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PAC-12 WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 1, 2018JR PayneAnnika JankKennedy LeonardSeattle, Washington Colorado-66, Utah-56 JR PAYNE: I usually start most press conferences talking about how proud of our team I am, and I always am, win, lose or draw. I'm proud of this group of young ladies that I get the opportunity to coach. Today I am surely proud of who they are and how they played. Our toughness, our effort and our grit was apparent from start to finish. I'm excited. We're thrilled for another opportunity to play, and very proud of how we played today. Q. Coach, Utah closed the gap to 5 or 6 in the third quarter and you just pulled away from there. What happened? JR PAYNE: Well, the great thing is that it was defense. I'll go back and watch the film, but in my mind when things got close, we defended. We dug our heels in and got stops, and they were good stops. They were stops that led to offensive opportunities. Then I think we rebounded the ball pretty well during that stretch, but our defense definitely created some offense for us. Q. What was the mindset on the court there when Utah started to close the gap and you were able to push them off? KENNEDY LEONARD: I think just to stay calm, obviously everyone makes a run, and we knew it was coming. It was a matter of how we were going to handle it. Luckily we buckled down and settled in on our side of the court and got things done and won. ANNIKA JANK: Rebounding was a huge key during that time because that's what helped us increase our lead. If we rebounded or got rebounded, then we knew we were going to win, so that helped. Q. Early thoughts on Oregon tomorrow? KENNEDY LEONARD: It's going to be fun. Obviously, they're the No. 1 seed and we're the 9 seed, so there is no pressure on us. They've got to stop us. ANNIKA JANK: I'm excited just to go out there and get them. We have nothing to lose, so we can just go play our hearts out and hopefully get the win, so that would be awesome. JR PAYNE: For me, it's awesome. I always say that Oregon is my other team. Because my college coach is their head coach. I love Kelly. I love his team. I follow them. But I love my Buffs more, and we're excited. Like these guys said, there is nothing to lose. Right now we're going to play hard. We'll play our hearts out. We'll leave everything on the floor. We'll play together, and it's going to be a great game. Q. JR, obviously you mentioned your relationship with Coach Graves, but you only got to play Oregon once this year. What is the biggest concern when facing the Ducks? JR PAYNE: I mean, you could list them, you could say it's Ionescu or Hebard or Sabally or Kelly, or whatever. But the truth of the matter is the phrase we all put our shoes on one at a time. So they've got a lot of weapons; we also have a lot of weapons. They're two teams that rebound really well. I think rebounding will be a huge factor in both teams success. But I think a lot of it and where our success is coming from in the last month or so as far as where we're growing is just our mindset, our togetherness, our cohesiveness. Our love for each other right now and the way that we're playing. I can't imagine any other team in the country feel as good as we do about each other right now. Q. Coach Graves was there supporting you today. I assume you maybe haven't had a chance to talk with him yet. But is there going to be a conversation before tomorrow morning? JR PAYNE: I'm sure there will. I'm sure there will. Kelly and I talk several times a week. We talk about his team, we talk about our team. He told me a couple days ago, he said, "Oh, you guys could make a great run in the tournament." I said, "Kelly, you know that means we have to beat you, right?" He said, "Oh, yeah, I don't know about that." But he's great. His team's great. It's going to be a really fun match-up. Q. Can you guys talk about that second quarter tonight? That seemed like kind of where you guys pulled away, trailed right at the end of the first quarter, but I think we were up by 7 or so at halftime? KENNEDY LEONARD: I don't even remember the second quarter. JR PAYNE: We defended. I just had to look down to see what the score was. 15-7 in the second quarter. KENNEDY LEONARD: Clearly we defended and we hit some shots and we also probably rebounded really well. Most of the time our second quarters are kind of Huff, so to is he see that on the stat sheet is very exciting. Most of the time we're a second half team or last quarter team. So to see that is pretty exciting. Also the third quarter we come out slow from halftime. I don't know if you noticed that. But it's good to come out and at least see we won that quarter as well. It was obviously clutch in helping us to win. ANNIKA JANK: Once you see a basket go in, it kind of opens up a little bit. Like the hoop gets bigger for you. So one went in and I was like, let's go, and just kept shooting them. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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