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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 4, 2017Kevin McGuffShayla CooperLinnae HarperIndianapolis, Indiana Purdue - 71, Ohio State - 60 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Ohio State, Coach McGuff and student-athletes Linnae Harper and Shayla Cooper. Questions. Q. Shayla, obviously a tough loss. Moving forward for this team, especially as the lone senior what's the message to your team after a loss like this? SHAYLA COOPER: Locker room I sent them a couple of text messages, let them know how important they are to this team, every individual push forward and get ready for the next game. Q. Shayla, how difficult was it to, to contain Ashley on both sides of the court? SHAYLA COOPER: She's a great player. She's a great player, but we had to dig in a little bit more on the defensive side. Q. Shayla, you had nine points in the fourth quarter and it seemed like you were really vocal as a leader too sometimes like physically putting players in the right position. What's going through your mind in that situation? SHAYLA COOPER: Just trying to step up and do everything possible to get my team the win. Q. Coach, obviously anytime a game goes like this it's disappointing. What were they doing and did they show you anything you didn't expect to see from them? COACH MCGUFF: Yeah, Purdue played great. They deserved to win the game. They played really, really hard. Their defense was -- really bothered us. They played great zone the whole game. I thought we played hard and we just didn't play well. So that was the difference. They played better than we did. It wasn't our effort or our want-to or anything like that. They just played better than we did. Q. You played like legitimately great defense at times, honestly like the whole game. Were you just kind of waiting at some point maybe for the averages to work out and you start hitting shots? COACH MCGUFF: Yeah, we didn't hit many shots. And part of that had to do with their defense. They were really effective. Also I think one of the keys to the game, too, was we didn't play well from behind. Once they got a lead we seemed to get out of doing the things that we've done all year and allowed us to be very efficient on offense, and we were rushing shots and taking quick, contested shots instead of just showing a little more patients and a little more trust in the execution. Q. What does this mean going forward? Because you still have the regular season championship and you're highly thought of nationally? COACH MCGUFF: Well, this is going to tell us a lot about our team, because we're either going to learn from this and take some things here and make sure we're a better team the next time we play or you can sit around and pout about it and not get better. So we have a great opportunity to go to the NCAA Tournament and make some noise. And this could be something that kind of resets us and allows us to refocus and really energizes us as we head to the NCAA Tournament. And that's on us. That's what we have to make sure happens. Q. Kelsey had a career low nine points today. What do you do offensively when she's not hitting? COACH MCGUFF: She didn't. She didn't have a good game. She's a spectacular player, one of the very best in college basketball and tonight wasn't her night. But no one's going to work harder. No one's going to be in the gym more than she will. And she's going to make sure that her having an off night doesn't happen again this year, I can assure you of that. Q. How do you go about going over the next week and a half? And I think you said you expect to have Stephanie back. How do you kind of work her back in and fit her back into the rotation? COACH MCGUFF: She's making great progress. We're very confident we'll have her when the NCAA Tournament rolls around. We'll work her back in. I think in her absence Alexa and Tori have done a great job. That's another thing that we can be stronger with really having a lot of depth with our post players. A lot of depth overall, obviously, but to add another player like Stephanie will be a huge asset for us. Q. Linnae, what's the team feeling right now? Are you angry? Just what the emotions are. LINNAE HARPER: This is really a tough loss. It's not a good feeling. But one thing I do know is that we're ready to get back into the gym this coming week and just work on little things, watch film and make sure that we grow from this game. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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