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NCAA WOMEN'S D-III BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

April 4, 2016

Indianapolis, Indiana

Thomas More - 63, Tufts - 51

THE MODERATOR: Joining us now from Tufts, head Coach Carla Berube, student-athletes Michela North and Maura Folliard.

COACH BERUBE: Well, not the outcome we were hoping for. I thought it was, from my vantage point, a great basketball game. You know, hopefully the fans enjoyed it. We're very -- we feel very fortunate to have played in this game tonight. And thanks to the NCAA again for having us and the city of Indianapolis. It was an amazing experience.

I think my team battled. We didn't give up. Made it a game in the fourth quarter by making plays and just playing tough basketball the way we have all season.

And then down the stretch, Thomas More made the big plays. They've got big-time players, and I think it was some of their so-called non-stars that really shined. Temple had a great game. Kiernan had a great game. And they were tough defensively. Made everything really hard for us.

But, again, I think it was a hard-fought battle and I'm really proud of my Jumbos and thankful for this experience.

Q. Michela, the game seemed to be held at your pace. You held Moss to 4-14 shooting. Was it a matter of their defense or just not enough of your offense? Or what do you think was the difference?
MICHELA NORTH: A combination of both. A lot of our shots weren't falling and a lot of theirs were, and they outrebounded us on the offensive and defensive end. They got after it on both ends, and things were working for them.

Q. Michela, first half guys were going to your sets very easily. The second half guys seemed like -- through your offensive progress it was difficult. What adjustment did Thomas More make to make your offense stagnant?
MICHELA NORTH: I think they're just working really hard to make sure we didn't get open. I guess they were denying any passes inside, making it hard for my guards to even look into me. So they were making every shot difficult, and it was hard to get any shots off. And they weren't really falling for us. So they made it hard to score.

Q. Do you think that the level of play that we saw in the first quarter was the level we needed to see throughout the whole game to win? And what prevented that from happening? Was it foul trouble? Did the team step up like you would have expected?
MICHELA NORTH: Yeah, I mean, we came out with a lot of energy in the first quarter. I think we had a 17-11 lead. We would have liked to push that. But they kind of crawled their way back, kept scoring, couldn't really get a stop for a while. And they just go on runs. They're an emotional team. They had a huge fan base here cheering them on. And that's what they play off of.

I think we needed to come out with that energy every quarter. But it didn't really seem like we did. In the third quarter we outscored them I think by a point, and I wish we could have kept up the energy for the entire game. But I guess that's not really what happened.

MAURA FOLLIARD: I agree. I think our defense just needed to really box out. I think them getting on the boards as much as they did really affected us and they were able to get easy second-chance opportunities after we worked really hard to stop them the first time. So I think that made a big difference in the game.

Q. Maura, it was tied at 49, Moss makes a steal and the layup and they go on a 10-0 run. Were you out of energy at that point, or what happened in the last six and a half minutes there?
MAURA FOLLIARD: I wouldn't say we were out of energy. I know a lot of people were in foul trouble, and I think people's kind of attitude towards everything was kind of down. But we just needed to pick it up and look for a spark or anything like that. And shots were falling for them and not for us.

Q. As a senior, what has this NCAA Tournament meant to you and what can you learn from and teach the younger underclassmen behind you?
MAURA FOLLIARD: Yeah, this has been an absolutely amazing experience. We can't thank the NCAA enough for everything they've done for us. Treating us like we're absolute queens.

I think for the underclassmen it really gives them motivation to keep doing well in the tournament as time goes on. And as a senior, I just had to meet Emma Roberson, Nicole Brooks, Michelle Wu, had to give it our all the entire tournament and just work as hard as we could so we could hopefully inspire our underclassmen to keep doing the same in the years to come.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach.

Q. Coach, down the stretch -- actually, before I get to that, the foul shooting, very disparate. They went 24 times. You guys went seven. That almost seems like -- I guess, was it tightly called, or just your thoughts on that?
COACH BERUBE: That's what the box score says. Yeah. It was difficult. It was difficult. You know, we pride ourselves on defense. We played tough defense. We play aggressive defense. And when you're playing a great offensive team, you know, sometimes it's called tight. Sometimes it's not.

Tonight it was pretty tight. Having Melissa Baptista on the bench for most of the game was tough for us. She's a big piece of our team. Having Emma Roberson out with two fouls really early, it's not easy. I thought Michelle Wu and Maura Folliard, our two seniors, really stepped up in there in place of them and made big plays for us.

And so that's who we are as well. If someone's not having a good game, someone's in foul trouble, someone else is going to step up. But them making 17 free throws to our four free throws, it's a big disparity. But those were probably a lot of fouls. It was called tight.

Q. Carla, they obviously had a big crowd, but you had, it seemed like, a who's who in the audience, Geno and Rebecca and Svetlana, and I could go on and on. What did it mean to you to have all those?
COACH BERUBE: I didn't see them. I saw a few of them at the end still cheering for us. It means a lot. It means that once a family member, always a family member of the UConn club. And I'm so happy that they were able to come and watch us play and hopefully feel proud that one of their members has brought their team to this stage and to the championship. I'm thankful to have them in the crowd.

I do think we had a pretty good crowd ourselves of Jumbo Nation, if you saw them out there. So I feel very, very thankful and fortunate for all of them being here.

Q. Last year's score against them in the semifinals, almost exactly the same. Can you talk a little bit about -- I know different teams, different players, but talk a little bit about how this year was different from last year. And unrelated second question, can you talk a little bit about why Abby Owings is so hard to defend?
COACH BERUBE: Yeah, I do think it was a different game. I think we took care of the ball a lot better than we did last year. So we were -- I think Lauren Dillon did a great job running our offense, taking care of the ball in the press.

Then it was hard to execute versus them. Like I said yesterday in the press conference, it's a very good defensive team. I don't think they get enough credit for their defense because everybody talks about the 90 points. They talk about Sydney Moss. But Abby Owings makes them go. Got out into transition a bit. She got to the rim on us. I'm not sure where our help defense was. But she's a dynamic player herself. The two of them are just phenomenal players at any level.

Really I thought it was their role players that really made the difference in this year's game. And, yeah, I knew we needed to score more than 50 points to win, and it just didn't happen. I actually thought that we could have defended a lot better, too. We defended Moss well. She missed some shots. But way too many second-chance opportunities for them, whether it be loose balls or offensive rebounds for them, you know, I don't think we did as good a job putting a body on them as we have been doing. But like I said, they made the plays when they needed to.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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