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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 4, 2018

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Texas - 68, West Virginia - 55

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Coach Mike Carey and his two student-athletes, Naomi Davenport and Chania Ray. Coach, your thoughts about the game?

MIKE CAREY: I thought we come out with energy. Give Texas credit. They kept driving us. We took way too many threes. I kept saying we're settling for threes. I mean, you can't go 2 for 23 and expect to win game. Long rebounds, layups on the other side because we kept missing. Give Texas credit, though, they gave us the three but didn't give us the drive.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for our student-athletes?

Q. Ladies, can you talk about how you were trying to gut through that big run they took early on and try to cut into the lead before halftime? What was your mindset as you were trying to cut down the lead?
NAOMI DAVENPORT: I would say we were trying to -- we kept saying defense, defense, start on defense, and let our defense create our offense. We were trying to have that take on and cut the lead down that way.

CHANIA RAY: I would second that. We tried to focus on defense and stop them from driving in the paint, and, you know, we tried to let that create our offense and unfortunately we took some bad shots which didn't really help on the other end. But we keep reiterating let our defense create our offense and it kind of showed that we didn't really do that.

Q. Naomi, why do you think the team struggled on 3-point shots today?
NAOMI DAVENPORT: I just feel like it was an off day and we didn't have legs. We kept hitting the front of the rim or the bottom of the net. We were gassed. Just didn't get our shot up.

Q. They were able to get 40 points in the paint. Was there anything that you could have done differently to be able to slow that down? I know that was their focus or was that going to happen because of the size?
CHANIA RAY: We let their guards get more points in the paint than we let their posts. We didn't really help each other. That's one thing that we could have done a lot better. But, like Coach said, it's not the post scoring in the paint. It's the guards. We didn't stop dribble penetration and if the 5 did come over to help we didn't get rotation on the back end. That's one thing we have to work on and learn to help each other on defense.

Q. Naomi, you talked about being gassed. Then you got a team like them that has so much depth. Could you kind of sense that they kept running out fresh legs and making things more difficult for you?
NAOMI DAVENPORT: Yeah, they subbed two or three at a time. We subbed one at a time. Our energy just died down. We came out with a lot of energy, but second quarter through the fourth it showed that we just died down.

Q. Chania, this is the second time you've played Texas with different results. What was the difference between last year's team and this year's?
CHANIA RAY: The difference is I felt like we played with less heart this game. Some people came to play and some didn't and it's not all about offense, everybody can play defense the whole game and I think that's just one thing we lock lacked. Other than that it was the same team, same game, minus a couple, but we just didn't dig within ourselves to pull through.

THE MODERATOR: Okay, ladies, thank you. Questions for Coach?

Q. Coach, obviously your players areally brutally honest about their play, not coming to play tonight is that something --
MIKE CAREY: No, I don't think they didn't come to play tonight. I think at times they didn't listen tonight. We can't stand out there and keep shooting threes. Our legs are tired. Like players said, every timeout, every time down I tried to run quick hitters that was driving and getting to the thing, but we kept shooting threes. We could have got a three anytime in the shot clock. But we were taking it early in the shot clock and like they said we were hitting the bottom of the rim which led to layups for them on the other side.

Q. Coach, how much did their depth make a difference in this game?
MIKE CAREY: It did. It did, but that's why you gotta take better shots, get to the ball and play defense, push the break. If you don't have it then you've got to set up and make them play some defense, and for some reason we just couldn't get 'em to do that. They got behind there and they got in a hurry and I couldn't get five people on the same page at that time.

Q. I asked the players about the 40 points in the paint and obviously a lot of it came from the guards. Was that something that you expected them to use?
MIKE CAREY: Yeah, they're going to dribble drive, try to get in the paint. They didn't do anything we didn't know they were going to do. We just let 'em dribble drive, got in foul trouble a little bit with Katrina Pardee and some others and just let 'em dribble drive. We come off the bench and they let 'em dribble drive more than the people that were starting. Give Texas credit. They let 'em dribble drive.

Q. Now after the exodus, what do you think your postseason chances are?
MIKE CAREY: I don't know. We'll see. I have no idea. I don't know.

Q. To sort of follow up on that, you're a 20-win team in the Big 12 Conference. Do you feel like the conference is maybe getting overlooked a little bit beyond Baylor and Texas this year on a national scale?
MIKE CAREY: I'm not sure what the RPI for the league is, but I know it's not great, and that's why. I think if you saw the Big Ten last year they're third place team didn't go because of their RPI of the league. It comes down to that, mostly.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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