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UNIVERSITY OF IOWA BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 27, 2016

Lisa Bluder

Iowa City, Iowa

Iowa 61, Illinois 56

LISA BLUDER: We're glad to get the win today. It was obviously a game of momentum, but I'm really happy with our board work. We out-rebounded them by 13. Megan gets her seventh double-double of the year, so that's been terrific. Going against a great center, Chatrice White, is a difficult situation, and I thought she handled it really well.

But you know, happy with the win, happy with winning at home. Appreciate the crowd coming out to support us today. I know it wasn't like there was a lot at stake coming into this game for the crowd, so just really appreciate them making the effort to be here, even if there wasn't a Big Ten championship on the line, and that means a lot to us.

Looks like we'll be the eight or nine seed in the conference tournament, so playing the first game on Thursday at 11:00 (CT). We'll know who our opponent is going to be after tomorrow. We think it'll be Nebraska or possibly Michigan.

Q. How much are you looking forward to the White-Gustafson match-ups in the future? That was a pretty good one today.
LISA BLUDER: It was a good one today, and I think those will be some great match-ups in the future. Like I say, Chatrice has had international experience, she's had USA Basketball, and you've had Port Wing, Wisconsin, experience.

Q. What did you want to get on that possession?
LISA BLUDER: We wanted to get the ball inside. Chatrice had four fouls, so it's kind of hard to keep battling defensively when you have four fouls. We were trying to take it at her and Megan did. That was huge. We wanted a high-percentage shot at that point.

Q. Coach, you guys were on a 16-0 run, they didn't score for like six minutes. Did you think it was kind of over at that point?
LISA BLUDER: Yeah, got a nice 18-point lead going into the fourth quarter, feeling good about it, and then we don't score for five minutes. That's kind of been the story for us. We're a game of momentum, a game of swings. When we're hitting from threes we're really rolling, but when we're not hitting from three, we keep shooting them, and we shot too many today. 50 percent of our shots were threes, and that's too many when you're shooting 25 percent. On the other hand, our two-point shots were at 59 percent, so we needed to get the ball inside a little bit more. Especially when you're in a scoring drought, go for the high-percentage shot instead of trying to make the home run play.

Q. Continue talking about you guys offensively. You had 20 assists on 24 made field goals. Aside from maybe that three-point shooting, what did you think of your offense today?
LISA BLUDER: We struggled sometimes against the zone, and I thought there was some times that we did a good job of moving the ball against the zone. We started out with some turnovers early, but we cured that the rest of the game except for a little bit against the press.

I thought offensively, we did a good job on the boards and getting the second opportunities. That was nice to see.

Q. How do you want your team to approach heading into the Big Ten Tournament?
LISA BLUDER: It's a new season, and that's what we have to talk to our players about. Basically we don't know our opponent yet. Doesn't matter. We're going to take a couple of days off right now and then come ready to go when we know our opponent Tuesday and Wednesday and have great practices to prepare. But you know, it's a brand new season, right? Anything can happen. We want to go into that Big Ten Tournament and do as well as we can to set ourselves up for a possible bid.

Q. Alexa isn't here, but she had seven assists tonight. Do you really see that as an area where she's improved lately?
LISA BLUDER: That was a career high for her. I thought that was tremendous to see that out of Lex. A lot of the time she has a shot-first mentality, and today it was really nice to see her with a pass-first mentality.

Q. Do you have an idea what you may need to do in the tournament to get in?
LISA BLUDER: I think if we win two, that would be really big. Basically if you win your first one, you're going up against a Maryland. Obviously that opens a lot of eyes if you get a win there.

Q. Tania's thing, is that a shoulder?
LISA BLUDER: Tonight? She said it slipped out, and I asked if it is an everyday occurrence, and she said, kind of, like it was no big deal. She's a tough kid. She's a warrior, she really is. She's amazing.

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