|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MOUNTAIN WEST WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 6, 2018Chris GobrechtDee BennettErika ChapmanLas Vegas, Nevada Boise State - 60, Air Force - 46 CHRIS GOBRECHT: I think it was kind of what can happen sometimes when you have to play a game the day before, the other guy doesn't. So their legs are a little bit fresher. We didn't have quite our usual sort of bounce in our step that I think really helped us yesterday, both defensively and offensively. We struggled with scoring the ball. We've struggled all year with scoring the ball. This wasn't anything new. This was probably a little bit more typical of where we are right now offensively. Yesterday was not typical of where we are offensively (smiling). We were able to knock some shots down. We struggled a little bit, just being able to score. I thought there was just two spurts, one in the second quarter, one in the third quarter, that cost us the game. A little bit of just our youth showing, being a very, very young team, having it get to us a little bit, that we were having such a hard time scoring. They got a burst in the second quarter and in the third quarter. We just never quite were able to recover from that. That being said, I thought we did battle really hard and continued to come after them. We forced them to turn the ball over a lot. We feel confident we can do that on a consistent basis. That was something that we really rely on. What we didn't do a good job of was turning those turnovers into points. That's part of our game plan, especially if Emily is not hitting, Kaelin was working really hard to score, Erika was working really hard to score, but it was just we weren't getting the easy looks. They're long, they're very athletic, very skilled. It sort of caught up with us a little bit. But I think we feel like it's a good learning experience and we'll be ready to get those guys next year. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. There was a time that you kept it close, down by one after the first period, it looked as if Boise, they were getting looks, but there was a lid on it, the ball wasn't falling. What was taking place at your end that you just couldn't capitalize? Was it their defense, you guys mentally weren't able to capitalize? ERIKA CHAPMAN: I think we always struggle to shoot the ball. That's not really our game. Our game is defense. We just couldn't capitalize on their turnovers, and scoring the ball on our end after we forced those turnovers. Q. Dee, for you? DEE BENNETT: It's the same thing. Yesterday was not the usual us. We shot the ball this way all year, still found ways to pull out wins. We usually get it done on the defensive end, and we didn't do that tonight. Even if shots didn't fall, we usually go back on the other end and keep fighting. Q. How would you assess this season as far as getting the first tournament win in seven years yesterday, just summarizing the improvement you've seen as far as the camaraderie, chemistry, what coach has done to sort of bring this program together? ERIKA CHAPMAN: I think this season was just a steppingstone. This program is going to do great things in the years to come. Even next year, you're going to see a big improvement in what they can do on the floor and how they're going to handle themselves, get even more wins that we've seen this year in the tournament and in the season. DEE BENNETT: Yeah, I think our record doesn't show, doesn't really justify how good our team is. We lost a bunch of games by one, two and three points. Our record doesn't show how good our team is, how good we were all season. We continued to fight, continued to get better. Those wins came at the end of the season. The girls next year are going to build on that and be even better. THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student-athletes at this time. Thank you, ladies. We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. Could you talk about Boise's execution, then Riley, her ability to knock down shots. She was the catalyst in helping Boise pull away from you guys. CHRIS GOBRECHT: She did that at our place, too. We were in a very, very tight game with them. We lost track of her. Actually two of the three times we didn't lose track of her, we were up in her face and she hit them. That's what she does. That's her game. She's very good at that. I think a lot of coaches in the Mountain West are going to be going back to the drawing board in the off-season and take a look at -- she's a rhythm player, so a big part of defending her is to just knock her out of her rhythm. You can't let her size you up. You can't let her do her step back, her little one-bounce dribble pull-up, that type of thing. She's a rhythm player. I think the more we study and figure out how to defend her -- you know, we did a great job on her. She wasn't hurting us at all. Then all of a sudden she got loose. You would think we'd learn our lesson. Like I said, that happened at our place, too. In the second half, she only had one bucket against us at our place. She does that. It's all of a sudden she gets loose, and you go, How did that happen? How did we lose track of her? Briefly, you turn your head, she's going to make you pay. But then you feel like the rest of the time you're doing a pretty good job on her, she's not scoring the ball. Again, I'm sure that Kaelin Immel and Emily Conroe, our shooters, would love to have that many weapons on the floor. You can't just focus on stopping them, but you got to stop everybody. We can't pay that much attention to her, not when you have Marta, who can score like that, Braydey Hodgins has really come on lately, been scoring the ball. Shalen Shaw you know can shoot and score the ball with anybody in the conference. It's not like you can just leave other people and go pay attention to her. That's a big part of her success, is the quality of the people around her. Q. You wanted to make sure it appeared that the seniors got their just due. You pulled the players out. They got a standing O. What did you tell them? CHRIS GOBRECHT: I just thanked them, told them that we loved them. What they deserve a lot of credit for is that they've been the ones out there digging up the ground and planting the seed. When we do have the success we anticipate having in the future for Air Force women's basketball, it will have been built on the blood, sweat and tears of those seniors. We're very grateful to them. We're grateful for their resiliency, for the way that they stuck with it, for their willingness to buy in and keep believing in the face of loss after loss after loss. Not too many young people can do that. They're very special. They're a big part of us getting where we believe we will be. We think we'll be right back here and onward next year. THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time, coach. CHRIS GOBRECHT: 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
|