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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2016Jim FlaneryAudrey FaberJade OwensChicago, Illinois Providence - 53, Creighton - 70 JIM FLANERY: Well, you couldn't have scripted a better first five to six minutes, obviously, but to Providence's credit, I thought they fought back. When we played them in January, they weren't as good as when we played them in February, and I think they've gotten better even since then. I think they've struggled to win games, but we knew based on the last time we played them that they were capable of beating us, and really those middle two quarters, I really thought they fought and put themselves in a pretty good position. We made a couple huge plays I thought at the end of the third quarter and to start the fourth quarter to kind of get that thing up into double figures, and then it was a little easier from there. But we had to fight. We went small, took our 5 off the floor and played Audrey at the 5 during that stretch, which makes us a better offensive team most of the time, and certainly that was the case during that stretch. If we can -- the reason we maybe don't do it more is you've got to guard and rebound at the other end and also from a fatigue standpoint, it puts a lot of pressure on those guys to play a lot of minutes. So the things that we did better in the second half than in that second quarter obviously were contesting threes, we gave up four threes in the second quarter, and one of them was off a loose ball with a little just -- a little unfortunate, but the other three we had a little bit more control over. Then I thought we did that, at the same time we fought the dribble pretty well. We didn't put them at the line. I thought we played without our hands and took away threes but also fought them all the way to the rim. The other key thing, I think, to the game today was turnovers. We had 18 in the loss at Providence and 17 in Omaha, and today we only had nine. I think five of those were in the second quarter, so taking care of the ball was big. They're a team that plays us -- they play a lot of teams zone, but they play us a lot, almost all man. Today they played us all man. So I thought we did a good job of taking care of the ball, and that was huge. Q. Audrey, what did it feel like to play in your first Big East Tournament? AUDREY FABER: It was a lot of fun because we obviously got the win, but a lot of nerves coming into it. But I think we just knew we had to come out and play as a team. We wanted to get revenge after we didn't show our best the last time we played them. I think that was our motivation coming into this game. Q. Coach talked about you playing at the 5 position and when you guys decided to go small. What is your mentality or how is it different when you're there versus when you're playing as a guard? AUDREY FABER: I think on the defensive end I just have to be more physical because I'm playing a bigger person, but then on the offensive end I know I'm going to have a mismatch, so I just try and take advantage of that or be a good screener for my teammates. Q. Audrey, what did you really think went well for you guys in this game to get off to that 15-0 start? AUDREY FABER: I think after halftime we just regrouped and focused on our defense and took away all the easy shots they were getting in the second quarter, and after we did that we used our defense to get into our offense, and then on offensive end we just found the open person. Everyone was unselfish, and I think everyone just took good shots. Q. Jade, seven assists today along with the 13 points. Have you seen yourself as the season has gone on continue to emerge, in terms of your passing today was really outstanding? How exactly has that emerged as the season has gone on? JADE OWENS: I think I've really focused on being aggressive and really pushing the ball today in the full court off of rebounds, so that's really gotten my teammates some open shots and they've been able to knock them down, too. They've been able to knock down some open threes, so that kind of helps with the assist numbers. Q. Jade, Coach talked about your focus in the second half and taking away the three defensively. What did you have to do adjustment-wise on that end of the floor to make sure you carried that out? JADE OWENS: I'd say a lot of it had to do with our early communication. I think in the first half we didn't, specifically the second quarter, we didn't talk early enough on some switches and kind of got mixed up and maybe went out late to the three. So we really talked about that going into halftime and just focused on getting up on the shooters and making them drive. Q. Jade, can you just kind of talk about the emotions of playing on a big stage in front of the home crowd? Dealing with that, you've done it a few times, but today you seemed pretty good from the start. JADE OWENS: Yeah, I'd say it's different than last year being a freshman, I was kind of nervous, Allstate Arena, first Big East Tournament, but I'd say this year I kind of came out with more energy and was really focused, and I think a lot of it was revenge. We were remembering at Providence, that loss, and we really wanted that one back, so just coming out with a lot of fire. Q. Providence had a pretty good third quarter, they cut that lead down to two. Beal hits that shot right before the end of the third quarter and then she cramps up. Were you aware that might be a moment where you guys could kind of extend the game a little bit with their best player on the bench? AUDREY FABER: I think that was definitely in our heads. I think specifically defensively we were thinking we could kind of get out more and pressure, with the point guard being out, one of their main ball handlers. And also offensively we could kind of push it. She's real fast and a good defender, also, so we were kind of looking to hurt them in those areas that they were missing Beal on. JADE OWENS: I think momentum was going their way, so I think we just needed that time to just like regroup and find our momentum and get on a run, and that's what we did. Q. After going up 15-0 you got the momentum, Providence isn't hitting shots, how hard is it to not get complacent? AUDREY FABER: I think -- I mean, it's obviously hard not to get complacent, but then they came back into the game so you just have to refocus and you have to come together as a team and say this is what we're going to do, we're going to get stops and we're going to get good shots on offense, and I think that's what we did. Obviously basketball is a game of runs and they made their runs, and I think we countered them pretty well. JADE OWENS: Yeah, I would agree. I'd say we were pretty hyped up in those 15 points and really focused on defense, and so with every stop, every charge and everything, we were really getting pumped up, so then we kind of needed to focus in on some of them. We gave a couple of open threes, so then just we huddled up and kind of talked about that and tried