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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2015Jordin CanadaCori CloseSEATTLE, WASHINGTON Stanford – 65 THE MODERATOR: We are here with the UCLA Bruins, Coach Cori Close, Jordin Canada, and Kacy Swain. Coach, some opening comments? COACH CLOSE: Media, thank you for being here. We need you at our game. So thank you for your coverage of this tournament. It's my least favorite thing to do is ending the conference tournament and not ending it the way you wanted and looking at the tears of especially my seniors. You know, just not wanting it to end. But I will say it's a lot easier as a coach when you see everything you've asked of your players from a character standpoint, from a fight standpoint, from a belief standpoint, from uncommon choices beyond effort and sort of our rally cries, and I saw all of it today. We have five words as a program that we wanted to embody this year. We talked about not having it with an open hand. We talked about coming together with our five character words and packing a really serious punch, and we packed it. Didn't show up in the final score, but I could not be more proud of our fight, our togetherness, our mental focus. That was the closest to 40 minutes of together basketball that we've had all year. I'm very disappointed it didn't come out in the outcome I wanted, but it doesn't take anything away from the process and the character I saw in my team. Q. Jordin, can you talk about getting down double digits and what it took for you guys to get back in that game? JORDIN CANADA: I mean, we pretty much for most part of the season have been down double digits in most of our games. But Coach always talks about staying together and just fighting through adversity. Stanford is a really tough team, but I believe that my teammates and we all believed in each other and we just stuck together and we battled. I really thought that this was the first time we've ever come back and fought, and you can tell that we had it in us. It's pretty sad that we didn't come up with the win, but I'm very proud of our team and the way we battled back. Q. Can you talk about what shot you were hoping to get on that last sequence. COACH CLOSE: Yeah, we were trying to run sort of a‑‑ we just missed the screen. We were trying to run a separation play where Nirra was coming all the way across the court because her speed is so great, trying to give her a shuffle pick. But instead of going to the post‑up and trying to separate her all to the three‑point line and setting a stagger away for Kari Korver. We just missed that second one. You know, it's just it was a little bit of a breakdown in our execution on the backside, but we'll learn from that. But we were trying to get a second stagger away, and then the last screen for Paulina Hersler out. She just popped a little too soon. She did great. She was put in a tough situation. And honestly we might not have had time to get that off. It was .7 by the time we went out of bounds, so it would have been close either way. But we were trying to get three looks at the three‑point shot. Nirra coming off all the way to the three, Kari coming off the stagger, and Paulina Hersler coming off the last screen on a flair. That was the goal, that didn't happen. But I think the one thing you have to learn is in postseason there is a lot‑‑ it's going to be very physical, and we've got to learn to finish through contact, and I thought we had so many great offensive rebounds in that second half where we came up empty, where we didn't get that either and‑one or get the bucket. That's going to be great. I'm so proud of those. Adversity, first half, Kacy Swain 0‑for‑8 and she finishes with a double‑double. That is the definition to me of mental toughness, when your circumstances are difficult and you make adjustments and you find ways to help your team. I saw a lot of that tonight. Q. Cori, did you come into this game thinking you may be able to get them on the boards like you did? COACH CLOSE: Yeah, well, I think that's been the thing I felt like we've underachieved on the most all year. I really feel like what you saw tonight should be who we are all the time. We have so much depth, especially in the forward spots. We have so much athleticism, there just has to be a relentlessness about us and a toughness about us. But definitely, I did not think we could win the game if we weren't +10 or better. I thought they shoot so efficiently, so if they get the same amount of shots on goal as we get, they're probably going to win. But I think if we got more opportunities by getting offensive rebounds and we can get out and attack them on the break when we control the defensive board. So I thought to give ourselves a chance to win, we had to at least be +10. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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