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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 4, 2018Doug BrunoMart'e GraysAshton MillenderChicago, Illinois DePaul - 78, Seton Hall - 52. DOUG BRUNO: I love the Big East. The Big East is just a great, great league, and it's a great league because if anybody around the country reads that score, they think that that was a 26-point win, and it was a really, really difficult game because Coach Bozzella and the Seton Hall ballclub really played us tough tonight. They played us tough a week ago. So it was just a really important first-game win. I'm just really pleased that our players came out tonight with a resolve that was necessary because we were up 13 in the first half, and next thing you know it's 4, and then we were up 16 or 15 in the first half, and next thing you know it's 6. So I thought our players did a really, really good job of staying the course. Basketball is a funny game. That was not anywhere near an easy ballgame to have won. Again, I just think the coaches like Tony Bozzella and what they're doing at Seton Hall, these teams are just so good, this league is so good. It's a really impressive win. The first possession of the second half was totally chaotic. I mean, you couldn't have drawn that up for 4-year-olds kicking the ball, playing kick ball, and it ended up in ashton's hands. Ashton is 1 for 4 in the first half. One of the best shooters in the league, and had struggled in the first half when we kicked the ball around, bounced it off her head, bounced it off her elbow. She ends up with the ball in the corner, knocks it down, and that's how the half starts. That just tells you a statement about this is a funky game of basketball. Q. What did Coach say at halftime? MART'E GRAYS: At halftime, we always talk about it's a zero-zero game. We've got to come out attacking. The first five minutes of the game is so important, we have to keep the intensity up and keep it going. DOUG BRUNO: I'm sorry to interrupt. But we said the DePaul ball is not about having more turnovers than assists. That's what we said at halftime. We had more turnovers than assists. MART'E GRAYS: He said that too, yeah. Q. This was a really good game for you, what did you think you had going for you for the entire game? MART'E GRAYS: I don't know. I was just trying to play the game, not force anything. Just let the game come to me, and that really happened tonight. With the help of my teammates, like just moving the ball, passing the ball. And we always talk about getting offensive rebounds for our teammates can help. So it was nothing special. Q. Ashton, the team took about half your shots from beyond the arc. You took over two-thirds of your shots there. How do you sustain such a successful offense with such a tendency for three-point shooting? ASHTON MILLENDER: We're very big about like shooting threes, but also he emphasizes, Coach Bruno emphasizes paint touches. Paint touches open up our three-point line. A paint touch is either passing into the paint, dribbling to the paint, or getting an offensive rebound. So we just emphasize getting it inside and it opens up the three for us. Q. You talked about the chaos, what was the key to that second half of the game? DOUG BRUNO: Well, first of all, we've not had anybody play -- people do not play zone against us all year. So we've not had a lot of work against a zone defense. So I thought we were really rusty against the zone. Coach Bozzella went to his zone in the first half, and I didn't think we were very efficient in our execution against the zone. Then as the game went along, I think we started to get some rhythm against the zone, and I think that was really what kind of turned the game around on the offensive end. Q. You guys dominated on the offensive glass. How much of an emphasis was it for you in this game and moving forward in the tournament? DOUG BRUNO: We always work to rebound the basketball. Rebounding is the blocking and tackling of our sport. We really work to try to get rebounds in every single game. We're not an undersized basketball team, so it's always very important to us. Q. You mentioned earlier turnovers and assists were something you talked about at halftime. How do you think -- DOUG BRUNO: Help me again with that question? Q. Do you see a connection between moving the ball and having assists with efficiency? DOUG BRUNO: Absolutely. We really worked very hard to assist in the game of basketball. I mean, we believe in assists. We don't ever have a goal to lead the nation in scoring. We always have a goal to lead the nation in assists. It's hard to do that with teams like Baylor and UCONN and Notre Dame, but we're usually in the Top 5 or six in the country in assists, and that's something we work very hard and pride ourselves on. So at halftime, it was a really -- we had nine turnovers and eight assists. So moving the basketball and moving your people against the zone the way they need to move against the zone too. It's one of those things where ironically we had not played against the zone. Tony threw the zone at us the last couple possessions of our last game. But before that we had not played against a zone since December 28th when we played Seton Hall the first time. That's what makes league basketball really cool. You play St. John's at Seton Hall the 28th and 30th of December, and then you don't play them for two months. Then you play them twice in a week. That's the coolness and the nature of tournament basketball. Q. How hard is it to beat a team three times in a row, and what challenges did that present tonight? DOUG BRUNO: Yeah, everybody on the outside looking in always talks about that. I really -- it never even entered my mind once. We are such a one-in-a-row program, and we focus on one in a row. We're just really focused on one in a row. So that point never even entered my mind, as crazy as that might seem. I was just focusing on what we have to do to win every possession. Q. What are your thoughts on how big Grays' and Stonewall's double-double was tonight? DOUG BRUNO: You know, what's very interesting about this program, and I believe me I bring this up all the time, how can we have a player that's only 5'10" tall and jumps this high off the ground average a double-double in Kelly Campbell. So if Kelly Campbell's going to average a double-double or close to it in league play, then why can't some of our bigger interior players also be averaging a double-double? Actually, Chante hit her first double-double at Seton Hall last week in South Orange. So it was nice for her to follow up and come back with a second double-double tonight. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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