|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: LOUISVILLEMarch 17, 2016Doug BrunoMegan PodkowaChanise JenkinsJessica JanuaryLouisville, Kentucky DOUG BRUNO: We're always excited to play in this great tournament, and because we played in 14 straight, sometimes people take that for granted. Each group, each group of seniors has to do it every year, so I'm really proud of Chanise Jenkins, Megan Podkowa, and Jessica January, who's a junior, for understanding what they had to do this season to put ourselves in position to compete in this great tournament. Q. Chanise, he talked about knowing what you had to do to get to this point as a senior to lead your team back to the tournament. What did you feel like some of those things were? CHANISE JENKINS: Well, I felt like it's what Coach has been stressing all season, and that's rebounding, defending, and executing offensively. I think our team has done a pretty good job of that over the course of the season, and he's just emphasizing it even more, so we're just really focused on that right now. Q. Megan or Jessica, the thought of starting this tournament and getting ready to face James Madison, what have you learned about James Madison that you can sort of relay your team as you get ready for this opening game? JESSICA JANUARY: Well, we know that they are a real good team and really want to just focus on the little things, like Chanise said. Rebounding and defending is going to be really important. They're a really good rebounding team, so we've just got to focus on the little things. MEGAN PODKOWA: Like Jess said, they're a very good offensive team. They get to the basket. They can score, and then on defense they make slots and they really rebound the ball well, so I think we'll have to come into the game really focused. Q. Coach, how has your schedule and the competition you played non-conference and into the league helped you get ready for what you're going to expect this weekend and perhaps beyond? DOUG BRUNO: I'm really, again, proud of this team because our non-conference schedule was one of the tougher schedules in the country. At one point in time, we played UConn at home and then on the road at Notre Dame, at Texas A&M, at South Dakota State and at Northwestern, who was ranked 12th at the time and had won 11 straight games. We had also played at Baylor. Of the four No. 1 seeds, we've played three of them, and two of them on their home courts. I think this team really came through that degree of difficulty of schedule, and then we opened our Big East play with two of the top seeds in the Big East in at St. John's and at Seton Hall. We opened at home against Marquette, but we were on the road quickly against two of the better teams in the Big East, two of the teams that made the NCAA Tournament we opened on the road. I think this has been a really, really road-tested team, and I think they've responded well to travel. Q. Any thoughts on James Madison? DOUG BRUNO: Yeah, James Madison, Kenny Brooks does a great job as their coach. It's just interesting, because we're really similar type of programs in that they are in Virginia and have to deal with all the ACC schools, so we're in Big Ten territory, we have to deal with all the Big Ten schools and Big 12 schools, so we're constantly competing against those leagues for players. I think we both do a really similar job of finding the best players that we can get competing against those leagues, and then coaching them up and growing them to be talent -- Jazmon Gwathmey is a really special player. Angela Mickens is a special player at the point position. They're averaging seven assists a game. And then Ashley Perez is really, really -- these are three really special players. It's really a good basketball team. And what I'm going to say next I mean in a positive way, not a negative way, but it's a pushing game. You can take the 6 and 11 and throw it out the window. We're a 29 RPI, they're a 31 RPI, so basically -- and I think when you do this long enough, again, not as any kind of a negative statement meant toward what seeds are, you've just got to throw those numbers out the window and you've just got to get ready to play. This is a really good basketball team we're going to be playing. They've won 20 in a row for a reason. They've also played Baylor, they played West Virginia, they played UCLA, they played at Bonaventure. We played Bonaventure, also. There's some similarities into who we've played. They've played Baylor and at Bonaventure and we played Baylor and at Bonaventure, but Baylor is a 1-seed and Bonaventure isn't in the tournament. Q. You've been doing this for a few years. The three guys -- DOUG BRUNO: You can say 42 years, it's okay. It doesn't bother me. Marriage it's a good thing, you can be married 42 years. Our SWA out there just got engaged yesterday, so she's about to get married, so I've been coaching 42 years and married 42 years. You can say it. Q. So the three guys you had up here, two seniors, and you talked about being a senior and getting to do some of the things that this group has done for you and maybe some seniors in the past. Just kind of talk about maybe the two of them in particular and how special a four years it's been to have them. DOUG BRUNO: Well, Chanise Jenkins and Megan Podkowa are special, special players in the history of DePaul basketball. They're really unique and just great college basketball players, and they really have a great understanding of how to play basketball. They're understated in their games. I'm thrilled Chanise was named the Player of the Year because usually people that share the ball aren't the people that get those kinds of awards, and Megan Podkowa is a scholar athlete in the Big East, and both Jess and Megan are CoSIDA Academic All-Americans. I'm just really proud of what they've done in the program. We've been through a lot. I mean, those two seniors were freshmen when we were still in the Big East and played Louisville, so they played Louisville when they were freshmen. I remember we beat Louisville on January 5th up in our gym, and we came back down here for I think it was senior day and got whooped down here, so they've been in this arena. They've been here. We've been to the Muhammad Ali museum. They've done the Louisville thing. But more than just that, they've also been part of the Sweet 16 team that had one of the biggest upsets in NCAA women's basketball history when they beat No. 2 Duke at Duke, and Duke had not lost at home for 19 consecutive years, and they were part of that. They've really just done an awful lot for this program, both in the classroom and on the floor. They're both home-grown players. They both chose and saw what it was like and what they could do by saying home, so we're really, really proud of both Chanise and Megan, and just watching them mature from little girls in fourth and fifth grade in our camps and then come out and compete in high school. They went head-to-head against each other to get downstate, and then watching them play together, it's been a joy to watch them. They're two very special people. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|