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NCAA WOMEN'S D-II BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

April 3, 2016

Indianapolis, Indiana

THE MODERATOR: Joining us from Alaska-Anchorage, head Coach Ryan McCarthy, student-athletes Megan Mullings, Jenna Buchanan and Keiahnna Engel.

COACH MCCARTHY: We're excited to play on this stage, with the Division I and Division III teams here, just a celebration of women's basketball on the biggest stage. So I know for our ladies we haven't been treated like this ever, and so just a special opportunity and a special experience for our program and to be able to represent the state of Alaska, we know who we're playing for. And we take great pride in that.

THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. Question for Jenna, I know Coach talked about Galena and talk to us about the differences adapting from village ball to Division II college basketball?
JENNA BUCHANAN: Yeah, it was pretty different my freshman year, I was lucky enough to get a lot of playing time, so I was able to kind of adapt a lot easier in that sense. And so it's gotten easier over the years, for sure.

Q. Coach, can you talk about what it's like to recruit up in Alaska, and how you get players of quality to compete for a national championship?
COACH MCCARTHY: We're fortunate to be in a state where it doesn't get a lot of exposure. So usually unless it's like a Pac-12 level player, we get first dibs. At least to pitch them to stay in state. And a lot of student-athletes up there want to get out. And so we pitch really hard to just represent your home state. And recruiting, I think I might have the best stories of any coach in the country, because a lot of the places where I have to go in state, there's no road to get there. And you're either taking a boat up the Yukon River or ferry down to Kodiak or flying in a bush plane to get to where Jenna lives. I've done clinics up in Point Hope where it's 3:00 in the morning and kids are still jumping on trampolines on dirt roads and riding in an ATV from their roadway, which they call an airport to the gym. So locally that's what it's like.

And to be able to recruit kids from warm weather like Megan and Kiki from Honolulu and some of those warm-weather states, just pitching them the fact that people care. Not many Division II schools get the attendance that we get. We get -- this is normal for us, every Tuesday we're in a press conference. If I sign someone for our program, it's going to be on the front page of the Anchorage Daily News, or Alaska Dispatch News I think is what it's called now. But their life is in a fishbowl. If they want to matter and if they want people to care, Alaska is definitely a place where they get to play on that stage.

Q. I know we've talked about this a little bit, but taking this team over four years ago in the state that it was in, being here, is this what you imagined four years later?
COACH MCCARTHY: Nope. It was a mess when I got there. I was the third choice. When it opened up the first time, I applied for it, and at the time I was 29 years old and had one year of head coaching experience, which we were 14 and 13 and I coached seven freshmen at a school with six scholarships in Napa, Idaho. And I didn't know the severity of the NCAA violations. I didn't know we were that close to the death penalty as far as all this goes.

And I was really fortunate to inherit, you know, players like Jenna Buchanan and Jessica Madison who just bought in right away and have a group that we were able to pull off a winning season with 17 and 10 and go get two intermural players so we could practice five-on-five.

So looking back, it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, that was a mess but at the time I embraced it. I was 29 and I was a head coach and so I was floating. I was at a school I grew up watching. I grew up watching the Great Alaska Shootout, always wanted to be a Seawolf my whole life. It was an opportunity.

The reason I chose my school to play, because UAA didn't recruit me and I wanted to beat them. So it was a great opportunity for me to come back and to be able to represent Alaska and raise my kids there and just real blessed.

Q. Can you explain where the mayhem idea came from? And also noticed that virtually everyone on your roster plays double-digit minutes a game. Looks like you -- I assume the philosophy has come at them in waves?
COACH MCCARTHY: Yeah, it wasn't always mayhem. I think the first year there was less of that. It was kind of grind-it-out basketball. But it kind of developed over time. Our philosophy is to relentlessly attack our opponents on the offense and defensive end. And that is in a press we fall back into defense called the amoeba defense that Jerry Tarkanian made famous at UNLV.

No secrets to what we do. We're not going to change anything for this game or anything like that. We come at them at waves, and our philosophy is you have to play as hard as you possibly can. We're in a situation where we do have 12 players that can play. They can play basketball. Our 12th player is the person that gets the least amount of minutes, is a transfer from Penn State who won two national championships at Trinity Valley.

