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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2017Doug BrunoJessica JanuaryChicago, Illinois Marquette - 86, DePaul - 78 DOUG BRUNO: I would like to first of all thank the Big East and Marquette for running a great tournament. It was a great environment. I just am thrilled that our players got to play in this kind of environment, hostile though it might be. That's what women's basketball is all about, and there's a lot of people that have been working a long time to create environments like this. I'm thrilled that our team got to compete in this kind of environment. Regarding the game, Marquette is really good, and I believe they were really good all year long. You don't beat Oregon State at Oregon State and Arizona State and us without being good. You're good. They're really talented, and they're a talented collection of players that are growing up in front of every basketball fan and coach's eyes. We knew that we were going to have a very difficult task on our hands tonight. I thought I really loved my own team that I'm blessed to coach, and the first quarter was a rough one because Marquette is too good to self-inflict, and thought we self-inflicted some of our own wounds in the first quarter, and Hiedeman throws in the three to end it and we're down 25-24 in a quarter that we probably had a chance to be up 24-16 or so if we just didn't throw the ball away a little bit. After we settled that issue down, then it just became a great, hard-fought, possession-by-possession battle. And Marquette won a couple key possessions that we just didn't finish, that we didn't get done. And that's just -- again, I just really believe when you lose, you can bemoan your own team, but you have to remember there's other people playing, and they just did a good job. We got some good looks. I was pleased with some of the looks that we got as a basketball team, looks that we've knocked down in our run to the Big East regular season championship, and we didn't knock those down, and that's why it's a great game and why March Madness is March Madness. You get good looks, you have to make them. If you make them, you keep going. It's hard to get good looks, but I thought we got good looks. Jess January here -- again, this is just a statement about how -- I think what this shows is how well that team that's in that locker room persevered this year to be able to play without Jessica, because she was obviously very, very special tonight and special last night, and she's a special player, special athlete. And so for our team to be able to win a regular-season championship, that's very difficult to do. I'm really proud of them for that achievement in spite of a tough ballgame tonight. It's great to have Jessica back, and I think you all saw why. Q. Jess, not the result you were looking for, but a terrific performance throughout the tournament and a great performance to cap it off tonight. What does all-tournament team mean to you? JESSICA JANUARY: I mean, obviously it's an honor to be recognized on the team, but we came here to win the Big East championship. Q. Coach Kieger had some words for you after you got that trophy. What did she have to say? JESSICA JANUARY: She was just saying congrats and good luck in the NCAA Tournament. Q. Jessica, your season doesn't end tonight; how much do you look forward to being back in the big dance? JESSICA JANUARY: Mean, really excited. This hurts that we lost in this last game, but us seniors, we still want to make a run in the NCAA Tournament, and we still have a really good chance to play well, so we're going to have to turn the page and get some good practices in. Q. I know it's difficult after a loss, but what does a game like this, the atmosphere here tonight saying about Big East women's basketball? JESSICA JANUARY: Yeah, like Bruno said, it's just a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. There's obviously games in the regular season where the stands are pretty quiet, and so just being in this environment, even though they weren't all of our fans, it was just so much fun. It's really exciting for women's basketball. Q. I know obviously you're not happy any time after you come off a losing game, but your spirits seem very high right now, patting Jess on the back, keeping spirits positive. What makes you so proud and able to be so positive about this team even though not the result you were looking for tonight? DOUG BRUNO: Well, we try to teach our players that we're never going to teach you how to lose, but it's our job to teach you that you must handle defeat. We really have our -- I don't have many rules, but one rule is you cry when somebody dies. Don't go crying over a ballgame because you had a chance to do something about that ballgame. That's just kind of the stuff we try to teach our players. We're out there fighting for every single possession, and if you're fighting to win every single possession and you do your job to win every single possession in a game, which is the little score, then the big score usually takes care of itself. That's what makes this a beautiful sport and a beautiful game. We don't like defeat. At the same time, you also have a moment here to recognize the accomplishments and achievements of what this Marquette program has done. Carolyn is a great coach and she's done a great job, and she's turned this program around in a very short amount of time. I just think it's important that people -- that when you lose, are defeated, I think it's very important to respect the people that are the victors, and that's really -- it's not something -- if I can write my script, I didn't lay around all day saying Carolyn is a really nice kid, she was a nice little guard, she needs some help or whatever. We don't do that. We're competing. You're a track athlete. You understand, you're running against people. You run, you're competing. But when it's over, you know what, there's nothing you can -- they earned the win, so to the victors go the spoils, and I'm happy for what Marquette