 straight ' to an under 50 percent shooting percentage.
' The Scarlet Knights have held opponents to 59 or fewer points in 21 games this season.
Head Coach C. Vivian Stringer'?
' Became only the third women's basketball coach in history to join the elite 800-win club Wednesday night. With the milestone, she joins only Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt and former Texas head coach Jody Conradt on the women's side. The men's side, only has five coaches that have reached 800-wins ' Eddie Sutton, Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Adolph Rupp and Jim Phlean.
' Is the first African-American Division I head coach to reach the landmark.
With The Win'?
' Rutgers has won 28 straight games over non-ranked opponents, including 16-0 this season.
' The Scarlet Knights improve their home winning streak to 14 straight games, which is the longest home winning streak since RU won 19 in a row between the 2003-04 and 2005-06 seasons.
' Rutgers improves its' winning streak to four games, dating back to the Scarlet Knights 71-50 victory at South Florida.
' The Scarlet Knights improve to 3-1 over DePaul in head-to-head meetings.
Essence Carson (Paterson, N.J.)'?
' Scored a season-high 20 points on 4-of-8 shooting from the floor, 2-of-3 from beyond the three-point line and 10-of-11 from the charity stripe.
' Scored the first seven points of the game for RU, and nine of the first 10 points for the team.
' Has now scored in double-figures in 13 games this season.
Epiphanny Prince (Brooklyn, N.Y.)'?
' Ended her foul shooting streak of 20 straight FTs made. With 12:16 left in the first half, the sophomore missed the front end of a two-shot set, but drained the second attempt.She ended the night 3-of-4 at the line.
' Has now scored in double-digits in nine straight games with her 15 point performance, and has reached 10 points or more 21 times this season.
With The 12 Steal Performance'?
' Rutgers has posted eight or more steals in 13 games this season.
' It marked the second highest steal total of the year next to the Scarlet Knights' 13 steal performance against Temple on Dec. 30.
DePaul'?
' Was held to its lowest point total of the season. The Blue Demons previous low before Wednesday night was 56 points against Marquette on Jan. 19.
Kia Vaughn (Bronx, N.Y.)'?
' With her game-best eight rebounds, has led the team on the glass 19 times this year and 64 times in her career.
POSTGAME QUOTES
RUTGERS HEAD COACH C. VIVIAN STRINGER:
On her 800th win: "It's really not the number, I don't mean to dampen anyone's excitement because I really am proud but it's not something I thought about. I don't remember a lot of milestones, I just appreciate that I have the opportunity to do something that few people can do, and that is to work with young people that affect their lives and to feel success every day when you see them do anything, whether it be feeling confident in themselves and certainly at the end of the day, when you look at it, beyond the wins and losses it's where they started and where they ended. But what other profession do you know that every week you're evaluated and people say 'yes' or 'no.' I'm really, really blessed."
On this game: "That was a tough game, I wasn't even really thinking about anything else. I was just trying to figure out how we could win. When they were tight I was just trying to get them settled. It's really not about winning but more how you play the game. It's important that we gave everything that we possibly can. You should get in a habit of doing that."
On this team: "I'm glad we have an opportunity to witness this together - this group is really special going through everything last year, playing for a championship. I can't even bear to think about this group becoming seniors but I'm really fortunate. I don't anticipate that I'll have another 800."
On her career: "Especially because I went from Cheyney State to Iowa and to Rutgers, it's tough when you do that. I often times wonder why I couldn't just find a home and just stay there the rest of my life, but my life's venture has been because of different things, whether we went to Iowa, to take care of my daughter [Nina] and then coming here to what I call home. So, it's just nice to be in this part of the country and have the warmth of the people, and of course it's nice to be in the company of Pat [Summitt] and Jody [Conradt] and Bobby Knight and Adolph Rupp and these people who I have only heard their names."
Thoughts on No. 800: "I can't handle that so I try not to think about it. I really can't handle it because I can't imagine that any person deserves to have that many people cheering like that. I'm no different from anybody else, I just happen to coach and I like what I do. I really can't handle that and I don't know what to say or what to do. I appreciate and I thank everybody but I can't think of the words, I don't think that anybody should have to. I appreciate that they want to. I'm just humbled, I really am humbled."
On this group: "I have a responsibility to these young women, to give my best and never cheat them. Who am I to deserve to have good people like that in my life. After coaching so much it would have been nice just to be able to relax, but that game was a strain and if I had 100 games like that I certainly wouldn't have gotten to 800."
"I'm more embarrassed - I'd sort of like to just forget it and then in the quiet of the night when only I can look at it, just think, 'Wow, that was really special.' That's kind of how I am with everything, I just have it all hidden in my mind and one of these days when I stop doing everything I'll put it all out and just smile and think about it. I want to thank our fans in the best way I can. This is just a touching moment for me."
"What I'd like to do, beyond the wins, for myself is just to see women participating in sports be appreciated. That's really what I want. As long as I can have breath in my body and to somehow affect how these young women feel good about themselves because goodness knows how hard they work. It's people like myself, and Pat, and Jody, and a number of other coaches have had the opportunity to do that and just let them know that they are worthy. I think I have a purpose in life and I'm not sure that it's totally to win a national championship ' I hope that's part of it ' but beyond that it's trying to help these young people to grow."
On Rutgers' zone: "I didn't think we were getting out fast enough. One of the things that was good was what we did by playing zone, and that's good because we had people with two fouls and they were still allowed to play aggressive. This team never believe that they could play zones. We should, and I wanted to, we should have been playing zones some time ago, but now that our backs are against the wall we are."
On playing a team like DePaul: "This is a team that beat Notre Dame, they beat West Virginia, we would have looked really bad in a man with the numbers that we have. It's difficult [guarding their shooters] because it extends you. I don't want to see DePaul again, that's it. I can think of a whole lot of other teams I'd like to play but DePaul."
DEPAUL COACH DOUG BRUNO
Opening Statement:
"We won the first 80% of this game. Coming out of the eight minute timeout was the key to the game. We were up one point and we needed a stop. We got that stop and had Carson on the corner and did not secure the ball. They rebounded the ball, put it back and at that point that's where the game went."
On Coach Stringer:
"When you compete against one another, you want to beat each other's brains in for the two hours when you are on the floor in the heat of competing against one another, and yet we are all in this together whether you are at Rutgers or DePaul, UConn or Tennessee. We all do the same things day in and day out. So when someone like Coach Stringer has lead a life of giving to so many young people, it's not about the numbers, it's about all her players through the years who have put their butts and guts into playing for Iowa and Rutgers. These guys, my players, did a great job of coming into a great environment. You lust for environments like this, of course it is tough to come into, but I would rather play in an environment like this than another Wednesday night game in February. We just came out fearlessly, and our players did everything they could to get the game."
Talk about how you started off strong in the first half and then could not score.
"The RU defense did a great job against us. Their match up zone is extended and we had a tough time finding looks. We did have a lot of turnovers but we were only down four at a certain point."
