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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 10, 2019

Jim Crowley

Chicago, Illinois

DePaul - 85, Providence - 60

JIM CROWLEY: I mean, I think the first thing that comes into my mind is that DePaul does not get enough national credit for how good they are. Not just the consistency, but this team in particular, how good they are. Their shot making is exemplary, it's outstanding, and they really put a lot of pressure on you because you make a mistake and they make you pay, and they did so to us.

Playing these last two games against us so close is going to be really good for our off-season stuff because it shows us and our young kids the level. Now, it's easy to show, but again, credit to DePaul. They play uncomfortably hard. We play pretty comfortably hard, they play uncomfortably hard, and that's just a credit to Doug, his staff and obviously their great senior leadership.

Q. What made defending DePaul so tough?
JIM CROWLEY: Yeah, some of those we didn't have a chance to because they were run-outs, whether they were turnovers or our shot decisions, we had no balance on some of the shot decisions, and obviously on some of the turnovers we had nothing.

You know, in the half court, again, their pace and tempo is so good, and when you have the number of kids they have, they have four kids who have played together for a long time, and you could see it. You jump out on a screen, they slip it. You stay in a screen, they pop, and the ball is right there waiting for them. And again, they make that look easy. That's not easy. And they do it really well. I mean, I just don't think they're getting -- maybe it's good for them to stay under the radar like that, but they're not getting enough credit for how good they are and how well they're playing with that.

Q. What kind of a step do you think your program took this year?
JIM CROWLEY: Well, hopefully we can keep going. I mean, having coached in the WNIT a few times, we think that's an amazing opportunity and we'd be honored to be a part of that. But we learned how to win. We learned what that takes, both on the road in close games, we learned how to stay with things. We had a number of wins that we came from behind. And we learned to trust -- a lot of players learned to trust themselves, trust each other, and trust what we do. It's on us as coaches to keep moving that forward. It's on players to keep moving forward the way we need to.

Q. Focusing on the freshman class, what did they add to this program's culture?
JIM CROWLEY: Yeah, again, you know, they really responded to our upperclassmen and allowed themselves to be part of that, and then they've had a lot of success in their past. We got a chance to see a little of what Alyssa Geary can do and we're excited about what she can do. Earlette Scott is going to be a good player. And Sophia only played a couple minutes at the end, but they're all pretty good. And our sophomore class is not bad. But again, that means nothing if we sit on our butts all off season. That means nothing if we don't react to the improvements that we need to make.

We're excited for that because we feel pretty good about what we have, but we feel even better about where we can go, and we need them to be a big part of that.

Q. You mentioned how DePaul plays uncomfortably hard and you play comfortably hard. What do you need to do to take that step to start playing uncomfortably hard?
JIM CROWLEY: That's a great question. That's what we're looking forward to the off-season for. Obviously a lot of that is on me. The higher level of accountability to that. And then we need to be that partnership with our players. A lot of people don't want to go there. A lot of people don't want to go there, and then some kind of revolt against that, but we don't have those kind of kids. I think our kids are up for that. We've got a great example of DePaul with that.

And people get so caught up -- and again, I keep kind of rambling on about them, but people get so caught up in this offense, and it is really something special. But the execution level that they have, and again, the level they do that at, I've been at this a long time, it's really, really unique, and they've got it going really well right now.

Q. What makes DePaul such a tough team to defend them on the perimeter?
JIM CROWLEY: Well, they all shoot it. And again, that experience they have, and their young kids are really, really good, but their young kids are going against those guys every day. And obviously Doug makes them work so hard that they're getting better quickly.

But they're experienced and they all shoot it and they all have drilled at a high level to do that. But that experience, as I mentioned earlier, of how they read off one another and how they read the defense so, so well.

You know, this is only -- the year before I got here, I coached against Doug and then we've coached these last two -- the way they're playing right now, and I really hope this isn't any kind of silly jinx, superstitious coaches, but the way they're playing right now and that level of execution, it's really fun to watch and awful to play against.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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