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PAC-12 WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 2, 2017June DaughertyKayla WashingtonAlexys SwedlundSeattle, Washington THE MODERATOR: Welcome to Washington State. Coach June Daugherty, Alexys Swedlund, and Caila Hailey. Coach, an opening statement, and then we'll take questions. JUNE DAUGHERTY: I know, it's just one of those regular old games. Another day in the park. No, I was just so proud of our kids. First of all, Colorado had a great game plan. They started out like gangbusters. You know, we were down early, and things weren't looking too good, but we were able to turn up our defense in that second quarter, and I think we held them to eight points. We started to get into our running game a little bit, and that gave us some confidence. You know, this kid to my right decided to do a highlight reel all in one quarter, I think it was. And that was exciting. But it's -- you know, you look at the stats, and kind of scratch your head and say, how did we win this? How did we pull it out? And, you know, being plus 18 on the glass is just glares. It just glares. That was certainly a team effort all the way around. Caila got going. Caila Hailey got going down the stretch. She's one of our -- maybe our most veteran player right now in the program, and it's great to see her be able to just kind of take over and put the team on her back, whether it's the free throws at the end or the lay-ups and the stops defensively. But, again, Colorado, great game plan. Gosh, those kids are tough, and they're a young group, too, so we give a lot of credit to JR and her crew. Q. Coach, what adjustments did you have to make after you trailed early? JR PAYNE: Well, I just didn't think we were in the arena. At home a week ago Saturday night we played the same team. We started out with a 16-0 run. It was kind of a reverse script for us. We used a lot of -- you know, two timeouts in that first quarter, and just reminded them that we're going to be okay. Just get back to what's been our staple all year, and that's playing some great defense. Play as a team, play for each other. I think that was the biggest thing is they just settled down, relaxed a little bit and said, you know, yeah, this is the biggest stage we've been on all year, but we're going to do it for each other. Q. Alexys and Kayla, both of you set career highs today. What were you seeing on the offensive end that allowed you to have the night you did? ALEXYS SWEDLUND: Well, Kayla's a great passer, so she was seeing me, and I think everyone saw Caila, too. She moves so well off the ball and she's really dependable. When she sets the tone bringing the ball up the court sometimes, we find her. KAYLA WASHINGTON: I think their trapping kind of gave us a lot of opportunities to kind of break on them. I think that's where a lot of our baskets came from. Just in transition, looking up the court, finding each other on the outside, breaking, coming down, getting lay-ups. I think that's kind of what gave us that momentum when we were down early in the first quarter. Q. Perseverance is a word that gets used a lot in sports, but this year a little bit more than normal. If you could just talk about the perseverance that team has faced all years, especially with the injuries and some of the tough losses you've had, where this kind of fits in tonight as far as persevering? KAYLA WASHINGTON: I think, like you said, we went through a lot of injuries, and we have to keep trying to find ourselves after each injury. When we lost we Lou, we had to find ourselves. When we lost (indiscernible) we had to find ourselves again. And then we kind of found a niche, and then we lost Chanelle, and so then we had to go back to the drawing board and say: What do we have to do? What do we have to fix to get back on the board. A lot of us stepped up in that area, and now we have so much confidence. I have so much confidence in my teammates. We've grown so much. We've come so far, and to see how we're playing now with everything we've been through, it just shows. I mean, it goes towards our coaching and how great of coaches they are. ALEXYS SWEDLUND: Yeah, I can piggyback off of that. Our coaches believed in us. Win or lose, they were there the whole way. So I think the coaches really helped us believe in us, and obviously we believed in one another, and that really helped seal the deal. Q. Coach, what are the things you take away from tonight, and what do you still need to work on for Stanford tomorrow? JUNE DAUGHERTY: Wow, didn't even give me half an hour to enjoy this (laughing). Back to work. We've got to take care of the basketball. Obviously we turned it over way too many times. I think there were times tonight where offensively we didn't move the ball the way we wanted to move the ball coming in as a game plan. So that's definitely an area that we can improve upon. But, you know, these kids are great, and they work so hard and they believe in each other so much. They know that all year it's been our defense. You know, so it's just making sure we understand the scout for Stanford, and obviously we don't have a lot of energy to go through practice, but to get that down and get the game plan down and go out there and continue to compete for each other, compete for our lone senior with Eva, that's important to us. It's really important because I know you hear family and all that, but this group is as tight of family as you'll find in women's basketball, I think, anywhere. We just want to keep playing for Eva. That's really important for us, as well as the rest of the kids. We also are playing for the kids who can't play this year. You know, with Cam and Chanelle and Lou and Bobby out, they're great cheerleaders, and they've been great leaders for us. But they're dying to play and stuff. So these guys, you know, they're playing hard for them as well. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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