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PAC-12 WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 5, 2017

Seattle, Washington

Stanford - 48, Oregon State - 43

THE MODERATOR: Good evening, Oregon State. Thank you, everyone, for being here. Again, this is being streamed live on Facebook. We have Scott Rueck, Sydney Wiese, and Mikayla Pivec. Coach, I'll let you open and we'll go from there.

SCOTT RUECK: I thought Stanford played great tonight. They're obviously a great team. In all three games, it's been really tough and really similar. This one is no exception. Saw them get down last night and come back and dominate the last three quarters.

Today, I wouldn't say they quite dominated, but they made the plays, and they were in control more so in those final three quarters. So I knew this team is proud, they're going to make a run at us.

So this group, I couldn't say enough about this team. To be a significant player down all weekend, and to play three games in three days, you know, it's almost unhealthy, to be honest, for everyone, let alone four. So I was just proud of the grit and the heart they showed to give themselves a chance to win tonight.

There's big things ahead for this group, and I couldn't be prouder of them and prouder of Beaver Nation for another incredible showing here in Seattle.

Q. Coach, talk about how having Katie in the game was, and how much you think that played out?
SCOTT RUECK: Yeah, it was absolutely huge. Katie's become one of our best guard defenders, and against this team, you need that. You need that size and that length and that experience.

You know, she's been in all the wars, you know. She hit three threes against UConn last year in the Final Four, so she's seen it all. Hit three big threes last week against Stanford.

So not having her all week hurt our rotation. It burned people out a little bit. We felt that tonight, no doubt. We felt that. You know, you're in a championship game that you want, so you're going to give it everything you've got, and then pretty soon that's dry. Not an excuse, it's just a reality of the situation without her. So she has so much experience and she would have played a big role this week, let alone tonight.

Q. Sydney, what did Stanford do tonight to particularly throw you off balance and try to get threes up, going 2 of 9 from the floor?
SYDNEY WIESE: They have really aggressive guards. And I think the post too. Every time there was an on-ball, there was at least one, maybe two defenders that were on my hip. So, I mean, Stanford's such a good defensive team. They scheme people. They know exactly what we're trying to do. So, I mean, whoever has the ball, they're going to make it tough for us to score.

Q. Scott, you knew offense was going to be hard to come by. Would you have imagined that especially over the second half, that it would have been that tough to come by?
SCOTT RUECK: I thought it was just the same. I thought that's where we were kind of hitting the wall, I believe. So there was a combination of the two. The they did a good job. I didn't think we -- we had a tougher time inside than I was expecting. They did a nice job keeping us off the O-boards, which I thought was going to be a big factor in this game, and credit them for that.

But nothing surprised me, to be honest. We just didn't knock down some shots that we needed to.

Q. Scott, you mentioned missing Katie and what a factor that was. How about when Mik picked up her second foul, with how thin your rotation was to begin with?
SCOTT RUECK: Yeah, then we went with a little less experience on the floor, no question. I thought that both Kat and Taylor did a great job for us during that stretch. But we had total control of this game when she picked up that second one, and we were flowing so well offensively with that group.

Mik is somebody that can play 40 easily, if you need her to. I mean, we've got a cross-country champion in Mikayla. So I thought that was a factor, for sure. Yeah, I mean, she's never had a second foul in the first half this year, and Gaby hadn't until last night. So we've had a couple weird things in the last couple nights in regards to adversity.

Q. Mikayla, first Pac-12 tournament under your belt now. What do you think about the experience?
MIKAYLA PIVEC: From what Sydney and Scott had shared with me before, how tough it is to play three games in three days, I got the full experience. And we were hoping for a different result, but I'm proud of how we battled today.

