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PAC-12 WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 2, 2017

Seattle, Washington

Cal - 71, USC - 58

THE MODERATOR: Welcome, and congratulations to the Cal Bears. We've got Coach Lindsay Gottlieb, Kristine Anigwe, and Mikayla Cowling. Again, we are streaming this live on Facebook, so keep that in mind.

Coach, an opening statement and then questions.

LINDSAY GOTTLIEB: Thanks to the Pac 12, obviously. It's really an honor to be in the conference tournament of the top women's basketball conference in the country. So thanks for all the work everybody is doing to put this on.

Always proud of our own team and to get a win. But it's hard not to think about the other team. They have a senior named Courtney Jaco that I've just enjoyed watching and admiring for four years. She's terrific. If this is the end of their season, just want to shout out to her for carrying herself like an amazing representative of the Pac 12 Conference. Great scholar athlete and a wonderful young woman. So just kudos to USC on their season and to Courtney.

Sometimes, I told the team, you see growth over long periods of time, and we're on a journey with this team. And sometimes you see it minute to minute. And I just thought our players understood at halftime what we had to do. They came out in the second half and did it under a lot of duress.

Kristine played like the best post player in the country. I think our guards stepped up and didn't turn the ball over in the second half. Mikayla was a leader, and we made the plays we needed to make against a really good team. This is a big win for us, a quality win, and it allow us to move on in this tournament.

Q. Coach, you guys get Oregon State again, and you were just there on Sunday and it didn't go as well as you'd like. But what do you take away from that game and getting an opportunity to play against them tomorrow?
LINDSAY GOTTLIEB: I didn't have to go up there to know they're really good. They're the champions of the toughest conference in the country. Scott does an incredible job. They have a great closer in Syd, they've got players making plays.

I think the benefit of having just played them is we have a really competitive group. Anytime we lose a game, I said five minutes later, let's go run it back, they would want to do that. We're looking forward to that opportunity. We know we have a lot to prove in this tournament, and no better chance to do that than against the No. 1 team in the conference. We want to make people remember that we're here too, and that's going to be a big challenge for us, but we're looking forward to it.

Q. Coach, you guys had several runs of your own, but until that final free throw, you couldn't really put them away. Were you pleased with that? Did you expect to maybe seal that a little earlier, or did you know they were just going to hang around?
LINDSAY GOTTLIEB: You know, obviously, the turnovers were sort of an issue the whole game. So I think we took that nine point lead, and that's maybe when Kristine picked up her third foul, and she was pretty dominant at that point.

But we knew they were going to continue to make a run. Everyone's playing for their season. And USC's really good. Again, this is a team that's beaten the top team in the conference. They have some great non conference wins. They had a good year. We knew they were going to keep coming at us. I felt like we were generally in control in the second half, but they weren't going away.

No, I'm not that surprised that they came back at us. Simon made some big shots. But I never felt like we weren't going to win it. And I thought our guard play stepped up in the second half. Like I said, it's one of those games where we had Kristine and they didn't. And as much as they tried, they didn't have much of an answer when we got the ball to her.

Q. Kristine, last game against USC, they did a better job holding you down. This game they couldn't do it. What was the difference?
KRISTINE ANIGWE: I just felt like my team did a good job getting me the ball. Mikayla had seven assists. Just knowing how to get me the ball and knowing where to get it. Kristen always does a good job being tough, pushing me out, and I was just really trying to play against that.

Everything started clicking in the second and third quarter, and we just got that push. I feel like we had control most of the game even though it didn't look like that on the scoreboard. We thought we were going to go home and try to do whatever it took to stay here.

Q. Mikayla, Coach talked about the guards playing well. Like at the end, USC put on a lot of pressure. You guys had to call two timeouts, but you guys seemed to stay calm, that's not been the case all seep long necessarily. So what was different this time?
MIKAYLA COWLING: We just didn't want to turn the ball over anymore. Towards the end of the game, you have critical plays, and it's important to make sure the ball isn't in their hands, obviously. We had to take a deep breath, calm down. Take control of the ball. We knew that the pressure was going to come. They were a really aggressive team. It's a matter of just fending it off and making sure you're tight with the passes and being mentally aware that the pressure's going to come.

Q. Last year you guys had a great run here. What is it about this tournament that brings out the best in you guys? You had a really good chance to get to the finals last season?
KRISTINE ANIGWE: I think it's the pressure knowing that you have to win or you go home. There's no second game. If you lose, you're out. So you have to do whatever it takes to stay here. You don't want to be the first team to leave. So that's what we always carry. We carry that swag, I guess. And we just try to do whatever it takes not to go home. It's really cool here. A really cool environment and just really fun.

Q. How did it feel to hit the one three pointer of the game?
LINDSAY GOTTLIEB: I want to know in their Cal USC game pool, who had Simon and Anigwe combined to go 2 for 4 from three? Raise your hand. She wants her percentage at 100%.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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