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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 3, 2018

Jim Crowley

Chicago, Illinois

JIM CROWLEY: I mean, really good basketball game. I thought especially once we got to the second half we cleaned up our turn overs and kept them off the boards and forced them to make plays. They made some big ones.

I mean, Jennings' three late in regulation that took our lead away, and Spolyar had a great game. I was really proud of our kids' effort, but at the end, Butler's experience and ability to execute was better than ours.

Q. Coach, statistically you outplayed Butler in just about every category except for the final score. Where do you feel the game slipped away from you?
JIM CROWLEY: Twice, actually. I thought in the third quarter it was slipping away, and we've had to deal with that a number of games this year, so I was really proud of our kids' ability to fight through that and rally back around to force into overtime. In overtime we had a couple stops and start. We scored off one of them and missed a pretty good shot there, and we were called for a number of fouls and that kind of separated it.

Q. You and I have had a chance to talk a couple times throughout the course of the season. One of the big things that you discussed was just that consistency for four quarters. It's something that's tough for a young team and new coaching staff, first year in a tough league. What did you see though today from your team that you can build off of going into the spring?
JIM CROWLEY: Yeah, I mean, and we've struggled with consistency as we've talked about, and as I had just kind of mentioned to KJ. It's a game of runs. That's basketball. At times runs have put us to bed. Today it didn't. We played a really good first half. Probably missed some opportunities to even extend the lead, but that's, again, part of figuring things out.

But we were able to keep battling back, and just kind of ran out of gas and a few things didn't go our way in overtime. But it is really hard to move up in this league. So you've got to do the things that are really hard, like be able to play that hard all the time, not just in games or in practice.

So it should be a really good learning tool. As we head into the off-season to recognize that we've got a lot of catching up to do, so we've got to outwork people.

Q. From a personal note, you just completed your first year in the Big East. Second in the Big East with Providence. What are you most proud of with this group and where do you see it going?
JIM CROWLEY: Yeah, I think it could have been really easy to roll tonight. But they're still believing in each other, and that's something I'm really proud of. They fought for one another today and showed some improvement in things, and that's got to be a focus for everybody in the off-season. Just the recognition of how good this league is and how well, not just great players, but how well they're coached and how much we've got to really work to catch up to that and really have got to stay true to who we are and get better at what we're good at.

Q. (Indiscernible). Were you satisfied with what you saw today?
JIM CROWLEY: I think it's interesting, because I think at times we haven't hustled as much as we're capable of. So it's great to hear that we have been okay with that. I thought we played really hard today. I thought we fought. That's something we talk about all the time. We may miss some shots and turn it over, but you can always fight. We haven't always done that all year, but we did it today. That should be good momentum going into the off-season. Now our leaders need to recognize that and consistently demand that.

Q. Specifically Orlando, Spiwak, as well as Cooper, they all stepped up big time today. What did you like from them?
JIM CROWLEY: Yeah, and the one on the All-Rookie team didn't. She didn't have a great game today, so it was interesting to see those three. They worked really hard. Those are the three that weren't healthy different times of the season, so they've kind of been behind the whole time.

But when we brought them in, we knew they were a part of a mentality that we needed to have. So it was good to have them get some pay off to that today, and, again, that should be a good chance for them to build some momentum in the off-season, and it should be a good chance for Chanell to build some momentum in the off-season, to have a game finish like that and know she needs to be better.

Q. Was Chanell nicked up?
JIM CROWLEY: No, she just didn't play as well. She had foul trouble, but she just never was able to get into rhythm.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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