Q. Sydney, after UCLA -- we were in here for the UCLA press conference, and they were very emotional right now. I'm sure this still stings right now. But they said they would let that moment teach them how to play in March. What is the similarity with that for you?
SYDNEY WIESE: Yeah, absolutely. I think we have a lot to be proud of. No one could have predicted us to have made it this far, and I think that fueled us throughout the season. Of course this hurts, it stings. We want to be out there right now celebrating, but there is still a lot of basketball left to be played and there are a lot of lessons that we can take from this game and the whole weekend in general.

So I think we gather ourselves, we galvanize our group and come back together. We realize that there's still a lot of battles left out there. So we're going to do what we can to make sure that we play as much basketball as we can.

Q. Coach, can you talk about Marie's game tonight?
SCOTT RUECK: Marie? Yeah, I mean, I thought she was key early, especially starting us off. She was so aggressive offensively. I mean, everybody was, but I thought she was phenomenal.

Marie is Marie. She just played it heady, gutsy game. Again, great defense on the inside. We probably could have gotten her a couple better looks in the second half. I would have liked that, and I thought there was a match-up there that we could have gone to a little bit more.

But Marie's rock solid. I thought she played another phenomenal game.

Q. You talked about learning lessons from this weekend, and that's been such a constant theme throughout the whole season. What specifically going through this can you take away going into the big tournament?
SYDNEY WIESE: Just watch a lot of film and see the little things, the weaknesses that have been exposed offensively and defensively. It's tough to play three games in three days, but there are good lessons to take away from that. So I think paying attention to details and what we have to take care of in order to win in a tournament.

Q. You talked about there was kind of a lot of weird things that happened this weekend. So with that being said and going into the NCAA Tournament, what was sort of your message to your team right after and sort of trying to get them ready and just to flush this out and realize there is more to play for?
SCOTT RUECK: I think you just deal with reality. And reality is what they've accomplished is ridiculous. It's amazing what they've done in the number one conference in the country. They've proven -- tonight Stanford won, but this has been the best team all year and won the games that mattered in the regular season and put themselves in a position to be a high 2 seed if not a 1 and were poised to make a great run in the postseason.

So this team, the reason we're here and the reason they are who they are is because they've handled adversity well. For seven years this program has handled adversity well. And this group, they're absolutely experts at it. So anytime you lose, it hurts, especially when you're as competitive as this team.

And it should, it sucks. But you turn that into a positive, and you come back hungry. You say, okay, I don't want to feel that again.

So we had a crazy loss against Marquette; we turned that into a positive. We got beat at UCLA; we turned it into a positive. We got beat by USC; we turned it into a positive. Here we go tonight. Stanford outplayed us down the stretch, and we turn it into a positive, and that's basically what we said, so, let's go.

Q. Sydney, can you talk about what Beaver Nation means to you, the evolution of your career, coming out tonight? The connection to the crowd, we've seen you sign autographs and shaking every hand. You were smiling as you came out with that support. Just talk about what they mean to you.
SYDNEY WIESE: They fill my heart with so much joy. They've had our backs since the beginning. And to see that orange throughout the arena, throughout the whole weekend, they travel so well and they love us. So the love is mutual. We couldn't do this without their support, and they motivate us. I mean, we want to put on a show for them every night.

So, so much love for them, and I'm so thankful to have had these types of people to follow us throughout all my career. So there is still a lot of basketball left to be played, and I know they're going to show out for us. So I love Beaver Nation. I know I'm biased, but I think they're the best fans in the nation.

Q. Coach, can you talk about the freshman impact throughout the tournament this weekend?
SCOTT RUECK: Really incredible. When they've been called on, they've performed. Certainly Mik started us off on Friday with a huge performance against Cal. Coming home, playing in front of her family and friends in her home city, what an inspiration that was to everyone. She set the tone in many ways. She said: Hey, we're here to win, we're here to play. Whatever it takes, I'll do. She set the tone. Kat played huge minutes, Madi played huge minutes when she got her opportunity last night.

So I just think that you can't really describe it until you're in it. And I love their performance. They embraced it, and that's all they've done all season long. So it's a great sign moving forward for those guys.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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