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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 9, 2019Kim Barnes-AricoNicole MungerAmy DilkIndianapolis, Indiana Maryland - 73, Michigan - 72. KIM BARNES ARICO: Were you guys there for the game? That was a pretty awesome basketball game, wasn't it? Pretty exciting. I thought we should have won. Great basketball game. Maryland is a great team. I think Michigan has a pretty great team, as well. Really proud of the way we played. I can get really emotional about it because I thought we had a chance to win the game. I have some great seniors, and one of them is here right now in Nicole Munger and Hallie Thome that really left it all on the court today, and our goal coming into the year was to win a Big Ten championship, and we thought we put ourselves in position to do that tonight and just kind of fell a little bit short. But proud of our team, proud of the way we fought back when we got down, and I think we play in one of the toughest leagues if not the toughest league in the country, and that was on display tonight. Just a great basketball game and proud of our team. Q. Amy, not the outcome you were expecting but can you tell me what it was like coming back -- this is as close as you're going to get to your home turf coming from Carmel. Can you tell me what that was like and being able to put a career-high 11 assists up? AMY DILK: Yeah, coming back is always great. I've got a lot of people in the stands rooting for Michigan. You know, the Big Ten Tournament, it's really competitive, as you can tell. We had a great run, not what we wanted to finish like, but for next year, you've got to remember this pain, and you've got to learn from it, learn from your mistakes, and we've still got season left, so we've still got to learn from this and grow. Q. How do you feel with the refs? There was probably a lot of fouls but they never called them. KIM BARNES ARICO: Be politically correct. NICOLE MUNGER: That can be a tough one, but the refs are doing the best to make the game as even as possible and to call the best game. They have a lot of things going on in their mind, too, but being a captain we're allowed to talk to the refs, so I always try to ask them in a polite way what was the reasoning for the call and if it's for me I'll take note of that. They called me for a block, which I thought it might have been a charge, but I just asked why and they said I was a little late. Next time I try to get there a little earlier. If it's for somebody else, one of my teammates, I'll let my teammates know right away. I'll ask them, hey, what was that about, they say they're moving or something, I'll just let them know that they got there too late or they got their arm or something. Q. Not the outcome you wanted, Nicole, this is your senior year, what legacy will you leave for your underclassmen? NICOLE MUNGER: First and foremost, I hope they know how proud of them I am. I know Hallie is, as well, and Sam and Taylor who came in this year, all four of us are just exceptionally proud of them, the way they fought, the way they bought in, they believed. We made a bold statement coming out at the beginning of the year saying we wanted to win this. And I think we put ourselves, like Coach said, in a position to win it, and I think that's what's so tough. We played a heck of a game today. We left everything out there and the ball bounced the wrong way a couple times. That's nothing that they should be ashamed of because we played our hardest. But moving forward I talked to each of them during the game and told them they have one, two or three years left. They only have three more shots at this, and to make each one count, and that it's limited, and that I see it now because I'm older and I'm done playing in Big Ten basketball, but how fun it is, and like Coach said, it's the best conference in the country, so just have fun with it. Q. What have you seen from Amy all season long in terms of her maturity and her growth? KIM BARNES ARICO: Amy is an incredible, incredible player. I feel like I have the best point guard in the country on my team, and I say that all the time. And maybe there's some coaches out there that feel like theirs is the best, but I feel like I have the best point guard in the country on my team, and she's just a freshman. She controls the entire game. She has incredible vision. She has incredible pace. She just sees things. She has incredible length. She has great size. She can affect the game on the defensive end as well as she can on the offensive end, and she has the ability to rebound the basketball. I mean, she gets up and grabs the rim. That's how athletic she is. So she's just a special player for us. I'm so happy to be her coach. She's a competitor. She's a winner. And I'm just a proud coach, and I'm glad she's at Michigan. I'm glad she left Carmel, Indiana, and came to the University of Michigan because she's certainly a difference maker for us. Q. What do you think you can do better for next year? KIM BARNES ARICO: Hmm, well, to get a shot with 10 seconds left, I think we have got to get a shot, so that will be something we work on, making sure we try to get a shot and have the confidence to take the shot when the game is on the line. And just continuing -- each individual player just continuing to try to get better. Q. What will you take away from this game? KIM BARNES ARICO: I probably won't sleep for like three days. It's going to be horrible. But just really proud of the effort of our team. Q. The game kept going back and forth, and I could see you pacing on the sideline. You called a big timeout with 29 seconds left and you came out of that timeout and executed. What was the mentality going into that play? KIM BARNES ARICO: I thought we did a tremendous job of executing in the fourth quarter all the way down the stretch. I mean, we outscored them 16-6 until those two free throws at the end. So we were really confident in our offense. We were really executing. Nicole Munger was hitting big shots and we were going inside and out, and I thought that our kids were locked in. We've been in this position a lot of times this year, so we really felt confident that we were going to be on the winning end of it coming out tonight. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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