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PAC-12 WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 3, 2016

Seattle, Washington

Washington - 67, Colorado - 51.

THE MODERATOR: Welcome to the Washington Huskies, Coach Mike Neighbors, Chantel Osahor, and Kelsey Plum. Coach, an opening statement and then questions.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: You know that Chantel and I combined for 18 rebounds tonight. I thought my effort was outstanding to chip in with zero. But it really was a good win for us. It's a unique circumstance when you play somebody three times in a year, and you turn around and play them back-to-back after we've played really well. I thought our effort was as good as it's been all year. I thought our energy was outstanding. I thought maybe the most together our team has been in preparation. We had some kids that were kind of banged up and sick and sore today, and we battled through it in the shootaround. Nobody lost focus. Absolutely by far the best that we've followed a game plan and stuck to what we've been trying to do all year long.

Q. What's going through your mind there when Kelsey's on the ground there in the fourth quarter?
MIKE NEIGHBORS: I saw it coming off the screen, so I saw it was just a frog, and she's proven herself to be pretty tough. You know, here's the thing. Colorado scored 35 points on us in 7 minutes in Colorado, and if you all thought for one second, I thought that game was over until we got that thing under about 4 minutes to go, we did not, because they did it to us in the past. They were still pressing. They actually started pressing after not having pressed the entire game. When we made substitutes, they started to press. Obviously, they were still continuing to try to win the game. We still needed everybody in there playing like we were playing. So I saw the frog happen, so my throat -- it didn't jump in my throat too bad. It looked like it hurt really badly though.

Q. Coach, what did you see out of Kelsey? Aside from 27 points, it looked like she did everything and had the green light?
MIKE NEIGHBORS: Yeah, I don't think she made any wrong decisions tonight at all. We asked her to have the ball in her hands an awful lot, so she's naturally going to have some errors. But she rarely has errors in detriment to decision making. I thought she was really, really good tonight. Our pace was really good. Our shot selection was really good. She got us in action, she slowed us down, she sped us up. I thought it really controlled the pace of the game.

Chantel doesn't get enough credit for the way she controls the game on the glass. But to get 17 rebounds defensively when everybody is crashing the glass, and Colorado's one of the better rebounding teams in our league, and she keys our transition with quick outlets or when she waits. Sometimes the outlet is there, but she waits because she knows we need to walk it up. So when I told you I've got two point guards on the floor at all times, it's these two sitting to my right here. Even though they're not your prototypical point guard at either spot.

Q. Chantel, of course you and coach combined for 18 rebounds tonight. What were the circumstances that you think allowed you to really dominate on the glass?
CHANTEL OSAHOR: I think it's -- well, I take responsibility to get as many rebounds as I can, and my goal is to get as many rebounds as I can every game and I did pretty well today.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: She was mad when I took her out. It's okay. She can nod her head. She's got a goal to get 20 every night, and I'm not about to stop her most nights. If we didn't have a game tomorrow, I wouldn't have. Because anybody that wants to rebound, I'm going to play them. It's not most people want to rebound. And somebody that wants to rebound it that badly and pass it like she does, if we had to play it, I would have kept her in to get the 20, because I think it's a great goal to have. I think it's mind-blowing to think that she could possibly get that many. But she goes out there to get that mentality every single night. Part of the thing she doesn't give herself enough credit for is she does a really good job contesting shots that turn to misses that she turns around and goes and gets. And I know she does this, and we haven't had this conversation and we'll have it right here in front of everybody. I think sometimes she lets people catch the ball because she knows they're going to turn around and shoot it, and she can make them miss and rebound it. But I'm okay with that. We haven't had that conversation because it works. Because she does work early. She does work late, and she pursues the ball as hard as anybody I've ever coached, and that's including Aminah Williams, who was just outside there, and is our all-time career-leading rebounder.

Q. Kelsey, how's the thigh, first of all and in general how did you feel tonight coming into this one?
KELSEY PLUM: Felt good. I felt good. My team played really hard, like Coach said earlier. We knew we're in this tournament and we're playing for bigger things, and so we just knew that coming out here, playing hard, if we execute well and we rebound like Chantel does, we're going to win this game. I'm really proud of our team. I was running off a screen and I got a knee to the thigh. I'll be fine. It's just ice it a lot and take some drugs, legal drugs.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: Thanks for clarifying. She had a really good pep in her step all day long today. Both of these two. Chantel's been dancing around and really moving as well as she has all year long. We've talked about this at many, many instances. This is the time of the year when what we do in January and February catches up and we've got a fresh team. We have a really, really fresh team physically, we have a fresh team mentally. And I think we're in a really good spot heading into the postseason.

Q. Kelsey and for all of you, really, Stanford obviously waits for you guys tomorrow night. You've only played them once this year. Everyone knows how good Stanford has traditionally been. They're hot finishing the regular season. What is the challenge tomorrow night and how do you prepare for them with this short window?
KELSEY PLUM: We're playing Stanford. I'm excited about it. Our whole team is. We look at it as an opportunity, and you know what, we're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to go out there and we're going to gun sling like we always do when we play a Top 10 team. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: They are playing as well as anybody in the country, I think, their last couple games, especially Erica McCall with the late-season push. At their place, Lili Thompson scored 17 on us in about a minute and a half it felt like. They held us to 25% shooting from the field. So we've got to do two things. One, be a little better defensively. Then offensively get into the rhythm a little quicker. After the initial barrage down there that they gave us, we battled them pretty closely. Quick turnarounds are good for us because we are a tendency team, not a go out there and go through every action that they run team. So we can talk through a lot of that without having to physically drain them at all tomorrow. So a team like Stanford who does have a thick playbook, we'll just really focus on tendencies and make sure we've got the two or three basic things down. Like Kelsey said, they come out and play really, really loose. I think this is a team, Stanford's a team that the NCAA committee has already established as a team that's in the top 12 when it comes to talking about seedings. So we'll come out tomorrow night and we'll be the really loose team, I hope, because there will be a lot of stuff to gain for us if we could pull off the upset.

Q. Kelsey, with your game tonight, you passed Tina Thompson for seventh all time Pac-12 scoring, and next on the list is your former teammate, Jazmine Davis. Do you and Jazz ever go back and forth about scoring records? What do you make overall about being that high on the Pac-12 list?
KELSEY PLUM: When I first came here and I didn't know Jazz very well and I just was joking with her talking about, hey, I want you to know I'm going to break every record you set, just joking around. She laughed and then looked at me and said, just as long as you win. Ever since then I took that really to heart. I don't look at those things and I don't pay attention to it. I just play aggressive and try to put the ball in the hole. So it's really cool to see Jazz up there at 6-0, because that's someone that had one Pac-12 offer and made herself known, so that's really cool.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: Just past (Indiscernible), too. She's got to be close on that list, so now she's got bragging rights. The only thing I will echo there is all Kelsey's done since she's been here is done what her coaches have asked her to do. That's handle the ball, take open shots and that's be really aggressive in trying to find your shot. So the fact that she's putting these numbers up on teams that are winning and has been a huge part of our team to have the success and the number of overall wins, there's a lot of kids in the country who get stats on teams that don't play in the NCAA Tournament. Very few people that play in the NCAA Tournament also back that up with statistical. And it's not just points. It's assists and a lot of times she's guarding the other team's best player and she's in wars down there.

So to accomplish those things, she's going to be humble and she's going to be proud. I'll be the one that will tell you that I think what is happening is something that is pretty remarkable in a year that every coach in our league feels like is the best year the Pac-12 has had in a long, long time, if not maybe ever, and to have the year that we're witnessing is pretty amazing.

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