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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 10, 2019

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Baylor 88, Kansas State 60

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Kansas State Wildcat coach, Jeff Mittie, and his student-athletes, Kayla Goth and Peyton Williams. Coach, your thoughts about this afternoon's game?

JEFF MITTIE: Well, I didn't like it very damn much. I would say this. What you saw was, I think, a really good Baylor team. Give them a lot of credit. That's a team, I believe, that has a chance to win the National Championship. It's a team that has all the weapons. You have a tough time. We went into this game trying to keep Kalani off that left block and that's easier said than done, and they put Landrum on that same side and to squeeze that Landrum knocks threes down. You have to pick your poison with them and they're very, very good.

I thought we got off to a great start. I thought our players were competing and I think the fatigue. The one thing is we had to fight hard to get to this game. That takes a lot out of them. I credit our players for fighting and battling, but I think I think we were tired and I think they wanted to play well. But at some point we got really offensively standing around and I think a lot of that had to do with the fatigue of back-to-back and how hard we had to fight to win yesterday's game. So give Baylor credit.

Q. What have you learned about your game fundamentally playing against Baylor?
KAYLA GOTH: Good question. I think they expose a lot of your weaknesses. So, I mean, protecting the ball in general becomes a bit of an issue for somebody like me who has the ball in their hands a lot. Just their length. Richards was on me most of the game and she is long, so being able to find open shots kinda gets tough.

PEYTON WILLIAMS: I would say that we're used to being the team that's a little longer and a little bit taller on average than everybody else and I think that was a big challenge to try and move the ball against length. So I think that contributes to us not standing and not really knowing where to go. I think in order to when we face bigger teams we need to learn how to move better even when we're facing teams that are taller.

Q. You guys, you're only two losses the past month to Baylor. How would you characterize putting yourselves back into the mix and giving yourselves an opportunity to make the tournament?
KAYLA GOTH: I think we got back to having fun again. We started to play a little bit more and I think we came into this game really hoping that we could pull something off here. I think we got back to having fun and moving the ball and flying around on defense, and, yeah, just getting back to having fun I would say.

PEYTON WILLIAMS: Right. I think part of that is we know that our season is still going to continue. I think in the third quarter there that was a lot of the motivating factor was looking ahead and saying, okay, we're practicing for now, of course, but then we're also practicing for tournament stuff as well. So I think that was contributing. We tried to improve in the areas that we could I think during then.

Q. You guys, strong start. But in the second quarter it got way. What does it feel like when they're starting to run at you, clearly because you guys were a little tired there?
KAYLA GOTH: It's tough. They're obviously a really good team. They're number one in the country for a good reason. We got off to a really good start but honestly I think we did some of that damage to ourselves. We stopped moving the ball, got dribble happy, stopped finding open people, stuff like that, we stopped doing what made us good in that first quarter. They're obviously a really good team, though, and they kinda do that to you. They start to get aggressive on the ball and deflect passes and stuff like that. But I think we got away from what made us good.

THE MODERATOR: Ladies, congratulations. Thank you.

Q. You've coached over 27 seasons. This is your fifth season at K-State. What have you seen differently in this team in particular that you haven't in the past?
JEFF MITTIE: This team for the last month has played extremely well. The growth in this team I think is probably more than I've seen in some of the teams. Now, we're a young team so you hope that we could have that growth. We only have two seniors on this roster. But at the same time, having that growth in the middle of a Big 12 season is not always easy. It's not easy to get the victories. You can see growth but not necessarily victories. In the last month, since February 4th the only team we have lost to is Baylor. Baylor is a tough match-up for everybody. The ability for them to throw 6-7, 6-4 together that play so well together, that have played so many games together. Their size is so imposing, so you have to take advantage of every opportunity. But against, with our group we have seen tremendous growth and we've seen with the exception against Baylor we have played unbelievably well this last month.

Q. Also, you know, when you're looking at game video, what's the plan? What's the strategy before you went into this game today against Baylor? How many hours have you, you know, looking at film and stuff like that?
JEFF MITTIE: You spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to score. That's the one thing ironically today, we score more today. We felt like we needed to hit ten threes against them. We felt like we needed to knock down. We felt like, yesterday we had 29 attempts and we felt like we needed to get that number of attempts where Baylor is so good at is they ran us off the line today. They really got into us and we couldn't get the attempts up, 5 of 19 and some of those were end of shot clock threes that weren't very good. We just couldn't find enough offense from the 3-point line.

Q. Do you think chemistry becomes a factor within the players, like you mentioned when you look at Baylor, seeing the teammates, players, playing with each other for so long?
JEFF MITTIE: Well, that starting five of theirs with the exception of Chloe Jackson, and Chloe has blended in nicely with that. It's a group that has achieved at a high level. It's a group that is extremely competitive, extremely talented. Many of those teams played AAU ball with or against each other. So they've known each other longer. That chemistry is great. You see it with our team. You've seen Goth and Williams playing so well together. Time can only get some of that. But when you look at Kayla Goth playing 120-plus games in her career, 90 of those with Peyton Williams. There is the connections there. What we have seen with our group, the chemistry has continued to grow like you would hope as a coach. Our young group has continued to blend better at both ends of the floor.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, congratulations on a great season. Good luck.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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