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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONALS SEMIFINALS & FINALS: OKLAHOMA CITYMarch 27, 2015Lisa BluderMelissa DixonSamantha LogicOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA Baylor – 81 LISA BLUDER: It's tough to see the season come to an end. We had a great run. We had great seniors. Just super kids in our program. I'm so proud of the type of kids we have in our program. They're incredible role models, they're great students, they're wonderful to come to work with every day, and I just appreciate them so much and appreciate my seniors. The effort that they've given us the last four years has been nothing but amazing, and I'm so appreciative of those young ladies. It's hard to remember the good times. Sometimes the last one is so painful, but I'm going to try and remember all the good ones we had this year. Q. Samantha and Melissa, as you look back on your four years in the program, if you had one or two Kodak moments that years from now you want to share, what would they be and why? MELISSA DIXON: Yeah, there's a lot over the last four years. It's obviously been the best four years, but making it to the Sweet 16 definitely has to be up there. It was a goal not only for this year but for the last four years, and to finally do it, it was so special, and it's something I'm going to remember for the rest of my life. I'm so thankful to have done it with these people and to have been a part of this program for the last four years. SAMANTHA LOGIC: Yeah, probably No.1 would be Sweet 16 basketball wise. Like she said, we wanted to get here and we've built up to it. It wasn't something that was just tradition here, and we wanted to start a tradition now for the future Hawks, and the current ones right now we want them to keep building on it so badly because they deserve it just as much as we do. There's so many things off the court that people don't even know. You're going to remember even more than big wins, probably at Penn State last year, top‑10 team in the country, besides beating them, like dancing in the locker rooms, the aftereffects of that. Things like that is what you're going to miss the most, I think. Q. Sam, obviously number‑wise a great performance by both you and Niya Johnson. I think the two of you combined for 30 assists and one turnover. Assess your performance, both you and she? SAMANTHA LOGIC: Obviously, yeah, she's the leader of that team, great passer, great leader on the floor, conducts that offense really well, puts her team in a position obviously to win, and I think any day you're going to take that win over any other stat. Just congrats to Baylor. Very good basketball team, and they're going to make a run, I think. The next game, that'll be a fun game to watch. But I'm just happy to go out with my team. I mean, do battle with this team. I wouldn't pick anyone else. Q. Your fans had a 10‑hour drive to get here unless they flew. If they flew, they were flying into a tornado. It still was a remarkable representation out there. How much does that mean to you, and did you feel that, and also the enthusiasm from the bench while you were out there on the floor? SAMANTHA LOGIC: Yeah, we always do. Our fans are great. That's why I think it's a huge part of our 18‑0 at home. We were playing in front of them. They're so supportive of us and they have been for four years. I think you saw just a glimpse of that today. That's a long drive and a lot of people not even‑‑ might not even personally know someone. They just love Hawks. They just love watching us play, and we love playing for them, but yeah, you always feel that enthusiasm there. They're just waiting for a run for us. In the first half, you feel it and our bench we always feel it. They are so great, they're loud, they're enthusiastic. They want to win so bad that they really just don't care about their own minutes. I think this whole team is so selfless in that way. They just want to celebrate for us so badly and I think it's just so apparent to everyone watching that how much we love playing together, even if they're not on the floor. Q. Melissa, talk a little bit about when Doolittle went out, getting hit in the nose. You guys went on a run and how that changes, and Samantha, talk about the adjustment you made posting up? MELISSA DIXON: Yeah, we obviously felt really bad for Beth when she went down and we all kind of came together. We're like, we want to do this for Beth. We want to get it for Beth. I think we just kind of rallied around that and tried to go on a run for that. We just came up a little bit short. SAMANTHA LOGIC: Yeah, without Beth in there, it's tough. She's one of the best posts in the Big Ten. She's so versatile offensively and defensively, just a huge part of our team for the last four years, and I don't think I'd take any other post. But with her out, think we kind of spread the floor a little bit, and just having a size advantage, I like posting up. I just looked at that a little bit more across the board because we didn't have that presence in there to try to make up. Not going to make up too much without her, but just try what you can do. Q. You guys went on a really nice run at the end of the first half. I think you scored 11 in a row to get within two. How big were those two three‑pointers that they hit at the end of the half to open it back up to 8? SAMANTHA LOGIC: Yeah, that was big, going from a one‑possession game to a three‑possession game pretty much, it was big‑time shots by them. We lost‑‑ one of them we just lost in our zone. You just can't deal with that. We can't have that happen, obviously, and then the other one was just at the buzzer, just kind of crazy defense, was just trying to get a steal and they just found her at the right time. We would have had momentum going in the half and we've just got to learn to get stops there. Might have been a different game then. MELISSA DIXON: Yeah, we were finally taking our run and we were finally getting stops and were able to push it in transition. We were finally trying to go up on them, but we just kind of collapsed on some drivers and they got some open looks that way, and it just kind of cut our run a little bit. Q. Samantha, did that linger at all in the second half when you came out? I think you went three minutes without scoring after halftime? SAMANTHA LOGIC: I don't think it did, mentally at least, because we were getting good looks. We're really good shooters as a team. I thought we were getting good looks, weren't rushing or anything. I thought we still were taking good shots, they just weren't falling. Their shots were falling, some uncharacteristic ones so you've just got to battle through that, and I thought we did a good job trying to make a little run after we knocked some shots down. Q. Melissa, they were obviously pretty set on face guarding you all night and taking you out. Talk about fighting through that and trying to get open and trying to remain a part of the offense. MELISSA DIXON: Yeah, it's happened before, but with our team, you know, I just kind of have to not let it frustrate me because we have so many offensive threats on our team, that if they are going to take my three‑point shooting away, someone else is going to be open and we're going to have four other great scorers who are going to have open looks, so it's just kind of taking it and just not being frustrated and knowing that it's helping my teammates get open. Q. I don't want to get you in trouble, but could you talk about the disparity in foul shooting since both teams seemed to be driving the paint? LISA BLUDER: Yeah, we really could not get to the free‑throw line. At halftime that was the difference. They were 9 for 9 from the free‑throw line, we didn't shoot a single will free throw. You have to go back a ways to probably find that. That was very unfortunate for us not to get to the free‑throw line. I felt like even at the end of the game, free‑throw line and second‑chance points were the biggest‑‑ our biggest problems. Q. You know obviously that Niya is going to be a big assist part of their game, but what Sune gave them in points and rebounds, was that debilitating for you guys? LISA BLUDER: I think so. Obviously she was feeling it tonight. She was well, well, well over her average, and you really can't have that. Playing in one of these games, you know Davis is going to get hers. We knew that. But you really need to keep track of everybody else, and she really did very, very well today. She hit the 15‑foot shot like it was a lay‑up today for her. Q. Talk a little bit about those two quick fouls early. Did that change things because it was on Doolittle and Samantha? LISA BLUDER: When Beth got the two fouls, that's not good for us. There was a point we just wanted to get to halftime almost because she's our leading rebounder, she's our paint person. We're just‑‑ she does so many things for us, she transitions so well. When she got the two fouls, that was tough. And then I just had to make the decision to go back in with her. When they got up 11, we went back with her and obviously you could see the impact she made when she was in the game. In the last two minutes, I felt like we had to take her out to try not to get that third foul and again they hit those two three‑pointers at that point. But Beth is a big part of our team. She's been unbelievable, and I hate that she ends her career here with a broken nose tonight. It's really unfortunate, and I feel bad for her. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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