UNIVERSITY OF IOWA BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 11, 2012

Lisa Bluder

Morgan Johnson

Theairra Taylor

Iowa – 74
Illinois State – 64

LISA BLUDER:  Well, we shot free throws better tonight than we did against Northern Illinois and it\'s a good thing because we were there so many times.  It was just a game where there were so many fouls called that I don\'t think any team really could get in the thick of things, so it really became a free throw shooting contest, and we\'re a good free throw shooting team, shot 78 percent from the line tonight, so we did a good job there.

We also out‑rebounded them by six, so we turned that around from our first game, and we had 18 assists on 19 field goals, which is a pretty impressive number.

But Wednesday is obviously going to be a tough opponent for us, Middle Tennessee, in the NCAA Tournament last year, good team, glad to have them on our home court.  And just appreciate the fans that came out today in that rainstorm because they really gave up a lot to be here, and we appreciate that.

Q.  How important was that announcement that you gave on Wednesday?

LISA BLUDER:  It\'s good.  Any time you play at your home court, it\'s an advantage, and since we are host team this year we want to be there, but we want to get as comfortable as possible, playing on our home court and not having to travel.  Just saving our legs this time of year is really nice not having to travel.  So it\'s fun that we get to play on our home court and just share this with our fans.

Q.  What was it like out there?

MORGAN JOHNSON:  Yeah, it was a pretty physical game.  We knew coming in they were pretty physical.  Just had to work on holding our ground and then working on some more cross screens and working on different ways to get open.

Q.  When things aren\'t going well, is that something you try to do?  Is that a conscious effort?

MORGAN JOHNSON:  I think so.  I think when you go in there you\'re just expecting to get fouled, you still try to go and make some shots.  But definitely when a team is as aggressive as they are you take that and you use that to your advantage.

Q.  Coach, it was a pretty short turnaround, just 48 hours.  Just your thoughts on how the team reacted.

LISA BLUDER:  I thought we did really well.  We had practice at 8:00 on Saturday morning, which is early for college students.  For them to be that focused to get ready for this game and to go over scouting reports, to go through the film, I thought they did a great job.  We had a short practice yesterday because we didn\'t want to wear their legs out, and I felt we got a lot accomplished in a short amount of time.

I will say it\'s nice to have two days to prepare for Middle Tennessee.  I think we\'re going to need those two days.  But we\'re looking forward to having a little more time to prepare.

Q.  What was it like getting to the line and going after free throws?

THEAIRRA TAYLOR:  Yeah, it slowed down the rhythm, but at least we were able to catch up and save our legs a little bit.  That\'s what I was thinking.  They were calling it on both ends, and I mean, it slowed down the pace, but we got used to it.

Q.  What\'s, what\'s it say about your team after the first half they had I think four more field goals than you but you had a 10‑point lead and you still manufactured points.

LISA BLUDER:  Well, we\'re going to try to do it whatever way we can.  We\'re not, like, sold that we have to be a team that gets it inside or we have to hit the threes.  We had free throws tonight, and we got to the free‑throw line and we converted that.  So we don\'t care how we get the points.  That\'s the most important thing is that we get them.

Q.  Are you very confident having that many free throws to help you win games?

LISA BLUDER:  I think we have a lot of confidence with our free throw shooting.  Last year we were the fourth best team in America in free throw shooting, so I think it\'s something we have a lot of confidence in doing.

Q.  Theairra, what\'s it like as a player, playing in tournament like this early in the season?

THEAIRRA TAYLOR:  It\'s really exciting.  There\'s a lot on the line and it\'s always a quick turnaround, so to see the newbies and everybody getting back and being able to do that so quickly, it looks positive for the road ahead.

Q.  When you go out and look for players, do you go out and look for good free‑throw shooters or do you have to spend the time on it?

LISA BLUDER:  We spend time in practice every practice on free throws.  We try to put pressure on them to convert their free throws in practice, try to make it game simulation, do it while they\'re tired.

But it\'s always nice when you have a recruit that is able to shoot free throws, but it\'s not like one of our top factors that we\'re looking for.

Q.  Is the ice a normal postgame routine, or is that because of the physicality of tonight\'s game?

MORGAN JOHNSON:  For me it\'s just pretty much normal.  Old bones.  Yeah, I just tweaked it a little bit, but I\'ll be fine.

Q.  Morgan, what kind of free‑throw shooter were you when you came here four years ago?

MORGAN JOHNSON:  Every single year on my postseason little sheets we have printed out, I shoot about 73 or 72 percent, and that is two or three below our team, what our goal is.  So to be able to shoot better than that tonight was really exciting for me.  I\'ve been shooting better at practice lately, so that\'s been an improvement, and I hope to just keep that, maintain that.

