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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2015Jamie CraigheadTa'Rea CunniganRebecca WoodberryLAS VEGAS, NEVADA San Jose State – 99 THE MODERATOR: We're going to begin with San Jose State. Coach, if we could start with you, just some remarks on today's game. COACH CRAIGHEAD: We shot the ball really well. That's probably the biggest three‑point, you know, shooting night we've had since Friday, so it was great. When we're clicking and Becca is hitting shots, Tea is getting to the rim, getting pull‑up jumpers, it makes our offense so much easier. It loosens the shoulders of all of our bench players. It was a tremendous performance by two seniors and a great team effort. THE MODERATOR: We'll now take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Rebecca, you got down early, 22‑11. At whatever point it just clicked and you turned it on. At some point does it trigger in your head to take the game over? REBECCA WOODBERRY: I wouldn't say to take the game over. I think our offense moved the ball well so we were able to get open shots. It was easy to make shots. Q. Rebecca, do you like the air in Las Vegas? REBECCA WOODBERRY: I like tournament time (smiling). Q. When you get started with something like that, can you start feeling it, you want the ball? REBECCA WOODBERRY: Yeah, you could say that. I starts to feel good and it feels like my next shot is going to go in. Q. Tea, it looked like you started out on Funda. Was that the plan? TA'REA CUNNIGAN: Yeah, it was. But I picked up those two quick ones and had to switch to man after that. Q. Is this the time of year where you say, If I want to keep playing, I have to take over and do what I got to do to keep playing? TA'REA CUNNIGAN: Yeah. Us being the two seniors, we've been here in this position. I was here last year and it didn't end the way we wanted it to. Now it's just being mature and finding the ways to finish and close out games. Q. At a certain point, when you get the hot hand, you start getting in a flow, coach just let you run with it or is there a game plan in place at all times? TA'REA CUNNIGAN: We all actually have the green light, if we want to take the first open shot, that's always been our game plan every game in. When we get going, we start sharing the ball and moving the ball and everybody starts to heat up. Q. Rebecca, you were down by nine. Was there ever a time you were concerned? REBECCA WOODBERRY: We were focused on keeping up the pressure, not worrying about the score, just playing our game, following our game plan. Q. What has been the key for the last couple days? Seems like your offense has been clicking at an astronomical rate. REBECCA WOODBERRY: The key, like I mentioned earlier, was just for us to move well on offense and get better spacing. We've been really practicing our spacing in our practices, so it's helped a lot. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. Coach, fairly early on Utah State was shooting about 67%, you were down by nine. What was the thought process? COACH CRAIGHEAD: When we were down 20‑11, I didn't like what we were doing defensively, so we mixed it up. We went to our matchup zone. It helped the person who was guarding No.3, who was a tremendous player, stay in front of the ball. We were covering the elbows in the boxes. I thought he slowed them down a little bit. They didn't have a great three‑point shooting night. We could stand in a matchup zone, make them take long shots. I thought that was the turning point. Then Emily Vann and Paris Baird came in and boxed those kids out. Turning point of the game for us. Q. Your bigs were not in foul trouble tonight. How much of a factor was that? COACH CRAIGHEAD: Were they not? I always feel like they are (smiling). They got to play. Jazz and Rea, I got to play them out. We obviously need our bigs. We don't have a whole lot of them. We play a lot of teams that have more size than us. I thought they did a great job in the second half, especially, of rebounding the basketball on the defensive end and getting the breaks started. Q. Talk about the play of your seniors, what they meant down the stretch this year. COACH CRAIGHEAD: The game is always tight. I never think it's over. But when they hit a couple threes, Becca came down and kept answering, Tea got an easy basket, I was able to breathe. They've been tremendous. It started for us when we had our senior game. They're two kids that don't want their seasons to end, their careers to end. They have tremendous basketball ability. When the two of them are playing well together, they can be probably two of the deadliest offensive threats in the conference. We need the two of them to keep it going if we're going to beat the champs tomorrow. Q. Two straight games in Vegas, does that help with some confidence in going in against a team that can play some defense? COACH CRAIGHEAD: Yeah, absolutely. Colorado State, they make you beat yourself. They got tremendous talent. For us, we got to get up and down. They do a better job probably than anybody of taking away our break. We're going to have to go fast. We're going to have to push the tempo and shoot the ball really well. They're champs for a reason. We're just going to come and compete and see what we can do. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach. COACH CRAIGHEAD: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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