|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 2, 2016Erik JohnsonNicole BoudreauGreensboro, North Carolina Boston College - 49, Virginia Tech - 37 ERIK JOHNSON: It's good that he told me to be brief because sometimes when you hand me a microphone, especially after a win, I start spouting off about our players. We talked about -- I'll share with you guys, the fact that we had so many close losses in ACC play. We were right there, and this senior next to me hates hearing me say, we're right there. So I said, hey, you want to erase that? You want to erase the memories of those close losses? We really believe we're better than our record. We had some great wins non-conference and we just couldn't get over the hump and against really good competition in the ACC, and I said, this is what March is about. You want to change the perception of our team, you want to make our season remembered for doing good instead of being right there, go win in March. This is the biggest stage in collegiate women's basketball, the ACC Tournament. Go get it done. And they stepped up. Again, a lot of it had to do with Nicole right here, but it was a great team effort, and I'm really, really proud of them. Q. Obviously Virginia Tech struggled today offensively. What were you guys doing on the defensive end to really try and force some tough shots? ERIK JOHNSON: Yeah, we made a few defensive adjustments from playing them the first time. I thought that this was -- our first ACC game was at Virginia Tech, and I thought they really -- they punched us in the mouth on both ends of the court. Having been able to watch some film, and look, we're a better team, I think, than we were at that time, and that's what we really wanted to prove because it's one thing that we can say it in the locker room, it's another thing to go be able to prove it on the biggest stage. I thought the play of Ella Awobajo made a big difference. Her rebounding was phenomenal, and that's a place that we've struggled. Katie Quandt came off the bench, and in her 10 minutes had seven rebounds and one huge blocked shot right at the very end on Magarity. So we had some kids step up defensively. We've worked hard on it, and sometimes you just have to get gritty, and Virginia Tech forces you to play gritty because they're a gritty team. I'm glad that we were able to rise to the challenge. Q. Coach, it seemed like they really adapted early on defending Fasoula when you guys were trying to pound the ball. What were you guys trying to do differently after they were playing better defense on her? NICOLE BOUDREAU: I mean, Fasoula is one of our best players, and to get it into her, it not only helps us because we score a lot of points, but as a shooter it gets me more open shots. Luckily, I mean, we're not the only team that knows that she's one of our best players, so they pound the paint, they pound the paint, so we just kept telling her, keep working. She got a huge bucket I think in the third quarter because she just kept working and we kept looking for her. She split a double-team and went and finished. Even though she didn't have our regular numbers and have 15, 16 points, she still made the difference. We say it all the time, look inside. She might not get it, but if she causes people to come in, then it's a win for us. ERIK JOHNSON: The reason I threw that one to her is Nicole's senior leadership has a lot to with the freshmen staying confident. She had four turnovers at halftime, she got called for travels, there's people all around her, and often a freshman then will question themselves and stop working as hard, and Nicole as a senior leader getting right there looking her in the eyes and saying, you keep working, we need you, and so with that basket, which I thought was a defining play -- games come down to several defining plays, and that was one, where she hadn't been able to get her scores, and we kept working, she kept working and we got the ball inside. She hit a huge bucket and you saw the bench erupt, and again, a lot of that has to do with the senior leadership of these guys and keeping the freshmen going, so again, really cool stuff. Q. Nicole, you lost by 25 to this team in January. What did you think coming into this game? What led you to believe that it would be this much different? NICOLE BOUDREAU: Well, I think we were really not happy with the way that we played there. As Coach said, it was our first ACC game and they kind of punched us in the mouth. We didn't feel like we played very well offensively. We had some uncharacteristic turnovers. Their defense really got us uncomfortable. So coming into this game we focused a lot on our offense, getting into our stuff, where our looks were going to be with all those helps that we just talked about being inside. So I think that we just kept talking to each other, making sure that we stayed confident. I think we're a confident bunch, and we really feed off of each other, and then from there, I think that's where you see this big difference. We knew that we could do better than the first time, and I think we showed that, especially on the defensive end. Keeping them to 37 points is really big, and we had a lot of big rebounds. Coach talked about Ella. I think Ella had an absolutely amazing game. She brought us a spark. She went and got balls, and it was just a great team effort, and we're excited that we got to do it on this big stage. Q. You have a game tomorrow; can you talk about having a game tomorrow and how you're going to prepare for it? ERIK JOHNSON: Sure. You know, we took a look at the bracket when it first came out. That was the first thing we did at practice the day after it came out, and we said, hey, what a great opportunity. We've got a shot at Virginia Tech, who we know we can compete with. We were in a really tight battle with NC State at NC State late in the season. We know we can go compete with them. The next game is Syracuse after that. We were in a one-point game at the Carrier Dome. I said, guys, this is set up for a great run. Okay, got it? Everybody look. All right, I don't want you thinking about that bracket again. Right now it's all about Virginia Tech. So starting after this game right now we get to say, hey, who's next, so now it's got to be razor sharp focus on NC State. What's it going to take to get us rested, recovered, prepared for another basketball game, and again, this team has done a good job of that day by day, game by game, and again, this is another shot at redemption against a really, really quality team who's well-coached, and let me just give a shout-out to the Virginia Tech staff. They're so hard to play against. We had to earn everything that we got. NC State, it's the same thing. Wes Moore is a very, very good coach. We're going to have to earn it, but we're excited about the opportunity. NICOLE BOUDREAU: Yeah, just to go off that, something I told the team before the game today was there's nothing better than winning a game in the ACC Tournament. Alexa and I are the only two that have experienced that; we won one our freshman year. And I told the team, guys, I promise you, just believe me, there's nothing better than winning in the ACC Tournament. This stage is set for you to do some incredible things. Like I said about this game, we felt like at Virginia Tech we didn't play our best game and we could have had them, so we redeemed this one, and same thing with NC State, we were right there at NC State with a close one in the fourth quarter, and NC State edged us out there. So we're excited to try and redeem another one of these losses that we think we were right there and could have gotten, and I'm excited to play tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|