|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MOUNTAIN WEST WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 5, 2018Jamie CraigheadMegan AndersonMyzhanique LaddLas Vegas, Nevada New Mexico - 84, San Jose State - 54 JAMIE CRAIGHEAD: My hat is off to New Mexico. I thought they played a tremendous game. Their big three showed up. Their bench showed up. Proud of the fight. We competed and tried to compete for 40 minutes, but the ball would just not find the bottom of the net, so it made it pretty tough. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Now that your career has come to an end, can you reflect on the four years at San Jose State. MYZHANIQUE LADD: It's been a rollercoaster, but a rollercoaster that's a learning experience and a life lesson. We had great moments on the court and off the court. I've learned a lot from many players, past players, present players. I even learned a lot from Megan. I thank them. Hopefully the things that I have taught them will help them later on in their future seasons. Q. Meg, it was a tough night from three. Was there anything in particular that New Mexico was doing at least in the first three quarters that were keeping the Spartans from getting good, open looks? MEGAN ANDERSON: I think they were definitely finding us on the three-point line, denying our shooters and stuff. We probably could have moved more in the first half. I know I was standing on offense a lot. That probably could have been more beneficial if we were moving more. Q. Were there points in this game where you said, I'm going to take it, just going to go? MYZHANIQUE LADD: That really wasn't the mindset. My mindset is just trying to play my game, playing the game that Jaisa knows I'm capable of playing, which is driving, if the three is open, take it. I drive to score, but if that's not there, I look for my shooters like Megan and Analyss and others. Q. Meg, as a freshman, second youngest team in the nation, looking forward, do you see positives with this? Talk about the future of this team and what it's got. MEGAN ANDERSON: Yeah, I think definitely they've taught us a lot for sure. We sent them out not on the note we wanted to. Thanks for all they've done. Our freshmen class is big. Our sophomore class is big. We are looking forward to the future. We have a lot of work to do, but there's a lot of talent around us. Q. Did you expect New Mexico to play the way they did? Was there anything that surprised you? MYZHANIQUE LADD: No. We expected them to play the way they do, to come at us. This is a loser-out tournament. Everyone is going to bring their A game. The regular season doesn't matter. It's all about post-season right now. Yeah, we knew what they were capable of. I think their effort and their energy just was a little bit more than us. Q. When you play them again, what do you expect eventually? MYZHANIQUE LADD: That's a question for you, because I'm not going to be here (smiling). MEGAN ANDERSON: We'll just expect them to come out as hard as they did every game. We know playing at The Pit is hard. I experienced that for the first time this year. We're just going to come out strong. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. This game looked an awful lot like the game in New Mexico, a big second quarter for the Lobos. Is that kind of what you saw? JAMIE CRAIGHEAD: Yeah, I mean, we couldn't take advantage of the first and third quarter when they didn't shoot as well. The second quarter they opened it up. The more experienced team won. I saw some deer-in-the-headlight looks looking back at me a couple of times. They didn't look to have any of that. In regards to My-My, I thought she did everything she could. I did lean on her as our experienced, veteran player who has been here. I thought she was tremendous. She didn't finish all of them, but she got to the free-throw line nine of 12. She carried us in some stretches where people were struggling to score. It's not very often that we would shoot that poorly for four quarters. Again, some of our youth and inexperience definitely showed through tonight. Q. Were you happy getting up 71 shots? That's pretty good for this year. JAMIE CRAIGHEAD: Yeah, it was a good. But that's been our games against New Mexico. We can get the shots. It's just not always a shot we want. I thought they did a much better job defensively against us than they did in the prior games in terms of just really making us take tough, kind of bad shots. I thought we should have moved the ball a little bit more. Again, Meg talked about standing around. At halftime, Why are you guys all standing around? I thought from a motion standpoint, they did to us what we want to do in the future. Their offense is very similar to what we run. They like an up-tempo game. Hopefully we can get that turned around and we'll be that team in a couple of years. Q. Was this game more physical than you thought it would be? JAMIE CRAIGHEAD: It's always more physical when we get officials that officiate in the power five conferences. I watched the Pac-12 tournament. All these guys are in that. It's more physical. It's always hard, because our younger kids, they're like, Why can sometimes we do this and sometimes not? But I thought you have to adjust to that. We want the game to be played. You want it to be in the players' hands. I appreciate that as a coach, it's a little bit more physical. I think it's a good thing. But I didn't think my kids handled it very well. Q. What do you think this loss will do for the team in the future? JAMIE CRAIGHEAD: Well, hopefully it makes them hungry. When you come to a tournament like this for the first time, there's seven of them over there that have never experienced this. You hope that they learn and look at the other team and want to get that feeling on the next try. You hope that it propels you through your off-season. We'll take a break, like any team would. They need a break. They need away from me. I need away from them. But when we bring them back, How hungry are you? Do you really want to do this? Everybody thinks they want to play Division I basketball till they get there. I hope with this group, that's what inspires them, they're hungry, they want to come back and get after it. Q. My-My was your first recruit, the first player you brought in. Talk about what she provides the team for leadership and what she has shown the younger players. JAMIE CRAIGHEAD: My-My has been one of the hardest workers since the day she got on campus. She has a tremendous athletic ability that's God given. She's worked to become a better and better basketball player. Her numbers have improved every single season. Her percentages have gone up. She's tremendous in the weight room. I can play her for 40 minutes and she doesn't really look tired. I don't know, maybe some people think she looks tired, but she doesn't look tired compared to the rest of them. I got to play with her aunt when I played. So she's really family. All of our players are, but I've known her since she was young. I've known her family. They watched me play. It's a special connection. She was our first recruit we signed. It's tough to see her go. She's been a program staple for us. I know she's impacted her teammates to know how hard they're going to need to work. Q. If there was one thing you could have changed out there tonight, what would it be? JAMIE CRAIGHEAD: You know, early on we talked about not letting Buck get a wide-open look from the three-point line. Any time she gets those, it spreads the floor so much. They just start driving. If we could have just maybe locked on in defensive transition a little bit better, not let them get those open, easy ones, I think that would have helped us maybe get through the drought we were having offensively. But that second quarter really just did us in. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|