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NCAA WOMEN'S D-III BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

April 4, 2016

Indianapolis, Indiana

Thomas More - 63, Tufts - 51

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by head coach Jeff Hans student-athletes Abby Owings, Sydney Moss and Nikki Kiernan.

COACH HANS: What a game. Good game. I don't know if it was entirely well played by either one of us. But to be on this stage and to be able to come out with a hard-fought victory over a very good and well-coached team, just so proud of our players and the resilience that they showed when the game got tied late third quarter, early fourth, and we were able to get the stop, run out to the lead. And just we kept the momentum from there. And Madison Temple's big 3 was huge, put us up by 7. And Coach Berube called timeout, and we hung on and made plays when we needed to.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Abby, six and a half minutes left, tied at 49, the game at their pace and Moss gets a steal and a basket, you go on a 10-1 run. What was the difference from that 49 on point out?
ABBY OWINGS: Can you repeat it?

Q. The game was tied at 49 with six and a half minutes left and Moss gets a steal and a bucket, you guys go on a 10-0 run. What was the difference in the last six and a half minutes in this game?
ABBY OWINGS: Just created a lot of energy for us. That bucket was huge. And Syd made a lot of great plays throughout the game. It wasn't just that one. And I think with her making that basket, it created a lot of open things for us. And after that -- so, I mean, she did a great job and it just pushed the momentum forward.

Q. Everybody coming to the game talks about your offense, scoring 97 points a game, but really that last six minutes it seems like your defense took over. I think in that stretch they made five straight shots, you forced three straight turnovers. Is there a point when you collectively realize, okay, offense isn't going to win us this game, we need to find other ways to win, and how do you change maybe the emphasis of your style of play from one end to the other?
NIKKI KIERNAN: Yeah, I think our defense really like pushed our momentum. Once we started getting stops and stuff, we started all around playing a lot better.

ABBY OWINGS: Our defense feeds into our offense. We make good plays on defense, and our offensive game comes from there.

SYDNEY MOSS: Obviously agreeing with them. I think we all just had that look in our eyes. Okay. It's time to buckle down and get stops on defense and make plays on offense for each other, and obviously we did that.

Q. Sydney, 4-for-14 tonight, but you did a lot of other things, distributed the ball, rebounded. I noticed you dropped down on Baptista for a couple of possessions. Can you talk about how you saw the game tonight? It looked like you were taking a little more of a -- and I know you've been a distributor throughout the season, but more of a distributor tonight and not looking to score like last week or two weeks ago when you had 29 points in about 15 minutes.
SYDNEY MOSS: My team was making plays, and I realized that. And I wasn't hitting shots, and so I tried to find them if they came over and double teamed or if I had missed a shot the possession before, tried to get them open looks. And they're knocking them down. It wasn't really -- obviously it's not just about me. It's about the team, and obviously we did what we had to do to win.

Q. Similar for Sydney, you guys have balanced scoring today, you have four players averaging in double figures. Maybe, Abby, you can take this one, how do you guys not -- jealous is not the right word, but how do you feed off what Sydney does and not rely on her all the time?
ABBY OWINGS: She just creates a lot of energy for us. We know that she's going to make big plays in big games. So for us, it's our job to get her the ball, but tonight, if they're double teaming her or something like that, she's a great player and she's going to find us when we're open. But just like you saw tonight.

Q. Sydney, Abby is working well in the first half but seemed like you guys were starting to click in the second half when you was moved to the 4 position. Do you think that helped you guys to really push the game over?
SYDNEY MOSS: Yes, Alexa Santamaria kept hacking, kept fouling, and Coach took her out. I had to move down to the post to bring Olivia in. And like the game before and also all season I played a little bit of post, and Abby knows how to feed me, and if they came and double teamed or if I didn't have the shot kick it back out. And we just kind of ran through the offense. I mean, that's something we practiced, too. We do it all the time in practice and been playing with each other for two years. So it kind of just clicked.

Q. Nikki, I know last year in Final Four you were nervous. Tonight you played a All-American more or less to a standstill. Your rebounding was really impressive. Could you talk a little bit about how different this year felt for you as compared to last year?
NIKKI KIERNAN: I was a lot less nervous this year. I think it helped a lot in practice. I go against Shelby Rupp, and she's pretty big, too. I try and make her better, and I feel like she makes me better too.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach.

Q. You said yesterday that you thought if you got to 60 points you'd be pretty good. Did you tell your team to stop there? 63. It seemed like you got just enough.
COACH HANS: What did you say before 6:49, six minutes 49, it was 49-49, right? I was praying we'd get to 60 at that point in time, to be honest with you. Because we weren't shooting the ball well. They had some momentum the last four or five minutes of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth. To be honest, I was about to take a timeout. We got the steal and run-out, and we were able to make a few plays. And I thought our defense did a very good job of locking them down a little bit to stop their scoring.

