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MOUNTAIN WEST WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 8, 2016Jerry FinkbeinerKatie TooleFunda NakkasogluLas Vegas, Nevada Fresno State - 55 Utah State - 47 THE MODERATOR: Coach, we can start with you and get your thoughts. HEAD COACH JERRY FINKBEINER: We played this team three times in the last 18 days. And if you want to know how the other two went, it was just like tonight. Chances to be ahead, stay ahead. Chances really to kind of win the game. And credit for them, they won a lot of games this way this year. And I think their senior class went to the national tournament their freshman year, if I'm right. They have an understanding how to finish games. And I was just talking to our team for 15 minutes in the locker room right now, and it was emotional. Down the stretch, Funda is probably, with her background, and Rachel Brewster with her background are probably the only ones that truly wanted the ball in their hands the last four and a half minutes, especially when Deja Mason fouled out. As opposed to Fresno State girls, juniors and seniors, they all wanted the ball in their hands. They all wanted to finish the game out. It was the difference in my mind, three games in 18 days, similar outcome every game. Lost by 6 at home. Had a chance to go ahead by a minute and a half, loss by 4 at their place, had a chance to go ahead with 45 seconds, ahead a lot of tonight, and we couldn't finish it. It's frustrating, but at the same time it's a classic difference between a senior-junior driven team and a team that's just trying to get there. We have a high-character team. It's very, very young, and I really look forward to coaching these girls next year. Q. Having played Fresno so recently and so many times, were there any surprises that you saw tonight maybe that you weren't expecting? FUNDA NAKKASOGLU: To be honest, I didn't really think there were many surprises. We knew their game plan coming into it. They knew ours. We're pretty familiar with everything they were going to do. They're very post oriented, we tried to guard that as well as we could, but there weren't really any surprises. HEAD COACH JERRY FINKBEINER: That was probably the frustrating part of the game because the Davalos girl, outstanding statistical game, double, double, 23 points, and 12 rebounds. We knew the move she was making, and she still made them. And credit her because they are strong moves, but she had some idiosyncrasies that we were really pointing towards and we didn't step over and stop it. She's a good post player. As a sophomore on that junior-senior team, she's a huge ingredient of their success these last 10 games. Q. They went high pressure defense in the second half, particularly the fourth quarter. Did you feel that knocked you guys out of your rhythm, that aggressive defense? FUNDA NAKKASOGLU: I think it definitely slowed us down. I guess having a lot of inexperienced players, it kind of shook us up a little, scared us out a little. That could have affected our game. That did cause a lot of our turnovers. But, yeah, I think that did have an effect on our game overall. We knew that coming in again, because we had played them twice before. We knew they were going to come in with high pressure defense. And we had good offense to try to get that, but we failed to execute it down the run. Q. It seemed to be a close game, and Fresno seemed to have a little bit of the tempo and the edge going in at the locker room. But you guys came out on fire and really took over, not just slowly crept into it, just kind of took everything over. What did you tell them in that time and how did you see them execute? HEAD COACH JERRY FINKBEINER: We were ahead by six with 4:45 to go in the third quarter, according to the stat sheet, and felt things were really going our way. A turning point, our freshman post Deja Mason, who statistically didn't look like she played real well, but she did. Had a lot of influence. Credit five blocks, I think it was more than five blocks. She got her fourth foul about that time. And actually the beginning of the fourth quarter maybe, end of the third, and we had to take her out. We lost the momentum at that point. And we stuck her back in and she got her fifth foul. That hurt us. That really hurt us. We didn't say anything at halftime. We tried to win each ten-minute period. And at that point they won the first quarter, we won the second and third quarters. So we were achieving our goals. Everything was fitting in place until the fourth quarter. I think Deja Mason fouling out hurt us. She was guarding Davalos, and I think that made life easier for her down the stretch. Q. They spoke a lot about you in the press conference with Fresno and how much you've improved over the season. Tell us your thoughts on how well you've improved and how much that meant to you to be able to play so much tonight and have a really great game with ten rebounds? KATIE TOOLE: It's really cool to hear them say that. It feels good to be able to have them give credit to me because they are really a good team. And I just want to keep on improving and I just tried to play my hardest for our seniors and try to get the win, but it doesn't always turn out like that, I guess. I just want to keep on improving through the off season and come back next year and be even better. Q. You mentioned the youth of the team and then the turnovers in the fourth quarter, a couple of them stepping on the baseline. Do you feel that was a result of the youth? HEAD COACH JERRY FINKBEINER: Yeah. We have eight freshmen and two junior college transfers, and totally different team from last year. And the good thing is they're all back. So, yeah, that's the kind of stuff. And then the pressure they put us on full court. It's the same press we have, but we froze. We were working almost every day in practice. But tonight when the going got tough, very few our players wanted the ball and wanted to attack the ball, as opposed to them. And it just shifted there in the fourth quarter. But I know Fresno State, if you look at their schedule, they probably had ten of these games, I know three of them were against us, where they just took over, the last four or five minutes they willed themselves to win. That was always in the back of our coaching staff's mind, we would have a 7-, 8-, 10-point lead going into the last five minutes and make it a free throw situation, but they got the lead back, and they shut the door on us. Q. You spoke all season of the three statistics that you engrain into your players' minds. Tonight you won in two of those three. Is there anything you're going to add in the off season to that list of statistics so that maybe the wins will turn out more? HEAD COACH JERRY FINKBEINER: Part of it, I think all coaches do this, we're going to take some time off. I think a lot of it is maturity, I think we're as big as any team in the conference. We have quickness. We have most things covered. We have four really good recruits coming in we really like. I think nothing but the future for this Aggies team. It's a goal set thing. It's off season work. But I joked with our freshmen just now, it's a good group of girls and I said the best thing about being a freshman is, and I think one of them had the answer, becoming a sophomore. It's a fun group. Like I said yesterday, it's a group I don't worry about. I'm proud to coach them. And we've got four more coming in just like them next year. We're going the right direction. Q. You speak of the experience with Fresno and the youth of your team. Was there anything in particular you took playing with them on the court that you'll be able to use going forward? KATIE TOOLE: I think one thing that we could have done better is fast breaking more. In the previous game just before this, we were able to fast break a lot more than we did this game. I think if we can do that better and stopping them from getting fast breaks will really help us out. FUNDA NAKKASOGLU: I think another thing was the urgency. I mean they were junior and senior ruled. We are freshmen and sophomores, basically. But I think just having that urgency, knowing that it's coming down to the wire, we need to get these last defensive stops, otherwise the game's out of our hands. I think it's a lot on that. HEAD COACH JERRY FINKBEINER: I'd like to add one comment about Funda, I don't know if you knew this, I was joking with her on the way in, she had 49 free throws in a row that she snapped tonight, with one miss. She only shot 98 percent from the free throw line in the last month. But an incredible sophomore year, and Katie, look forward to her contribution in the future. Katie had 21 or 23 points against Fresno four or five days ago there. I know Katie was high on the radar coming in tonight. Two young ladies you're going to see a lot of in the future here. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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