So I think most importantly we have some winners on our team but who working hard isn't anything new. And we get to work every day in a facility that's really easy to work hard in. So just to be able to compete like that I think it takes a lot out of you, and you can only go three or four minutes at a time like that.

Q. Coach was mentioning it's like living in a fishbowl with all the attention you guys get in Anchorage, can you each talk about why you chose to play at Alaska and what is unique about it living and playing up there?
MEGAN MULLINGS: I guess I chose to come to Alaska because I was told I would make a difference. There would be little girls and little boys who come to our games, they know who we are and know our names. They're really excited when they see you at Fred Meyer or at the gas station, it's weird being in the fish bowl because everyone knows who you are but it's a unique and rare opportunity to have like a very strong, positive influence on these kids.

JENNA BUCHANAN: I chose to play at Anchorage because I'm from Alaska, and I take great pride being an Alaskan. I thought it was cool to play at a school and represent a whole state.

KEIAHNNA ENGEL: I chose to come back home and play because I had the basketball champion and basketball (indiscernible) men and women. And it's an honor to be home because I'm from there (indiscernible).

Q. I think you handled it okay, but what's the travel like? Because it looks like in the conference, looks like there are very few, if any, close games?
COACH MCCARTHY: Our conference for our level I think is pretty extreme travel. I'm not sure, maybe other than the PacWest that's in our region, they go to Hawaii. But we went to Hawaii too. So I don't think anyone travels like us. But it is -- it's something that you have to stay disciplined with. We always have a pretty detailed itinerary, have rules that they have to finish a water bottle by the time they get off the plane. Even for this we were waking them up early during the week to get them used to the Eastern Time Zone because it's a four-hour difference for us.

And so it is tough and going in to little towns like Billings, Montana and Monmouth, Oregon, and places like that you just can't fly in there. You've got a little bit of travel after that, too. So I think just staying disciplined and embracing who we are. It's one of those teams you either love us or hate us. So we definitely like that role.

Q. Megan, during the start of the season, you were on the GMAC podcast who were talking about your experience, your goal was to be a teacher in Alaska. For the benefit of us maybe not familiar with that part of the story, can you go the a little bit more detail on that?
MEGAN MULLINGS: Gosh, that was a really long time ago. I'm currently majoring in English. Originally the plan was for me to be a secondary education teacher. And when asked where I would like to teach, I wasn't really sure at first.

And like I said, living in Alaska you get to meet so many people. And just being around these kids we do a lot of work with younger kids through our camps over the summers and we do a lot of just different programs with as many kids as we can to try and get our influence out there as much as possible.

So getting to work with these kids, see them in the classrooms, whatnot, is a unique opportunity and Alaska has such a very unique culture, and it's one that I just don't really think I'm ready to leave yet.

Q. Growing up in Alaska, can you talk about what your basketball life was like and your life in general in terms of trying to find competition when you were younger and getting noticed and having people fly in to see you, and how was that?
JENNA BUCHANAN: So I live in a community of 400 people. You can only fly in and out. There is no road system. And so I think I got most exposure by playing AAU basketball. And the community of Galena supports me a lot. We did a lot of fundraising to go to basketball camps. You just can't find competition in the community itself. I did a lot of traveling outside of state and was -- I think I spent all summer on an AAU team travel to go get that experience.

KEIAHNNA ENGEL: For me, I'm from Anchorage. So the competition in high school is pretty good growing up. But for the summer I had to travel to Seattle (indiscernible) they lived there and played while there. That's how it helped me get exposure throughout the summer.

Q. You guys are really physical defensively. What kind of problems do you think that can set up for LCU on Monday?
COACH MCCARTHY: I hope it creates a lot of problems. Yeah, we play kind of a physical brand of basketball. I think it's because we're able to play with a great amount of energy, because everyone pretty much stays fresh the whole time, if things are going our way.

But Lubbock is a long team that can really execute in the half court. They have great length. I think they're skilled in a lot of positions. I think that if we're able to apply the pressure we want, hopefully it becomes a game of our bench against theirs, and I like our chances. If we can stay disciplined defensively, make some shots to get into our press and really control the tempo, then I think that's at least good for us.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

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