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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 5, 2016

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

West Virginia - 74, Kansas State - 65

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by the Kansas State Wildcats, Coach Jeff Mittie and his two student-athletes, Megan Deines and Kindred Wesemann. Coach, your thoughts about the game?

COACH MITTIE: First off, congratulations to West Virginia. They've got an outstanding team. I think they're playing as well as any of the top teams in the country. They've got weapons all over the place. They're coming off of two 30-point victories coming into this season. We knew they were playing very well. I thought this was a great basketball game.

I thought our group played well, I think they did some good things. I think fatigue became a factor in the fourth. It was a very physical game from the start. This thing was very physical, very hotly contested from the start. We would have liked to have made more plays. We had a few that we left out there, but give West Virginia credit. They had a lot to do that with.

Q. Megan, the game was so back and forth and then they went on a 11-2 run mid-way through the third quarter. What do you think the difference was in that stretch where they pulled away?
MEGAN DEINES: I believe our transition D wasn't as clean as it was the first two quarters. They made a lot of pull-up jumpers in transition, and we couldn't stop the ball as well. So I believe that's what it was.

Q. Kindred, what's it like to play a team three times especially when they're so on fire? Three times is a lot to play the same team, so what's that like for you guys?
KINDRED WESEMANN: We kinda -- obviously we knew they were a great basketball team. They've played great all three times that we've played 'em. We played good. We did good stuff. They just had -- they made more plays than we did, and it is tough to beat a team three times.

So we were hoping that we could have gotten that one, but it didn't fall in our favor and they played great.

Q. Kindred, this third match-up was more competitive than the first two. What do you think the difference was tonight?
KINDRED WESEMANN: I just think we played a lot harder. The game we played against them in Manhattan, we did our game plan, executed our game plan defensively. But I felt like we were flying around a lot more on defense, and we were taken it to them. We weren't playing afraid on offense, so I think that was the biggest difference.

Q. Megan, you had a great game and you were able to get a lot of looks at the hoop, especially inside you got a lot of drives to the lane and that was working well in the first half. What were you guys work to go get inside in the first half?
MEGAN DEINES: We knew they were denying our guards, especially the wings, so we were really trying to use our backdoors and just, I guess, our backdoors was what we were focusing on the first half. It was working.

THE MODERATOR: Okay, ladies, we're going to let you go. Best of luck. We will take questions for Coach.

Q. Coach, how big of a factor was Bri Craig's injury, not so much the injury itself, but she goes down, they tie the game and got on that run. How big of a momentum changer was that play?
COACH MITTIE: It was a factor with a couple things. One, we didn't have a very deep bench, at that time certainly West Virginia is one of the deeper teams in the league and they can run a lot of players at you. So in that time where she was trying to get the ankle to feel a little bit better, you know. We probably had some fatigue factor in there.

She gives us a score that can come off the bench and score, so we really never got into the flow and it was pretty painful. I walked down there to see how she was doing and she said "I think I can go, but it's not moving as well as I need it to." So anyways.

It was a factor for us because we had to stretch some players out there on the floor and she is -- she is a player off the bench that can give you some points.

Q. Coach, a lot of people think that the Big 12 if it's not the best conference it's no worse than second or third. Do you think you've done enough to play in the next round?
COACH MITTIE: Will they take my vote? (Chuckles.) I don't know, I don't ever like to -- here is what I would say about the league, the league is very good. The league is sitting here in position to have a 1-seed a 2-seed that tells you right there and the team that might be playing the best is the team we played tonight in West Virginia.

The league is very good. I think we're playing our best basketball of the year right now, and unfortunately we finished with Baylor, Oklahoma State on the road and West Virginia, but we also have gotten some big wins in there as well.

So I don't know the answer to your question. Do I think the Big 12 is deserving of six teams? I do. Obviously we're the sixth team in that. I think we've done enough but, you know, I'm not really -- I just told the team, our resume is right there. They're going to look at our resume; they're going to see it's over 30 games. I think we're playing good basketball. This was -- if you look at the eye test as you know, Rick, we led Texas for a good portion of that game in Austin, we came back home to Baylor and led them in a good portion of that game as well. We have done, I think, some good things this year, so hopefully we're in.

Q. What do you think the difference was tonight between your first two match-ups with West Virginia?
COACH MITTIE: Our poise and discipline, we shot 29, half of our shots were from three and that leads right into their position and we came into the game talking about poise and discipline, and for the most part it was very, very good. We only shot 16 threes. I think we made as many three's tonight as we made in Morgantown as we made tonight, so we were able to get the ball inside to Morgan, make sure she was the feature and we wanted to have a backdoor attack and a drive downhill attack, and I think for the most part the players did a good job.

I think Megan Deines hit it right on the head. We had some turnovers and that plays right into West Virginia's strength because they can make something out of seemingly chaos and all of the sudden rise up and make a play. We saw Morton do that. We saw Tynice Martin do that. We did a great job on Holmes tonight and they still had weapons out there that can make you pay. I could go on and on, but I'm going to stop at this point.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, we wish you the best.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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