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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2015Tijana DjukicJerry FinkbeinerFunda NakkasogluLAS VEGAS, NEVADA San Jose State – 99 THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Utah State. Coach, some general remarks on today's game. COACH FINKBEINER: First two times we played them, played them the first time at their place. Really a squeaker. We didn't have Funda, our leading scorer. Got beat in the last 30 seconds. Second game at our place, we controlled the tempo very well. Won at our place. I knew it was going to be a close game today. I think the first two games we were happy with, versus this game we were frustrated with, was the tempo of the game they totally controlled. I think we had a false sense of security when we got an early lead, it was going up and down that we could play this style for 40 minutes. We went through a stretch of four or five turnovers, one traveling, that changed the momentum abruptly about nine minutes to go in the first half. We never could gain control after that. We made two good stabs in the second half to cut it to five. But we put a lot of energy into it. Their kids came back and hit another three and another three. Buried us the two times we made stabs in the second half. San Jose State played a really good game from the shot. I thought the second half they shot so early. If they were to have missed those things, might have given us an open door, but they were making them. Door was never truly open. Proud of these two players, Tilar Clark, led us in statistics. We're a young team, I think it showed today in some of the decisions we made. San Jose State is a very scary first‑round opponent. This is the reason. If they're on, they can beat anybody in the conference. If they're off, they struggle. Today they were on. We tried. We tried to put a hand in the face. Cunnigan and Woodberry, they had really good games. THE MODERATOR: We'll now take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Funda, had to be frustrating for the effort you put in. As far as your numbers are concerned, 26 points, leading the team, 100% from the free‑throw line. In trying to keep up, as coach said, in their long‑range game, did that become frustrating and wear on you down the stretch? FUNDA NAKKASOGLU: I think we've had a lot of games like this. It comes down to mental toughness, I guess. We've got to keep, you know, working on that as a few seasons come by. It does get frustrating. You have to kind of let it go, find other ways that you can score, other ways that you can transition break into what you want to do. I mean, I give so much credit to San Jose and their game plan tonight. It did wear us down a little bit, yep. Q. For a while you were effective in terms of finding the ball inside either with a drive or getting the ball down low. You went to the free‑throw line 27 times, hit 26 of them. Yet they still keep coming back. Tijana, their game plan, how they were able to counter everything you did... TIJANA DJUKIC: I think they had a really good shot. They kept making them. We couldn't keep our emotion up, keep our energy up. We fell down and couldn't get it back up. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. We'll continue with questions for Coach Finkbeiner. Q. You talked about contesting Woodberry's shots. Were you okay with what you were able to do with that or did you lose her a couple times? COACH FINKBEINER: Probably the inside information, we have really good scouting reports on San Jose State. We both came from the WAC. We know these kids. Coach Jamie does a really good job with them. Our biggest surprise on how our three, four and five players didn't execute the game plan. Even at halftime I reminded them, any three‑point shooter, if they get the shot off, we're not playing the three‑point shooter. They shot 35 threes. Probably 35 threes weren't contested to the level our scouting report had us do it. That's frustrating. Our three, four and five players, probably security, safety, trust in the game plan thing failed. This isn't the first time. This is one of the weaknesses of our team this year. Really has to do more with the upperclassmen than the younger players, is the execution of the game plan. There shouldn't be this many surprises, in our opinion, that they shot that many. Woodberry is a very good three‑point shooter. Eight for 11. That shows me she's out of her mind or we didn't execute defensively. Probably a combination of both. She played really well. A couple of girls on the bench weren't in the game because Woodberry was getting shots that in our mind weren't contested close enough. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach. COACH FINKBEINER: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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