has done for our league. It's a great league. John asked a question, what does this say about Big East basketball. It's a great question because this is a great league, and we really are a great league. We're a great and tough league top to bottom. Just a couple, a few games away from having more than three teams in this NCAA Tournament. You have to move on. These are young athletes that, what are we going to wallow in our self-pity now for a couple -- we don't have time. We're in Finals. The players are going to have a day off tomorrow and a day off the next day, and then we'll be on the floor Friday and we'll have a rhythm to get ready. The beauty of tonight's game was it was NCAA basketball at its best. It's the same -- you just take off the words Big East tonight and put first round or second round or even regional round, that's what we're dealing with. Marquette is a good team. I think we're a good team. We didn't just ask to be 16 RPI. Those players did that. So we're both good basketball teams, and I'm looking forward to having a chance to see what we can prove to the rest of the world when that NCAA Tournament starts. Q. Both teams shot well from three-point range, and if Coach Kieger was here I'd ask her the same question, but why did you have such difficulty defending the three tonight? DOUG BRUNO: There's a lot of reasons why we have trouble defending Marquette in general. They have five people that have to be guarded, and when you have five people that have to be guarded, there's no games you can play. And their players are versatile. They have people who can get to the rim and people that can get to the rim, so you have to guard a lot of different kinds of very talented players. The game plan wasn't to let Marquette shoot threes. That wasn't what we came in here to do, okay. But at the same time, they play basketball, too. They run offenses, too. They execute, also. You're trying to keep Allazia Blockton from penetrating and you're helping over here and you're trying to keep King in check because she's averaging 27.5 going into the game, so you keep her in check over here. At some place and point in time, when it gets to higher level basketball, it becomes -- we don't have a whole lot of different things we could do. I tell my staff all the time, I could play Dougie crazy ball. I've told my staff that, turn this thing up and let it go 120. People are afraid to run against Marquette. I'm not, but at the same time, I'm not trying to let them run. But at the same time, when I say Dougie crazy ball, we could turn this thing into a 125 to 120-point track meet and see what happens and see who's left. That's my way of guarding them, really, because I've known that they're a really difficult match-up. If this was an NBA program, and we're not NBA players, but there's players on both teams that are hard to guard. Some of our hard to guard players tonight had some really good shots that didn't get finished. That's the way it goes. I love those players, so I'm not going to blame them -- you're never going to see me blame our players. Those players gave DePaul University a magnificent season. There's some shots that went in that won the Big East regular season that didn't go in tonight, the same shots that we got. So you get the players -- I tell them all the time, look, you're going to coach some day. It's my job to get you shots, it's your job to make shots. I feel pretty good about some of the shots we got tonight, and it wasn't always pretty, but we got some pretty good looks for some pretty good people that have put us in position to be Big East regular season champs. That's what you're trying to do. Q. Chante Stonewall had a little bit of a coming-out party throughout this tournament, you're using her down low on defense and also guarding the perimeter. What do you expect from her future with this program? DOUG BRUNO: That is a really, really good question, and we expect a lot out of Chante. And yet the reason I'm a little -- where my mind is right now is to still strive to play one -- we're playing one-and-out basketball and try to strive to play one-and-out basketball as long as we possibly can. I know that Chante Stonewall is willing to commit herself in the months between March and November that she has a chance to be a really, really special collegiate basketball player. So when I say what do I expect, I expect her to take a good three-week break after it's all over with, and then come back in that gym rip roaring ready to roar and make herself a better player. We'll help show her the way, but she's going to have to do that. So that's what I expect. That's the process, and then hopefully next year you're going to see a real, real bright emerging star in Chante Stonewall. But that's still to be proven and still has to get done. Q. Could you talk a little bit about the play of Amarah Coleman? DOUG BRUNO: Yeah, Amarah hit the first three in the first half, and then she had a couple possessions where she fell asleep on some second shots. When I talk about that first quarter -- and those are controllables, and we're very big into the controllables. Stepping up in the big moment is not doing something you're incapable of, it's doing what you should be able to do all the time, and I gave her a couple chances to make amends for her not -- that's a fundamental. In a game like this, you have to control every defensive board, so I was thrilled -- we debated at halftime was she really ready to play or not, and I'm glad we went with her. We went with the starting lineup to start the half, and she caught fire, and she's a really talented player. I think it's another player that we have to still keep working to get better. But she's got a chance to be really, really good next season, also. But again, you've got me thinking next season again. I love DePaul radio, all right, but at the same time, I can't think next season, we've got a game to play in a couple weeks, all right. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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