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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 3, 2017Kevin McGuffShayla CooperKelsey MitchellIndianapolis, Indiana Ohio State - 99, Northwestern - 68 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Ohio State. Q. Kelsey, you don't get to take many fourth quarters off. What was going right for you out there tonight? KELSEY MITCHELL: It was going right for our team. I think we jumped out on it aggressive on the defensive end. Put us in a good position to take off in the right time and get ourselves right. And throughout the course of the game, I think our defense stayed hammer down, not frustrated and I think it helped us. Q. You forced, I think, 17 first half turnovers and it was resulting in points in the other direction. Was that the point of emphasis, just coming up to set up the press early? KELSEY MITCHELL: I think Coach McGuff put a big emphasis on returning to our defense, which is what it's called, making sure that was really effective, make sure we apply pressure when the ball was put in and when that happened and we were able to get turnovers and get deflections and stuff like that, it helped us throughout the course of the game. That was all. Q. Kelsey or Shayla, I saw intensity from the get-go even though you had a four-day layoff. No Mavunga and the fact you're playing the ninth seed. Can you talk about that? SHAYLA COOPER: Coach really put out an emphasis of coming out strong from the gate. Like you said we had four days off, a lot of time in the gym to get better. And we took this game as a step forward to get better. Q. Shayla, was there a point in this game, seemed pretty early on looked, like, you guys knew you had them tired and they played yesterday and you didn't. At what point did you realize we can kind of run away with this thing? SHAYLA COOPER: From the beginning of every game. It was the pressure -- I think the defense pressure had a big emphasis on them. We wanted to get out running because we knew they played yesterday. Q. Shayla, when you have a player like Coffey who is a great rebounder, great scorer, how much pride do you take in pulling down boards and battling down low with her, especially with Stephanie out? SHAYLA COOPER: I took a lot of pride on the defensive end, especially playing against a great player like that. As you said she's great offensive player defensive player and great rebounding. So I wanted to make sure I kept my body on her at all times. Q. Kelsey, with regard to Coach wants you to play faster and sure looked like you did it today. Talk about that. KELSEY MITCHELL: It's not like it's a good or bad thing that I play fast. Sometimes it's bad. Sometimes it's good. In this case I think it was really effective knowing that a lot of teams don't like it and I think we're a benefit that have a lot of players that want to keep a hot pace and a high energy, and I think running the floor offensively and defensively is good for myself and my teammates and our program. When we play against opponents that don't like to run or aren't comfortable with that I think we have to take that and utilize that and make it our positive. Q. Talked a little bit about defense, but I didn't see anybody this year that played inbound defense like Asia Doss did. Talk about that. She was awesome at that. COACH MCGUFF: She did a great job guarding the basket. Northwestern is effective executing out of bound plays. They have to guard the basket. She did a great job guarding the basket. Two nice steals. We went over it. It's one thing to go over it, but it's another thing to have a player understand what you're trying to accomplish, and she did a great job of it. Q. Could you talk about what Makayla Waterman and Alexa gave you off the bench today? COACH MCGUFF: They were both understanding -- I think our bench in general gave us a huge lift today. As we mentioned earlier we wanted to utilize our depth and the pace of the game at which we play to play against a Northwestern team who had played a hard-fought game yesterday and you can't do that unless you have people off the bench in particular. I thought KK and Alexa were excellent. Q. What in particular about the threats do you think really flummoxed them today, was there any one aspect to it? COACH MCGUFF: Our initial pressure was really good. And we wanted to make them play 94 feet and try to wear on them. And the only way that really works is if when they inbound the ball we get initial pressure and we got what we wanted today. And I think that really set the tone for everything else. Q. What does it say about your team? You scored 99 today. You tied your own record for most points scored in the Big Ten Tournament. What does it say about your team that you can do something like this against a team that in the last couple of years has played you pretty tough? COACH MCGUFF: No, we played a good team today Northwestern has a great basketball team they're talented and well coached. I think it just speaks to the fact that we have continued -- I think in the last month we've gotten better. We've stayed committed to who we are from a style of play standpoint. And that's with relentless pace and full court pressure. I think that was evident today. And like I said you can't do that if you don't have the right players and you don't have depth. We've got that and I think as long as we continue to stay committed to that good things are going to happen for us. Q. You guys had 11 turnovers in the first half, I guess. But you only had two points off of those turnovers and you were killing them in transition, what does it say about your team they were able to get back into defense? COACH MCGUFF: We were committed to transition defense. I think of those 11 I felt like we had all 11 in the first two minutes. We couldn't get a shot up. But we were a little anxious, I think, to really impose our will on the game and we got a little sloppy to start. But once we settled down we were fine. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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