to limit their runs. Q. As Providence is getting closer and starting to tighten up the game, what are you telling your players at the half? JIM FLANERY: Well, at the half it was limit turnovers and easy baskets, so we had given up -- we had two turnovers at the quarter and they had no steals, and we gave them -- not gave them, they earned, three steals, and I think we turned it over five times, so we were sloppy with the ball, which I think gave them -- whenever Beal can get out in transition and get an easy basket or if you have to bring two to the ball on her in transition and then they can get a shooter open, those are big. And then we just said, we've got to defend the three line better. And Nogic's range is ridiculous and Botteghi took a couple really deep ones early, but they spread you out. And you know, as Audrey said, you might make two in a row or three in a row, but it's just the mentality of getting up four to six feet off the line needed to be a little bit different. And I thought we got tired. We got a little tired in the second quarter. What Jade talked about is you get that burst and everything goes -- couldn't have gone any better the first five minutes, and then all of a sudden you lose a little bit of that adrenaline, and then when the other team plays better, it's maybe hard to sustain your energy level because you're not -- as Jade would say, you're not as hyped because they're making a little bit of a run. But big things we talked about were limit turnovers and hands all the way up on three-point shooters and all the way up on three-point shooters. We talked about like dribble hand-offs specifically, like we -- you've got to take your player all the way to the hand-off when Beal handed it off to Nogic and some thing with some other kids, and we trapped down same side off Che one time, and she lost Nogic on just a simple drive and kick, and started staring at the ball and lost her. So just a little bit more discipline on shooters, and then just being more solid with the ball. I mean, the thing that I liked today is we only -- like I said, we only had nine turnovers and only two in the second half, which for us is better than what we've -- better than the trend recently. Q. You mentioned that Jade would use the word "hyped" in your press conference. You seem to be smiling looking at your freshmen and sophomores here talking, and your team got younger with some injuries this year, but they have grown so much. Just talk about that process this season and what it means to kind of have those two now with the great understanding of what it takes to play at this level. JIM FLANERY: Well, Jade is a significantly improved player and her opportunity with Marissa out has been enormous. She played 40 minutes the other day against St. John's, which was her first 40-minute game, and I think I took her out one time until the last few minutes today. So she's grown a lot. And Audrey kind of had her head down late third quarter because she hadn't finished plays and I just kind of looked at her and said, You're going to make a play or two. Just keep your head up and bend your knees on a catch. And she did that, and part of that was going smaller certainly helps our spacing because she's -- and then like she said, she's going to have typically a bigger defender on her. She can put the ball on the floor against. So those two have come a long way. Look at Lauren, I think has really been a solid contributor and didn't score the first half, but gave us those two threes early in the fourth quarter that kind of created a separation, but I think she's definitely a kid who's more confident, and then MC has kind of been our steady one. Yeah, it's been neat because I do feel like we've grown a lot and figured out how to play together, and the bumps of -- for instance, Jade last year was an 18-to-20-minute-a-game player, and if she played well, great, if she didn't play well, probably didn't -- now she's got to play well every game. And Lauren has got to play well every game, and I think that's what Audrey found out. She had such a good December, and then she probably raised her own expectations, and then when you fail to meet -- I said, when you fail to meet those expectations for two or three games as a freshman, then I think you're like, oh, am I really good enough? Am I really what I was in December? I think she went through that for a while, and I don't want to say she's lowered her expectations, but she's -- like it's Division I basketball. You're going to make dumb plays, bad plays, have bad stretches of games, but you've got to keep your head up because you -- she's good enough to make the plays that she made the last 12 minutes of the game today, where she had stretches where she wasn't probably what she wanted to be. But the ability to dig herself out of that is greater than it was even I think a month ago. Q. Looking forward to tomorrow, small sample size, but when you look at them on film, what are the differences you've seen in Villanova with Caroline Coyer running the show versus the things that Hahn can do back there? And what do you expect tomorrow? JIM FLANERY: Yeah, you kind of have to treat Hahn like Coyer. She's averaging over 21 a game in the last three games, and she's a bouncy, confident kid. We'll have to do a good job on her. I think it hurt their depth a little bit maybe because she's a great kid to bring in off the bench. Now you've got Coyer and her and they stretch you out and obviously they've got other very good perimeter players, but in terms of just the ability to go get you a lot of points, they're a little different. I would say in the short-term, injuries aren't necessarily as -- in the long-term obviously losing Coyer is a big hit, but in the short-term, kids can kind of figure it out, and I think sometimes opponents let up just a little bit thinking, well, they don't have Caroline. But you know, those guys are -- the thing that I say always with Villanova is they don't beat themselves. Like you have to beat Villanova. I think they're an underrated defensive team. We struggled to get to 50 -- we beat them the second time but we struggled to get to 50, and part of it is they control the pace of the game, but also they're pretty good defensively. They contest shots, and then they can control the pace of the game. Now, that might be good for us because we had to play today and we're probably going to be a little more tired, and so I'm not seeing -- playing DePaul or Marquette, who's going to try to get in the 80s or 90s when you have a bunch of people playing 30-some minutes, whereas this team will be a little bit more methodical, but the fact that they won at Georgetown and they're 3-0 since Caroline got hurt, they're a system team. Even though she obviously was the key, they're a system team, and like I said, you have to -- when you play them, you have to beat them. You can't expect them to beat themselves. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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