Q. We talked about the four players average double figures and all four hit it tonight, but in a game, especially a game like this, this style of game, how important were the contributions of Olivia Huber, Alexa, Sam diving on the floor, making those hustle plays and really defensive rebounding, the little things that some shows up in the box score and some doesn't, but it seems like in this kind of game those players really made the difference for you?
COACH HANS: I thought that everybody that got in helped in some way. It wasn't maybe an offensive basket or an assist or something like that. But it was rebounding. Olivia has eight or nine rebounds, eight rebounds, six of them defensive, two big offensive rebounds on the night and a steal, a deflection.

And that's what those guys have done all year. Offensive firepower comes from the four -- Syd, Abby, Nikki, Madison. But it's a team. And everybody's going to do what they need to do for us to be successful.

Q. Coach, Abby started kind of rough the first half. What conversation did you have at halftime to settle her down, because the second half she really picked up her game?
COACH HANS: You don't want to know what I said. I cannot say it. Cannot repeat. It was all of them. I thought we made a lot of bad plays in the first half. Especially in the first quarter. We looked like we had not been here before. We looked like the stage was almost too big for us.

And that's the environment. But we fought through it. I thought when we were able -- when we had to go small, a little smaller, put Syd at the four, like you asked me before, we were able to spread the floor a little bit and start attacking the basket and get to the free-throw line. Those last two, three minutes of the second quarter we settled in to the what we needed to do.

And from then on I thought we were pretty good. We just missed a lot of shots in the third quarter. Couldn't get anything to fall, but we kept defending. Even when it got tied, when they tied it up there early in the fourth, we kept defending, defending, making them grind just like they were making us. And we kept making those plays.

Q. Could you give us your evaluation of the change to having the Division II and III championship games in conjunction with the Final Four Division I? Do you like it, or not, and why?
COACH HANS: Love it. I'm not going to go with like it. I'm going to go with love it. And I don't know if it will happen again. I hope it does, because whatever teams can get here, it's a great experience, for them to be able to be on that stage and that environment. I don't know what the attendance was, 6400 people here to watch a Division III women's basketball game is outstanding.

And for our kids, Tufts players to be able to experience that environment and everything that's happened all weekend long that they've been able to be a part of and be involved in, there's nothing better. There's not a better feeling.

And, I mean, I know it's easy for me to say now, win or lose. Because of just it's once-in-a-lifetime for these guys. And so I hope it can continue to be done. But that's up to NCAA and WBCA. And if we can, it would be great for whoever can make it.

Now the two-week layoff is difficult. I thought you saw a little nervousness early with that part of it. But that's basketball. It's something we had to do, and both teams were that way. It wasn't like there was an advantage for somebody, Tufts over us or us over Tufts.

Q. Now, obviously the stage this year is a little bit different with all the divisions here, but for you guys, this championship emotionally what was different, what feels different than winning the second one as compared to the first one last year?
COACH HANS: It's sweet. It is sweet. Just to be able to have that target on your back all year long through our nonconference schedule, through the NCAA Tournament of everybody, we want to take everybody's best shot. We know that. And our players and our guys rose to the challenge every time.

And I thought that showed tonight when it got tied late and we were able to get on that run. Just that resilience, like I said, it's big. And every day in practice of competing against each other and knowing and looking forward to having opportunity to get back there, because you want to get back there.

There's outside pressure from everybody. I mean, honestly, we heard it all year long: Get back to Indy. Get back to Indy. Capital, semifinals. Everything is two hours. This and Capital were closer to any non-conference games we played all year long, or any game, period, because of the conference, the way it's set up.

So for that to happen and then our players to be able to do stuff, do what we did and handle all the outside, because we don't talk about it. We don't want it to happen. We just want to work to get better. And they handle themselves very well.

Q. Moss finishes her career two-time Tournament MVP, three-time consensus All-American, leading scorer in the PAC. We talked about where you and I think she stands in all time. Now her career is over. Asked you yesterday to write the script for when her final game is over. Now that it's complete, kind of write the final sentence in what her career was?
COACH HANS: Sydney Moss is a winner. There's no doubt about it. She's a great kid. And all the pressure gets put on her, of who she is and where she's from and what she's about and the way she carries herself on and off the court.

And if I could write a little better, she would have made a few more shots tonight, made a couple more 3s, made that little runner in the lane right there. Because she was frustrated with that part of it.

But she never stopped playing. I mean, almost a double double, again, this year, I know she had triple double in the championship, but one rebound shot of a double double I think. And she's a winner. We love her.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

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