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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2015Amber BattleIvonne Cook-TaylorCandace WhitakerDALLAS, TEXAS WVU – 59 COACH WHITAKER: Tough game for us, we really struggled offensively particularly and just to get some shots to go. Needed to take care of the ball better than we did and obviously convert at the free throw line. West Virginia, thought they played well, came out set on go and had several people have great games. Q. Amber, last game against them you had 33 points, this game only 11. Did they show you something different tonight or just stay on you tighter? AMBER BATTLE: They just played their defense and I didn't attack as much as I needed to. Q. Ivonne, with them breaking on Amber a little bit harder today, did that give you more opportunities to score? You had a pretty good first half. IVONNE COOK TAYLOR: Basically my teammates penetrated and I just had open shots. Q. For both Amber and then Ivonne, the second half I think you only had 4 of 23 shooting. Did they up the defensive pressure in the second half or was it your execution, what happened during that stretch? AMBER BATTLE: I just think we weren't being the most aggressive team and we weren't taking our time in shooting the ball. IVONNE COOK TAYLOR: I agree with Amber. Q. Coach, you've been around basketball a long time. When you see two banked-in 3s to start the half, is that one of those omens that -- COACH WHITAKER: That's never a good sign, right? Yeah, I mean, West Virginia made shots, they shot it well, they played well. I thought Averee played well, I thought Bre played well. And they're tough defensively when they can switch and pressure you and try to take away the things that you normally get. They went with a lineup without their big where they switch everything and we had trouble with that lineup. Q. Coach, did you see them do anything different or how did they alter their game plan from the first two wins when you took them? COACH WHITAKER: Really didn't see anything majorly different. They did play a lineup without a big more, but we did see that the first two times as well. I thought we had some good looks from three that we didn't connect on throughout the game, and then we had a stretch where we missed two or three layups in a row at the rim that, you know, you've got to get to go down, especially when you're struggling shooting the ball from the perimeter. Q. The second half, 17 percent shooting, what wasn't right on the execution of the floor, were you just not getting open looks or was the spacing off? COACH WHITAKER: You know again, from three I thought most of our looks were pretty open. We missed some layups at the rim there in the second half where we strung missed layups together. We were fairly open. I mean, they're coming over, they're not going to give you a completely wide open layup but we were at the rim and didn't convert for whatever reason. And then they played more of their lineup without a big and that caused us problems. Q. One win shy of qualifying for the post season but still a pretty big turnaround. I know it's kind of short notice, the season just ending, but can you elaborate on what the season meant? COACH WHITAKER: I thought we improved in a lot of ways. Nonconference we had to win a lot of close games without Amber, so I felt like our team grew from that and learned from that. ^We found ways to win there. Continued to get better and evolve and it's been fun to watch them improve. But that's what we talked about after the game. I felt like, you know, we had five to six close games in Big 12 where it came down to one possession and you need one more game, so how valuable a possession is, how valuable each game is for one game to keep you from continuing your season. I think for our returners, they need to hurt from that and they need to understand the value of a possession. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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