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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 3, 2018Wes MooreAkela MaizeChelsea NelsonGreensboro, North Carolina Louisville 64, NC State 59 AMY YAKOLA: Coach, when you're ready, an opening statement. WES MOORE: Yeah, I just, you know, tough day, we struggled. Struggled to score the ball. I feel like I need to try to help them a little more somehow, some way, get better looks. But real proud of the effort defensively and on the boards. You know, trying to slow down some great players on the other bench over there, on the Louisville team. Thought we did a pretty good job of that. Just you know, a few break downs that we need to clean up. We obviously will be playing again, so we need to try to, you know, after a little bit of rest, get back out and try to clean a few of those things up and do a little bit better job down the stretch. But again, very proud of our team and very proud of our two seniors here that are just done an unbelievable job for us all year. Q. How much do you feel fatigue was a factor in this game, especially the second half? This is the first time you've had to play three back-to-back games. You've only played back-to-back once earlier this year. WES MOORE: Yeah, I mean, it's just not something you can worry about, you know. I keep saying it, I know y'all get sick of hearing it, but they would rather play than practice, and we've practiced three days in a row before. I think part of it, too, you're on this stage and the adrenaline and all; you're excited about playing. Definitely, it was a physical game, very physical game I felt like. But our kids, like I said, they battled all year, and we're definitely not going to use that as an excuse. Just got to be ready to play, and I thought they did that. I thought it was great effort, and again, they deserve a little bit of a rest right now, though, for sure. Q. You mentioned you would be playing again. Do you have any thoughts on where that next game might be? WES MOORE: No, not really. That's out of our hands. I think this team's proven that they are definitely worthy of a good seeding. Beaten some good teams. Gone toe-to-toe in this league with some of the best teams in the country. So we'll just have to wait and see, though. You know, obviously we would love to host but we don't control that. Q. Chelsea, you and Akela were having a lot of success scoring inside on Louisville. Talk about what you were seeing and how you were getting that done. CHELSEA NELSON: We knew the double was coming. We just took our time and tried to be as efficient as possible, and when we did see a double coming to where we couldn't score, we would kick and our teammates would knock it down. Q. Coach, Asia Durr, she had a fairly quiet game and credited you guys defensively for what you did to slow her down, but they had four players if double figures and they have another ACC Player of the Year in Myisha. What's the difficulty of stopping a team that their best player may not be going, but they can still find ways to beat you? WES MOORE: Yeah, you know, I think Carter's threes were big. You know, we probably didn't -- we knew she could shoot it and we were trying to make sure we contested it, but you know, she got some open looks and knocked down three for three. That hurt. Also, I think Fuehring going out there and putting up 15 points, I think part of that's my fault. We were really trying to help a lot on the guards calming off pick on the ball, and she was rolling and getting some easy buckets, and we did adjust and started trying to play it a little differently. But you know, she was able to obviously lead them in scoring. She had a pretty good game. But I think that's what we've tried to do all year. We want to take away your best options and make some other people step up, and Louisville's a very talented team and they had a couple of people step up that maybe normally don't score quite as much. Q. Seems like every time your team went on a run and got to within a couple buckets, Louisville forced a couple turnovers and got a couple blocked shots. What did they do defensively to become so disruptive? WES MOORE: I think they really turned up the Heat probably midway through the second quarter. I thought they really got a aggressive with their defense, were physical. So give them a lot of credit for that. You know, again, we did have some turnovers that hurt us. Again, we want to get shots. You've got to be able to get shots. If we do that, we feel like we'll make them. But you've got to give Louisville a lot of credit. They did turn up the pressure and extended their defense and picked us up a little bit further out on the court and made it a little bit harder to run our stuff. You know, again, that's why they are where they are. Q. For the players, was there maybe a little bit of a frustration at halftime? You had out played them for most of the first half and yet they were ahead at the break ask what was the mindset then? AKELA MAIZE: I don't think it was frustration. It was just starting over the second half as a new game, trying to take control of that half is really what was the mind-set in the locker room. CHELSEA NELSON: I agree with Akela. AMY YAKOLA: Thank you all, and the best of luck in the NCAA. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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