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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 9, 2019Tim EatmanArella GuirantesCharise WilsonIndianapolis, Indiana Iowa - 72, Rutgers - 67 TIM EATMAN: First of all, I want to give Iowa a ton of credit. They played like a 2 seed tonight. They came out, and they punched us in the face from the beginning. But to our kids' credit, they fought back, and they didn't get knocked out. They kept up the fight, and we continued to find our way during the basketball game, and we started to believe a little bit more in ourselves and what we were trying to get accomplished, and once we got our belief together, we played a good basketball game. We wish there was another five minutes. We felt like if there was another five minutes we would have been in good shape. But we hope the people at Rutgers University and the administration and all of our fans are proud of these kids because I am. I am extremely proud of them because they played with the Rutgers kind of attitude that we should play with. Q. When you guys were down 20, you continued to fight back. What led to that? Was it just forcing turnovers or the press or what kind of led you guys to get back in the game? ARELLA GUIRANTES: I just think that we just never got down on ourselves. I think we stuck to the 55, and it kind of put a lot of pressure on them. We weren't getting too many turnovers out of it, but we were okay with it, them starting their offense at 20 seconds basically, and then we were just converting back on offense, pushing the ball. Charise did a good job of pushing the ball, pushing the tempo. When Zippy came in and Noga hit some shots, everybody just stepped up at the moment. CHARISE WILSON: It's a mentality that we have. We're going to play hard regardless, whether we were down 20, 10 or 6, we're still going to play our game, do what we do, and moving forward that's what we're going to do. We're going to play hard regardless of the winning score, and we're going to play to win. Q. It took you a little bit to get going tonight. What are the defense like of some of their big guards and forwards? ARELLA GUIRANTES: I think I didn't realize that they were pretty much face-guarding me. I think they played as a triangle-and-two in the first half at some point, but I think what got me going was when Charise came in and she's just like, run, just run, and I just started running, and that was it. But yeah, I think when we just pushed the ball and were not standing there. We were pretty stagnant in the first half, and Coach said that to us. So the ball wasn't moving as well. I think we fixed it in the second half, and that's when I started to feel myself and get going. Q. Coach, Victoria Harris found herself in heavy foul trouble early. You pulled her from the game with two fouls, you pulled her from the game with three fouls. When she came to the bench, what was your message to her each time? TIM EATMAN: Well, I didn't actually take her out for the fouls. I felt like she wasn't getting to her match-up defensively, and I felt like they were getting the basketball into Megan who was allowing them the opportunity to make the next pass. And we talked about it during shootaround, that in this game we had to come up and all five players had to match up. So once we were able to talk about it -- Victoria is the type of young lady, if you can tell her something, she can digest it and go. And I said, don't forget, you've got to come up and get Megan, don't get back. She's like, my bad, Coach, my bad, I got you. To her credit she wanted to get back out there, and she was like, my bad, I got you. It wasn't the foul trouble, because I probably would have played her with two in the first half, it was just getting to the match-ups. But to her credit, she played like a senior, and a senior plays like they don't want their season to end, and I thought she got back out there and fought for us. Q. Iowa started pretty fast, pretty early, and you guys were having some defensive breakdowns. What kind of led -- was there anything else that led to Iowa doing what they were going to do as far as breaking the press or anything else? TIM EATMAN: Well, in order for the press to work, you've got to get to your match-ups, and we never got to our match-ups. They spaced us out, and so we came in at halftime, we talked about getting back to our base, and our base is the 3, 4, 5 have got to go to the boards, and the 1 and 2 have got to form a tandem on the flight of the shot, and we wasn't doing that. We were all over the place. Once we got back to our base, that 3, 4, 5 started going to the boards, now the 4 it's easier for her to get on the ball because she's under the rim. The 5 it's easier to get to Megan because she's underneath the rim. But when we wasn't doing that, we couldn't get to our match-ups, and the second thing is our protector wasn't getting back to form a tandem on the shot. So when the ball was shot, when we scored, they were just pushing it up on the floor. So once we got that settled down at halftime, I thought now we took away the first pass, and we took away Megan in the middle, and then we made them work to get it up the court. And we forced them into 17 turnovers, and they're a good basketball team, and I thought that was something really good. Q. What was your message to your team when you got down 20? TIM EATMAN: Believe in what we're doing. Believe in what we're doing. Look around at each other and say you've got each other's back, and we're going to believe in the process, and if we believe in what we're doing, we'll be fine. But everybody has got to do their job right then and there. Don't point fingers, point it at yourself and say, I'm going to do my job, and if I do my job, my teammate is going to do her job, and we'll be fine. And once we started believing in what we was doing and what we started to get accomplished, then we started making progress. Then we started to get them on their heels, and once we could get them on their heels, we had an opportunity to win it. I'm going to say this to you, I know it wasn't part of the question, but they not only have belief in what they're doing, they have to learn from this moment, because the next time we play, we have to earn the right to play 40 more. No one gives you anything else anymore. If you want something the rest of the way, you've got to earn the right for that. And so they've got to believe in the process in practice, believe in it every day so we can get a little bit better. Q. Almost certainly a bid coming to the (NCAA) tournament. What does the next nine days entail for you and your girls? TIM EATMAN: Well, we've got to make sure we take care of academics. They've been away from school for a while so we've got to get back home and get with our academic people and make sure everybody has got everything taken care of academically first. Then we've got to take care of our bodies to make sure we can get healthy and strong, and then we've got to get back and get our minds ready to play, by working on things that we need to work on to get better. This is a great opportunity for us. We got punched in the face by somebody, so now we get a chance to watch that, and now when we come back and watch those things, we'll get better for the next time. The first couple days will be about academics and getting their bodies right. Then the next couple days will be about, okay, what can we do to get better and what we're trying to get accomplished. Then we'll start worrying about letting the chips fall where they fall. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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