Q.  Morgan, do you remember a game when you went to the line that many times?

MORGAN JOHNSON:  Yeah, I don\'t remember which game it was, but there was another game that I did pretty well in free throw‑shooting, but just maintaining that is what I\'m going to keep as my goal.

Q.  Are you inviting more contact this year, getting more physical?

MORGAN JOHNSON:  I feel like it.  I feel like my name is out there a little bit more, and people are more like, okay, she\'s not a huge post so we\'re going to push her off the block, so I feel like just trying to maintain that position is going to be really important and just welcoming that and going into them and drawing those fouls will be really important.

Q.  Seven blocks out of your Twin Towers.  Is that kind of the number you wanted?

LISA BLUDER:  Well, I haven\'t really sat down and thought of a number that I\'m aiming for for blocked shots.  Morgan is so good at it, but Bethany is pretty good, too.  It\'s not something, again, we\'ve identified that we need this many blocked shots.  In fact, sometimes I get nervous early in the game if they try to block too many shots because you don\'t want to get them in foul trouble.  When it comes down the stretch, it\'s nice to kind of let them go and try to get as many as they can.

Q.  23 turnovers tonight, kind of a tough night for Samantha.

LISA BLUDER:  Yeah, I thought Sam just tried to push things a little too much tonight as far as tried to create too much instead of letting the game come to her.  Too many turnovers as a team, definitely.

I was worried about their press, and we spent a lot of time working on their press because they pressed all the time in their first game.  Well, we broke their press, scored a lay‑up, we didn\'t see it again, so I was worried about turnovers because of that, and then that wasn\'t what cost the us turnovers, it was quarter‑court decisions where it was still not making the best decisions in our offense, too many I think unforced turnovers in our quarter‑court game.

Q.  Can you think of a certain play that swung the momentum to you guys to keep it there?  It was just back and forth pretty much.

LISA BLUDER:  I don\'t know.  I was surprised one time I looked up at the clock we were up 18 and I didn\'t feel like we were.  I felt like‑‑ and that\'s how you want it.  You want your players to kind of be in that zone where they don\'t think about the score, they just think about the next play and don\'t worry about that.  I personally, my favorite play of the game was Sam to Theairra for the fast break lay‑up.  I thought that was beautiful.

Q.  Theairra how comfortable are you out there right now?

THEAIRRA TAYLOR:  I\'d say I\'m really comfortable.  It\'s fun for me right now, and it hasn\'t been fun for a long time, so...

Q.  Do you think it had to do with (inaudible) you kind of said there wasn\'t really a flow to the game?

LISA BLUDER:  Yeah, neither team really got up‑and‑down without a whistle blowing, and so I think sometimes it\'s tough to get your transition game going when it\'s like that.  But yeah, it just was kind of unusual.  I really thought it was a closer game.  We had a 22‑point lead with three minutes to go in this game.  I know it didn\'t end up that way, but I thought we had it pretty decisively by then.

Q.  Can you talk about Morgan\'s day?  Did you go into the game thinking all the points, the boards and the blocks?

LISA BLUDER:  We never go into any game thinking that.  You might think, okay, we can take advantage of our height here, but not really thinking how many rebounds or blocks she\'s going to get, but definitely we think, okay, she has a height advantage, let\'s try to get the ball inside.  But we don\'t want to be one‑dimensional; we\'re a team that really tries to have more balance scoring, and today we didn\'t have that balance scoring; we only had two people in double figures.  We still want to get that balance on our team because that\'s going to make us harder to guard in the end.

Q.  Does Jaime maybe have a little more rust than we thought she might have?

LISA BLUDER:  I don\'t know.  I\'m not sure.  I think she took a couple of lumps out there, took some bumps.  It shook her up a little bit.  She\'ll be fine.  She\'ll bounce back on Wednesday, I know that about Jaime.  But I feel like I\'ve got to go with what she does in practice instead of one game, and I feel like she\'s‑‑ up until that tweak a little bit ago, she was doing great in practice.  I feel like she\'s going to be fine for us in the long run.

Q.  Illinois State\'s Jamie, a big night for her.  Can you talk about that a little bit?

LISA BLUDER:  She turned around as a player.  She went to Wisconsin out of high school.  She\'s definitely a Big Ten caliber player, there\'s no doubt.  She is a tremendous player and showed it tonight.  She\'s a senior, she\'s had a lot of experience.  She\'s so hard to guard because that pull‑up jump shot she gets so far off the ground.  She\'s able to shoot over some of our smaller guards like Melissa and Trisha.

I thought Sam actually did a pretty good job on her because I think Sam\'s height hurt her a little bit, but we tried trapping her off the screen, because she was splitting the screens against us.  She is a very nice player.  Defensively, too, an excellent player, and would have been a great Big Ten player had she not transferred from Wisconsin.

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