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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 5, 2017

Anthony Bozzella

Chicago, Illinois

DePaul - 92, Seton Hall - 60

ANTHONY BOZZELLA: I give congratulations to DePaul. I voted for Doug for Coach of the Year because he's done such a great job for many years, but this year I thought was his best job. He's taken the team that's been decimated by injuries, and obviously now January is back and really still kept them at the same level if not even a higher level. We know how great a team they are. We were fortunate to win some games against them the past two years, but they handled themselves so well.

Someone asked me, oh, it's a tough chore, you've got them. I was glad we played them because I was glad we won a game to play them because I wanted our kids to see what the best is like, and there's no fooling here. Taking nothing away from Creighton, which is an outstanding team, but DePaul is year-in and year-out the best team. If you want to be the best, which is obviously the goal and the standard that Seton Hall wants to have, then you have to play the best.

And this is where you were and so you can't go in the summer being like, oh, we only lost a quarterfinal game in some other bracket by a few here and there. No, no, we know we got our rear-end kicked by a really good team. So if we want to become a really good team, which is the people who are in our program, that's what their standard is, then we know what we have to do. And I was so, so happy to be in that bracket. And I was so happy to win yesterday because I wanted the opportunity for our kids to see what the best of the best is on this thing, because a lot of our kids weren't on the teams that went to the championship game and made two NCAAs in a row like we did.

So this is great. I give Doug a lot of credit. The score isn't indicative of what it could have been. He handled himself with class like their whole program is. I really wish them a lot of luck. Obviously you don't want to root for one team or another in a tournament like this, but I would love to see DePaul be successful so they can get a top 16 seed and let's get them on a run. We've had Syracuse and Washington maybe make a miracle run. I'd love to see this DePaul team because they really exemplify I teamwork. They've had a lot of individual injuries, and I'd love to see this team go really far.

Q. Coach, what are the positives that you take with you into the off-season with your program?
ANTHONY BOZZELLA: Well, again, we've played well the last few weeks, and obviously we won a game yesterday, which was important. I mean, that game was important, one, you want to get a win and, two, you want to advance in the Big East Tournament to play the best team. We did and while they dominated us today, I still think you see someone like Jayla Jones-Pack had 13 points and 5 rebounds, made some nice moves. Deja Winters got more experience, even though she didn't shoot the ball well, got more experience.

KK, even though she struggled against great women guards, which they are, she was able to see how strong she has to get and how hard she has to work in the off-season and do everything, and I wanted this to help us win the Big East Tournament either next year or the year after or the year after, and it will.

Q. This conference, if you could speak to it here, your third or fourth year now with this program and you've seen this league evolve here through four years, can you speak to where it stands and what's next for Big East women's basketball?
ANTHONY BOZZELLA: I think it's interesting, and I think obviously Creighton and Marquette will get into the tournament and Villanova and Georgetown and St. John's if they don't win this tournament will be in the NIT. I'm interested to see where it goes and how successful they are, because obviously we were in the tournament the last two years, and unfortunately couldn't win a game. We were in that eight-nine slot, and obviously St. John's got in the tournament last year and wasn't successful winning their game. So I'd like to see someone else win a game, whether it's a Creighton or Marquette or someone else who wins the tournament, Villanova or St. John's at this point.

So I think that'll show us, but I do think it shows that we have a competitive league. We have good teams, and very good coaches. I think you can take our 10 coaches and put them up against any coaches in the country. There's no question about that.

If we can get a little more TV for the league and get a little more publicity, I think that's been a big success with the men. They've done a great job on their things and we have a great partner in Fox and they're trying their best to get us more and more coverage, and I think if we can accomplish that we can even grow even more. But we're lucky to have a partner like Fox. We really are.

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