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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: AUSTINMarch 17, 2018Amy WilliamsJanay MortonHannah WhitishTaylor KissingerAustin, Texas Arizona State - 73, Nebraska - 62 AMY WILLIAMS: We were very excited to be a part of the field, and disappointed that we weren't able to play a little bit better in this first round game. We knew though it was going to take a very special rebounding effort on our part, and we just didn't take care of that. We got outrebounded by 22 rebounds you're not going to win very many games, particularly not in the NCAA Tournament if you can't handle that area of the game. Q. Janay, Coach talked about the rebounding really was a huge difference. How tough was it? What were they like to play against in terms of just chasing down the ball? JANAY MORTON: Yeah, I think they just relentlessly pursued the ball on every shot, whether it was defensively or offensively, so we just struggled with that. Q. You guys were starting to -- you had those back-to-back threes and you guys were up three at that point. They just started making things more difficult for you on offense, what changed there at that point in the game and why weren't the shots working for you guys? JANAY MORTON: I think our shots just weren't falling. We had our looks. They didn't fall, and I think that was the turn around there. Q. Did they do anything differently on that run? JANAY MORTON: They were aggressive the entire game. So I think they just stepped that up a little bit. But like I said, we had our looks. Q. Coach, you mentioned the rebounding there, but you guys were right in it at halftime. Did you feel like the rebounding eventually just caught up to you? It seemed like you were able to overcome that for a while? AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah, I mean, we were a little disappointed at halftime of how many rebounds that we'd given up, but to still be in the ballgame at that point was a positive thing. We had executed pretty well offensively up to that point, but we knew that if we were not going to find a way to turn that around that it was going to be a struggle, and we just didn't. In the second half we gave up ten more offensive rebounds, and even after making that a huge focal point, really all week in preparation, and that just says something for their relentless pursuit for the basketball. Just what we need to work on to be a little bit more disciplined with our rebounding efforts. Q. Going through the emotions from yesterday, you tripled your season from a year ago. Can you go back and assess the season? HANNAH WHITISH: Yeah, this season was something special, especially with the season we had last year. Starting the season off, everybody had a different mindset. Which I knew this season was going to be different from last year just because everybody came in and worked a lot harder than they had, just everything was more intense. Q. How about you, Taylor? TAYLOR KISSINGER: Coming in as a freshman, it was cool to see because I watched them last year, and they struggled because of the coaching change and everything. But I came in and I was surprised to see the hard work, effort and everything with everyone. It was really awesome. It lifted me up to work hard too, and everyone else just raised their level. JANAY MORTON: Yeah, just as a red-shirt, sitting on the bench all last year, having to watch the team, I think it was a chance for me to be able to see what we needed as far as the following year. Then when I was finally able to play with my teammates, you know, just to make those types of things happen and being vocal, whether it be in practice or games and I think that helped a lot with this turnaround. But everyone on the team stepped up this year as well to make that happen too. Q. The way this game was played, not to put the blame on the players, but Maddie for example, had given you ten points a game this season. But she had early foul trouble. What was some of the frustration that you felt with your team with their defense and how the flow of the game was? AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah, I really felt like Maddie was going to be a key for today's game. We really felt like that. We challenged Maddie. We talked to her yesterday in practice, today at shootaround we said we need you to strive to come away with ten rebounds in this ballgame. Unfortunately, Maddie was saddled with foul trouble the whole game and not only did she not come away with ten, but she had the goose egg in the rebounding category. Maddie's one of our best rebounders. She's one of our most athletic players. She can go out of her area to secure rebounds. So having her on the bench in foul trouble was really critical for our team. I didn't think we adjusted or handled that very well. Q. Did you get a sense that that kind of affected how players were on the court, if they were missing her or going this isn't work? AMY WILLIAMS: You know, it's not the first time this season that we've had to adjust or had a player in foul trouble. But I do think that it did cause a few shifts for us. We played Jasmine Cincore who is kind of starts as a guard for us. Then we played her several minutes in that forward position to try to take some of Maddie's minutes. Jasmine's nice, strong, great athlete, just a little undersized in there, and kind of I think that affected some things just with our ability to come away with rebounds. Certainly I thought our players, they've been there before. They played in sync. They knew what to expect. They adjusted offensively just fine. It was more just our ability to rebound, I think was affected with that foul trouble. Q. Something going on with Maddie that you kind of lost focus and the fouls and just really didn't get anything done? AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah, I don't think there was anything going on with Maddie. I think Maddie's a tremendous player. She's had a great season, and she's a huge piece of why we were able to have the type of season and why we were even playing in the NCAA Tournament. But it's just a very difficult thing when you are -- as soon as you go back in the game and, Boom, you get called for an offensive foul, and Boom you have to come sit down again. It's just very difficult to get into a rhythm and play the way that she's capable of playing when she was just very sporadic with her time out there. Q. You touched on it yesterday, but the season finally coming to a close, again, you went seven wins last year, 21 wins, you get to the NCAA Tournament. How do you look back now moments after the loss? Put the season in a capsule for us? AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah, it's very difficult to do that. I told our players in the locker room that you can let this sting for a little while, but permanently we are going to hold our heads up high and we're not going to have this be the final taste in our mouth. We're going to walk away being very, very proud of the progress that was made for our program. Our seniors, we are grateful to for notching our program. We've talked about finding ways to raise the bar. I feel like those three seniors poured their heart into this program, and they raised the bar a couple of notches for us. Now, you know, the girls all talk about how hard they worked in the off-season because they didn't want another season like last year. Now the expectations have risen. That bar has been raised, and now we have to find ways to continue to raise it higher. I just feel like we're going to walk away feeling very proud of the way this season went, and thankful to our seniors for all they poured into it and excited and eager to correct some things that caused us problems in the Big Ten tournament and in the NCAA Tournament. Areas that we feel like we can correct moving forward as a program. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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