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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2015Brianna ButlerCornelia FondrenQuentin HillsmanAlexis PetersonGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA Wake Forest – 85 COACH HILLSMAN: First, what a tremendous game by Wake Forest. They really played a very‑‑ they played an outstanding game, so I give them a lot of credit. They really‑‑ first half we turned them over 16 times, I think it was. Second half we just didn't get that done. I think that was the key in our game. We just weren't able to get them turned over the second half to get some points off turnovers, so they did a remarkable job. Our kids really competed at a high level and that's all you can really ask for is for your kids to just go out and compete, and we did that. Obviously to have two of your top three players on the bench with fouls the entire game is tough, if Briana Day is playing 13 minutes against Hamby, we've got a problem. That was huge for us. And obviously Brianna Butler with the fouls. We've got to have our best players on the floor when their best players are on the floor, so that was a big key for us. We couldn't get into any kind of flow or any kind of rotation with our lineups because we had our players in foul trouble until the fourth fouled out. It was just fouling and putting ourselves in positions where we couldn't execute our game plan, but overall just give Wake Forest a lot of credit. Q. How tough is it when you guys aren't making shots? COACH HILLSMAN: Well, that's everything. When you're not making shots, you can't win. You've got to put the ball in the basket to be able to win. Also for us to be able to press, we've got to score. That's a lot of our game is offensive rebounding and getting our pressures set, and tonight we wasn't able to do that. Last game we played, we had 28, I think, offensive rebounds last game. This game we had 14. That's a big blow for us. Q. Coach, when Wake Forest was on the 22‑5 run, what was going wrong there? COACH HILLSMAN: Well, we wasn't scoring. That was the biggest thing. We just didn't score the basketball for a large chunk of the game, and when we get into those droughts where we don't score, that means we can't press. That's our game is making the game fast, getting the game up tempo. We want to play in the 80s, and they played in the 80s, we played in the 70s, and that's not our game, so we've got to get the game sped up. I think we did that in the first half. Second half we didn't do that. Q. Coach, how tough was it to defend their role players because Hamby didn't really get it going until later in the game, but Ball and Amber had big games. COACH HILLSMAN: Well, I thought Amber did a tremendous job. She really stepped up and made some shots for them, and that was huge. But our goal was to try to keep Hamby around 19 points, 20 points. She had 23 points, so part of our game plan was just trying to keep the ball out of her hands, or when she caught it to get there early and defend her. Like I said earlier, give them a lot of credit. They had four players in double figures, and that's a recipe for success. We say that every day in our locker room and that's one of our goals, to have four players in double figures. They had four players in double figures. We had three, we lose. That's it. Q. Brianna, when you guys go on that run at the end, what started clicking for you? BRIANNA BUTLER: I was able to make the ball go in the basket, and once I was able to get that to happen, I started to feel it and get back into the game. Q. Cornelia, getting beat in transition a lot of times in the second half, how tough was that to see, and what was going wrong there? CORNELIA FONDREN: It was tough. We could have got back in defense, but the toughest thing was letting them get a run. Q. Coach, what was Wake doing defensively to kind of make three‑point shooting a tough aspect for you folks today? COACH HILLSMAN: Well, I thought it was a couple things. We got some clean looks at the rim, and I thought that we just wasn't making shots early. But they did a very good job of just closing us out and making our shooters put the ball on the floor. But I thought that overall, if you look at the stat line, it's amazing because it tells a story. They got 36 points in the paint, we got 34 points. We had 24 points off turnovers, they got 14. You can look down this line and the real key to the game was we didn't have our best players on the floor. We were in foul trouble. We were in almost every line on the stat sheet. The line they won was they had their best players on the floor, our players were on the bench, and that's tough. We've got to find a way, and one of our goals was not to foul, not to put them in one and one. We fouled them, and they made shots, they made free throws. They made 20 free throws, and that's tough. Q. Alexis, what got your individual offense going so well today? ALEXIS PETERSON: I think my teammates played a big role in me getting going early. Cornelia did a great job of finding me early, and Bria Day, Briana Day, Taylor, they all went to the boards hard. I thought it just left me open and I was able to make some shots. Q. Coach, how do you now prepare your game for the NCAA Tournament? COACH HILLSMAN: Well, we've got to do things that we've been doing. We're going to go home and get some rest, get off our feet. We're definitely going to do that because I'm not confused that that's going to play a big part in what we do in a couple weeks here, and just go back in the gym and just get ready to play. It's tough, obviously Diamond Henderson didn't play and she plays a lot of minutes for us. That's 10 points, almost 11 points a game for us. So we've just got to make sure that we get our players into their roles and try to go back into the gym and make sure we get Maggie going in the right position, we can get Bria Day going in the right position. And we'll do that. We're not at all discouraged. That's not what we do. We're going to go home and get some rest and get to go into the next tournament and make a run at it. Q. Not having Diamond, does it force you to maybe pick up your offense a little bit? She's a player who can store 20, 30 points a game. Are you looking to score a little bit? CORNELIA FONDREN: I think other players, she stepped up, and everybody else plays a big role, and everybody needs to step up. I think that will take the coverage of her points. Q. Alexis, when Wake Forest is going on that big run, what are you guys talking about and trying to improve to stop that? And then eventually you did at the end make a small run there, what are you working on at that point in time? ALEXIS PETERSON: I think basketball is just a game of runs. They just happened to get their run at the right time, but we just wanted to stay composed and stay poised and keep turning them over and keep playing hard, and I think we did a good job. I don't think we ever gave up, and ultimately we just fell short. Q. Looking ahead, Coach, is there any fear, obviously going into this, you lose to the 13 seed and now you have to go right to the tournament and you don't have Henderson. Is there a little uncertainty right now? COACH HILLSMAN: No. No, I'm not nervous at all. We scored 79 points, and we had three players that really stepped up and played big. It's not really how we're built to play, to be nervous or to be scared. We're excited going to the next tournament. I mean, do you think that we're going to go in and lay down the next tournament? No, we're going to go and we're going to get after it. We're not thinking like, we're done. We're thinking we're pretty upset right now. In the first round of the tournament, we're going to get after it. We're not nervous at all. I wish the tournament started tomorrow. Q. In the next week or two, what can you work on with the bigs to avoid foul trouble? COACH HILLSMAN: Well, I thought that we did a very good job of just trying to pack the paint. And for them, they averaged about four and a half threes a game. They made seven, so they made a couple more, and we've experienced some games where we had Marsha Gaines scoring and we've seen her throughout the conference. For us it's just about, like I said, getting our players into roles and to make sure that we protect our bigs by guarding the ball. That's a big thing, guarding the ball because now we're not getting ourselves into full rotations and they get off on the rebounds and we foul them and things like that. It's some minor things, and most of the things is make sure we play our principles, keep people in front of us, protecting our bigs and not letting their guards and their fours get in the paint on us off the bounce. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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