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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2016Doug BrunoChanise JenkinsChicago, Illinois St. John's - 75, DePaul - 66 DOUG BRUNO: St. John's is a really good basketball team. It just really shows to me how good our players are, how good our team is, that we beat that team twice this year. That we were able to beat that team twice this year is just a statement as to how good our team can be when we play really well. So St. John's is a really good basketball team and they played really, really well today. And basketball is a great sport, and it's a really funky, weird sport in that defense is inextricably tried to offense and offense tied to defense. We are up 43-33 and we went offensively dysfunctional and simultaneous to them scoring the ball. Why do you go dysfunctional? That's where I think coaches have to have the -- I don't know what the word is, but the respect for your opponent to say that they made us go dysfunctional. Let's say that they made us be dysfunctional when it was 43-33. That's where the game went in a nutshell. We did some uncharacteristic -- we are one of the smartest teams in America and one of the smartest groups of human beings I'm blessed to be around. We did some pretty unintelligent things. Then also a part of our -- and again, I just want to make sure that this is coming off as St. John's made us do some unintelligent things. When you're a really aggressive scoring team and a really competitive group, like my players are, and you're used to scoring the ball not easy but relatively easy, when teams make it as hard as St. John's made it, I didn't think we had the ability to make them have to guard us longer. I guess "patience" is probably the simplest word. We just tried to just jam it, jam the square peg into a round hole, and that's really what kind of created some of the chaos. But again, you have to start with St. John's players and St. John's team. They did a great job. Q. Chanise, for all the things that Coach just talked about that kind of went wrong for you folks tonight, how was that different from the first two wins against St. John's? CHANISE JENKINS: Well, obviously they definitely learned from the two losses we played against them early in the season, and kudos to them for figuring it out. I think that St. John's really came ready to play tonight, and we equally came ready to play tonight, we just had some mental lapses closing out the game. I thought that's where we went wrong with that. Q. What do you attribute those mental lapses to? CHANISE JENKINS: I will take blame for it, lack of leadership at the end. Probably should have brought a team a little bit more closer together and demanded the ball a little bit more to set up the offense, so I'll take the blame for that one. Q. Chanise, how much does this light a fire for you guys going forward into the NCAA Tournament? CHANISE JENKINS: I would say it lights a fire. We can't hang our heads low. At the same time we have to get ready for the next step and the next chapter that we want to bring our team to. We're just even more focused now. Q. What do you think kind of kept you from finishing the game with that offensive rhythm? CHANISE JENKINS: Well, just like we've been saying, mental lapses. We turned the ball over -- every time we turned the ball over they came down and scored the ball, so I think that was a big difference, and they capitalized on those turnovers. Q. What do you think it says about the toughness of playing in the Big East that St. John's is a 4 seed, Creighton is a 7 seed, and now they're the ones that are going to be competing for the title? CHANISE JENKINS: Well, congratulations to them for making it to the championship game. It just shows how great and how tough the Big East is. Anyone can win on any given night, and they definitely proved it tonight. Q. Are you able to point to anything in particular that caused your team to go from plus-10 to minus-11? DOUG BRUNO: No, I stated it earlier, basically -- first of all, this is a game that's played with players on the other side of the basketball, and St. John's players are really, really good players, and they're really good defensive players, and so when they defended us as well as they defended us tonight, you have to have the patience to wait out possessions. And we didn't have that patience. We were just constantly trying to jam and just make something out of nothing. There was nothing there. And we have a system that really allows for us to do that. I mean, I'm not going to -- the system that we have has been proven over time, specifically with this team against the great schedule we've played this year that it knows how to slice and dice great defensive teams. You don't go into Texas A&M and win like we won. You don't go into St. John's and be up 27. You don't go to Seton Hall and be up 32 without having ability to be able to use your offense to its advantage. We did not tonight. When things -- when St. John's, and I want to make sure that I keep emphasizing, St. John's players were really tough on the defensive side of the ball. You just have to keep the ball moving, and patience has to become a part of what you're doing, and it didn't become a part of what we were doing. And again, we were just -- I mean, you have a breakaway lay-up that turns into two points for them the other way, I mean -- I can replay all the plays. It doesn't matter, replay the plays. I think in the big picture, St. John's' defense -- they're a really good basketball team. They're deserving to be in the NCAA Tournament. I think the question to Chanise is a great statement question. That's right, 4-7, and these are really good teams, and they got really good really fast. Everybody complained about how good we were a year ago. This is a really, really good league. Nobody would want to play Villanova, and Villanova lost their best freaking player. Carolyn Coyer put on a clinic here back on January 8th or whatever it was, 10th or whatever it is, but that team was really, really good. So this league is -- and that's something about our team. You know, if this league is that good, then like I told the players in the locker room, if you can only have one, God comes down here, basketball gods come down here and says pick one, regular season or tournament, I'm taking regular season every year every time. I'll take a 16-2 regular season and that's what those players did against these kind of players every single night, night in, night out, I'll take that any time. Do I want them both as a coach? Of course you do. You want to win every single game you coach, every tournament you play in. I can't thank this administration, Jeanie and all the staff here at DePaul University for taking this on. Everybody just thinks we just -- it's work. