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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2015Ameryst AlstonAlexa HartKevin McGuffKelsey MitchellHOFFMAN ESTATES, ILLINOIS Ohio State – 91 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Ohio State head coach Kevin McGuff, along with student‑athletes Kelsey Mitchell, Ameryst Alston and Alexa Hart. We'll go straight to questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Kelsey, will you take us through like the last 1:22 of the overtime and just how you saw the two 3‑point shots? KELSEY MITCHELL: I don't know if I can take you through it. But tonight was something, one of the best days of my life as far as like learning, especially being a freshman, being new to this I learned a lot from Iowa, who is a great team and from my teammates. Learned a lot as a whole. And those two 3s was just part of the game, that's what it was. Q. Alexa, they were fouling you on purpose, that was their strategy. Basically, her hitting those hitting the 3s and picking you up what did it mean to you? ALEXA HART: It meant a lot because I could've hit free throws, but my teammates kept me up. So it was good that she hit those 3s. Q. Ameryst, again, just getting back to Alexa. You guys were in the game because of the way that she played. But what did you see about the matchups that made you guys go to all throughout the game? AMERYST ALSTON: So proud of Lex. I thought she did a good job offensively and defensively. She was a big presence inside. And it was the difference in the game. Q. Kelsey, one more time. You guys were down maybe seven with like four minutes to go, four and a half minutes to go. What changed do you think that allowed you guys to get back into the game and push it into overtime? KELSEY MITCHELL: Our defense. Coach McGuff said do what you gotta do, don't let 21 catch it. Do what you gotta do so Doolittle don't get into the paint. Do what you gotta do so 22 won't get in the paint. It was just the act of us coming together in that timeout, and he said we need to buckle down on defense to win the game. That's what it was. We tried our hardest and I guess it worked. Q. My question is about the shooting tonight. 1 for 13 shooting the 3s until‑‑ you made six of your last nine. It's the old adage in play here, just keep shooting them, eventually it's going to go in? AMERYST ALSTON: Absolutely. It be like that sometimes. Sometimes they don't fall. Sometimes they're not. But we don't let that discourage us at all. You just gotta keep shooting and eventually they'll go in. If that's not working, you got the ball to the side to Lex and it worked. Q. Ameryst, when you saw her open, come open those last two times did you think, yes, this is going to possibly be good for us? AMERYST ALSTON: Are you talking about Kelsey? When she put that up there, I knew it was going in. That's all that mattered right there. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach. Q. Kevin, I think I'd like to start with basically going back to November with everything that went wrong in November. COACH MCGUFF: Do we have to go back to November? Can we just stay in March? Q. With this game, are you kind of amazed with what you just saw and what just happened? COACH MCGUFF: I'm certainly really proud of our team, because it wasn't easy with the injuries and Raven having to be off the team. We faced a lot of adversity and I think it would have been real easy for us to say, hey, this isn't our year. But I think we have the right kids in our program from the standpoint that they're highly competitive kids who‑‑ I think they had some kind of trepidation early in the year, like, can we do it? Then we just kept getting a little bit better, a little bit better. And we stayed on that course. You could see our confidence start to grow and grow until we finally got six, seven, eight, and we're fine. But it took a while. I think they believed, but it took a while for them to gain the confidence to play like this. And I think that's what you're seeing. It's just us getting better throughout the year and us gaining confidence while we did that. Q. In this game, Iowa looked like it might have taken control about two‑thirds of the way through the second half. And was it the timeout, is that what changed things? COACH MCGUFF: You know, we went for a while there we just couldn't string together two or three stops there. And Iowa's great on offense, one of the best offensive teams I've played against in terms of execution and having players fit the style of play they have. So give them credit for making it tough for us to stay with them. But once we finally got a couple stops, in the second half I felt like we started moving the ball better and getting much better shots. I felt we could score enough. We just weren't getting enough stops. I think the 3 off the inbounds play that Kelly hit was a really big play from a momentum standpoint. This was a great basketball game. Iowa's really an outstanding basketball team. It's a shame somebody had to lose because you saw two teams out there really playing their hearts out and proud we found a way to win it. Q. For Iowa, Melissa Dixon led the game kept them in 22 points, mostly behind the arc. Is it interesting or ironic to you that you've been able to seal it with the 3‑pointer after the way she was shooting? COACH MCGUFF: She's a great player. We had a specific plan on how we were supposed to guard her. And every time we had any glitch in that plan, she made us pay. She's that good in terms of a shooter. It is ironic‑‑ really, I don't think we made any 3s in the first half, did we? So but we made them when we needed them. And Kelsey, she's a special player. And special players make big plays. And she certainly did that tonight. I would also say I'm proud of Alexa Hart, too. She had 24 points, eight rebounds against a really good ‑‑ whether it was Doolittle or Till in there ‑‑ Iowa's really good around the basket and really strong and not easy. For a freshman to come in and do that is saying a lot. She had heck of a performance. Q. It wasn't really surprising that they decided to target her with a foul? COACH MCGUFF: No, not really. I think in that situation, you get more nervous that they're actually putting you there. Like if they would have fouled her in the course of the game I think she would have made plenty. But it throws you off a little bit. Then she makes the last one and we stepped over the line. It is what it is. But it was fine. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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