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MOUNTAIN WEST WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 10, 2017Jaime WhiteCandice WhiteBego Faz DavalosLas Vegas, Nevada Boise State - 66 Fresno State - 53 COACH JAIME WHITE: You know, I thought we made a run to begin with. It was 8-2. I thought we started the game the way we wanted to. I thought Boise played a great game. They were able to score. And there was a time when there was a drought there in I think it was the third quarter, early fourth quarter that we just needed to score. And I said to my assistants, if we would have scored we'd have been up ten. But we struggled to score late. I think we ran out of gas there in the fourth quarter; four games in five days is really tough. Really proud of our kids. Made a run and really believed that we could win that game and I guess as a coach that's all you can ask. Q. Coach said as far as the scoring, but it looked like you had so many good looks and the shots were high-percentage shots. At one point you looked at the rim like, are you kidding me? Like there was a lid on it and it wasn't falling. You were taking shots that were falling all week. What were you thinking, just the frustration of the balls not falling in the hoop? BEGO FAZ DAVALOS: Well, of course it was frustrating. I didn't know what was happening. But I think my teammates and my coaches told me how to react. And I tried next time, hoping it would start working, but we ran out of time, I think. Q. You came out firing, hitting your shots. Just where did it go awry in your eyes? Boise got the momentum and they were hitting timely shots. It's not as if they shot well, either. Where in your mind did you think it sort of got away from you? CANDICE WHITE: I think they just tightened up their defense, doing a good job finding the shooters, finding the girls who would drive on our team. And I think our easy looks, it gave them momentum. When they weren't making easy looks, they just had more energy to just keep going at us. Q. This may seem rhetorical, but two years in a row now, what do you tell the girls after this one? What do you say afterwards in the locker room? You still have hope, assuming, for an invite. But how did you react after? COACH JAIME WHITE: Well, you know, we struggled down the stretch, but I was proud of our kids bouncing back from two really tough games coming in. And I think we played one game at a time. And every game we had to grit it out. And I'm proud of them. I'm proud of them. I was proud to be in this game. And I'm pretty sure when we walked out of that locker room to start the game we all thought we were going to win it. Again, we're going to be back again. We're going to keep coming back. This is what it's about. One game doesn't really define us, although I hope it helps us be more motivated as we learn to deal with this kind of thing and move forward next year. Q. Does the three wins you had this week, does it temper at all the disappointment of today's loss? BEGO FAZ DAVALOS: No. Definitely we did a good job coming back, we were the 7 seed and I thought we did a good job in the three games. We had good moments in the championship, I don't think we did terrible. I'm proud of my girls. CANDICE WHITE: Same thing. I'm just proud of everyone for working hard and gritting out four games in five days? Q. A lot of teams like to get physical with you, it seems to be the game plan. What is going through your mind, how do you react to that when you're getting tossed to the ground and pushed around a lot, especially early in this game? BEGO FAZ DAVALOS: It's kind of weird, but I kind of feel proud about it. People try to defend me really hard, and that's something to be proud of. Definitely I knew they were going to be physical. And I think you adjust to that. Like I said, I think we just ran out of time. Q. Were there times in the game when I'm watching you and you have a scowl or frown on your face. Is that a look you have during the game or are you really unhappy at those moments? BEGO FAZ DAVALOS: No, that's my game face (laughter). Q. Does what happened this week, does it change how you feel about the season overall? CANDICE WHITE: No, it just kind of defines our season. It was an up-and-down roller coaster ride. And unfortunately today we weren't able to finish it. But I think that just motivates us for this next season to come. Q. Last year was tough, especially at the end, and as a 2 seed. But does this one sting more because of the run you made, the bond, the camaraderie as a 7 seed? And coming from Monday, does this one sting or are they just two different deals? BEGO FAZ DAVALOS: I felt the same way. CANDICE WHITE: Yeah, they both sting. Losing a championship game two times in a row is hard. But like I said, all you can do is get a positive out of this and motivate ourselves to come back next year and get it. Q. Almost positive your answer would be that you would trade all the records that you broke, established or set for a championship. But can you talk just a little bit about establishing the records that you have for double-doubles, career blocks, and sort of etching your mark into Mountain West history. BEGO FAZ DAVALOS: Well, it's something to be proud of. Definitely my teammates helped me get those, all of these assists, all of those rebounds. I feel like it's a team effort. So I'm proud and I'm happy for my teammates, too. Q. I hate to put aside what happened this week and ask you a leading question, but is what happened this week, is this a springboard for next season? You have a lot of your key players coming back. Maybe last year it seemed a little bit more of a finality, you had a lot of seniors that graduated. Is that correct? Do you feel that way? The three games you won as the 7 seed, is that what you're going to be harping on in the off season to encourage your ladies? COACH JAIME WHITE: Absolutely. We came in -- we started the year with only two kids that have really played, Breanne Knishka and Bego. Then Bre got injured, we had two starters back, then we only had one. The kids that played, Emilie Volk, Kendra Martin, even Anais Kirvan, all of them, none had had experience. Emilie Volk went from playing five minutes a game to 30 minutes a game. I am so proud that they held it together as well as they did for the three games, and even into the championship. There was no doubt in my mind we were ready to win. There's a lot of things on top of that now. Then you have young kids like Cavey and Candice White, who would have thought? She went from two minutes a game to 30 minutes a game. It's really this period where we have to rebuild. And for us to have this kind of a finish in a rebuilding year, I'm really proud of them. I'm really proud of them. We know sports. It's always a work in progress. We're definitely going to use this. This will sit with them when we're back in the championship game again. You think about Shaw and Rodriguez were freshmen. And probably Pahukoa then -- no, Pahukoa was a sophomore. They were, when they won the championship two years ago. That kind of experience helps you win the next time. So it's not all bad. It's terrible today and it hurts right now, but at the end of the day we just want to get them better. And I think our year could have been better. But we needed to be more consistent. But with youth that happens. And so we'll regroup and get on it next year. Q. With Bego, the strategy of every team, and I remember last year's final, it was basically just mugging of her out there. Early in this game today she got knocked down a couple of times. How does she respond to that physical play, what do you tell her? I mentioned her facial expression a little bit. Is that something you talk to her about, body language? How does she deal with all that stuff? COACH JAIME WHITE: It's one thing, it's funny, now that I've not played for a while, I forget that along with emotion and the physicality and being in shape and then there's just all the anxiety of a big game. But, yeah, we talk to Bego all the time. I think it's got to be the first thing everybody says. And everybody puts on their scout when they play us. And for the most part she's done a really good job playing against that. I thought we had done a pretty good job getting her some breaks, so she can calm down and regroup and go back in. I did think with -- sometimes we play two big posts together and sometimes that would alleviate some of the pressure that she has underneath. She's a tough kid. She's one of our hardest workers. She's resilient. You can't get that many double-doubles and you can't be day in and day out our leading scorer and leading rebounder and not be tough. So I'm really, really proud of her. Q. As clutch as Bego has been all week, can you talk a little bit about the timely shots and how clutch Brooke was in that she just stymied every effort on their turn down the floor and her play today? COACH JAIME WHITE: Yeah. Brooke is a nice player. She definitely -- and I think what she's done is she used to just be a three-point shooter, that's what we'd say when we scout her. And now she's slid into a little bit more of a driving guard. And then she was able to pull up the multiple times we were on her with her hands straight up and she shot right over us, along with Shaw. And I said it from the very beginning, I felt like Boise was one of the deepest teams coming into the tournament. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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