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of time. It's a lot of effort. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of money. I just really appreciate them doing that. That's the way it is, and that's why it just proves that these games can be held on a campus site. Thanks to the Big East, Tracy and Chris is here in the room and everybody else that have worked so hard to make this happen. But to get back to the point and the question, St. John's is good, and when people are good against you defensively, then you've got to have the understanding of how -- and it's been a while. We've been on a roll. We've kind of made it our way, and so now when it gets tough, you've got to have the patience. Throw a post feed off somebody's ankle, it just became very chaotic there offensively after 43-33 points, and it's all John's doing. They did it to us. They also scored at the end of the game. We have guarded them a certain way, and yet they weren't -- they were having their -- I thought they were doing pretty well. They scored -- the final score, there's eight, nine, 10 free throws at the end. Basically they scored 65 against us tonight. That's hitting the last 11, whatever it was, 11-for-11 down the stretch, and they scored 65 points. Usually DePaul is going to win a game when they hold someone to 65, and that's where the offensive dysfunction really is what I'll point this to. Q. How huge was it for Ashton and Jacqui to step up despite the loss? They combined for 20 points tonight. How can they carry that into the Tournament? DOUG BRUNO: Well, Ashton has been getting better all along and she's had a good run down the stretch here, and that is why we brought Ashton here. That is what Ashton is all about. She didn't play over her head; that's what Ashton is. We got some good contribution from Ashton. Our key three guys together didn't have a great offensive production tonight, and that's what I'm talking about here. I thought we got the ball in to Megan Podkowa pretty good, and I thought she had some good at-the-rim attacks and we came up empty quite a bit at the rim. But we also didn't demonstrate the patience to make John's have to defend over time, and we didn't do that. Q. You brought up Megan Podkowa attacking in the paint and she was doing that a lot in the first half and not so much in the second half. What really brought the ball away from her in that second half and obviously you can make your threes but -- DOUG BRUNO: We were trying. We were trying to find answers. I mean, we went to a high-low. What got us the 43-33 was our high-low, with Trixie and her inside, and she's inside for a reason. People have to -- believe me, I do the same, knock knock, Megan, we don't want you inside anymore. Players have to know how to score inside what we're doing, and when we put Megan Podkowa and we put Trixie inside, that's what got us the 43-33 lead and Megan has got to go get it downstairs. That's up to her to go get it. I'm not going to go down the floor every time and call a play. That's tough work sometimes. At the time-out at the end of the half we ran something to Megan and we got it to the rim and what did it get us? Out of bounds under and no call. It's not about calls, that's just the way it is. It's basketball. Q. DePaul ball is usually known for its putting pressure on the inbound pass. Was there a reason why we only saw the full-court press towards the end of the first quarter? DOUG BRUNO: Yeah, there's a reason: These guys are -- Handford and Grant and Lewis are three of the best track stars in college basketball, and they thrive in the open court. You know, it makes no sense -- we've had really good success against St. John's over the last -- I think we won five straight going into this game, and chasing them all over the gym is not the way we've had success. We've had success with them getting into the paint and making them come over the top, and they answered tonight. They came over the top. When I say come over the top, make them make shots from the floor; that's not their strength. They're really good at getting to the rim and they're really good at getting to the rim in the open court. It wasn't even a thought to go up the floor against this team. It's fool's play to go up the floor against this team. Again, I can't thank everybody enough for being here, for covering the Big East Tournament, for all that the Big East has done to put it here. Jeanie, again, thanks, Catherine, Peter, everybody in the room here that's just worked so hard to make this happen, and I hope St. John's has a great game tomorrow. This league is deserving of a gazillion -- not a gazillion, but we're deserving of a lot of teams. If you don't -- you have to be unabashed about telling the world about that, and you can't be self-conscious about that. All those other people that play football think that they own the world and basketball -- just don't get me started. No, Marquette is not going to the NCAA Tournament and they're talking about Auburn going. Well, Marquette -- don't even get me going. The Butler team, I can get going really pretty strong hot and heavy here about -- and again, back to John's question, these are good teams, and they're really, really good teams with really, really good players, and this league deserves a good representation, which is at least three teams in this tournament, and I trust that that's going to happen. So that's the way it works. Again, I thank everybody for all that you do. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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