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MOUNTAIN WEST WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 10, 2019

Las Vegas, Nevada

Utah State - 62, Colorado State - 59

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Utah State head coach Jerry Finkbeiner and student-athletes Shannon Dufficy and Eliza West. Coach, an opening statement.

COACH FINKBEINER: I thought Colorado State did a really good job establishing the tempo of the game. We had a very hard time controlling that isolation play. They're bigger at the guard spot, a little bit more physical than our guards, and they just practiced that all night long. And we really struggled guarding it.

But credit to our kids. Obviously we made big plays when we needed big plays. And hit free throws down the stretch, I think 6-for-6 down that last minute, minute ten seconds, and obviously we needed every one of those free throws.

It was all about situations the last two minutes. We've been working a lot on situations the last week of practice. So it might have been a little pay-off there. But I look at our stats. We just did not shoot the ball very well.

But we had a good assist-to-turnover ratio. I think that might have been our biggest positive, 15 assists to 10 turnovers. These two here, you might mention Shannon Dufficy, all-league this year, Mountain West. And she broke our Utah State double-double season record tonight.

And Eliza West broke our assist record at Utah State. A big night for some individual awards. But most importantly, as they'll say, the W is a lot bigger deal tonight than individual stuff. So we're just really happy to move forward and move on and tomorrow night's a late game at 8:30.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Like Coach said, it's a huge deal but I've got to hear your take from both of you. What it's like to have these records? Was it on your mind at all tonight going into the game?
SHANNON DUFFICY: I'm going to say no, I didn't even know this was the game that it could happen in. As Coach said, like, we would both say it's not the individual achievements that we're worried about; it's the W. Whether it's an ugly loss or a real pretty one, it's the W that matters in the end. I think it's a reflection of our teammates of both of us getting these achievements.

ELIZA WEST: I agree with Shannon. I did know about the assist record kind of thing coming up because it was put on Twitter and then everyone kept telling me about it at practice. I was like leave me alone.

But it wasn't something I was thinking about in the game because, of course, we're in the tournament now and it's one game on to the next. And individual achievements are just blocked out right now. And it's not something we need to think about we need to think about the team and winning the championship.

Q. You had a pretty awful third quarter in terms of shooting but you bounce back in the fourth quarter. How did you bounce back from that third quarter offensively, and then kick it off with an 11-0 run to start the fourth?
ELIZA WEST: I think we had a good -- when we had a good stretch we hit a couple of nice shots. And Marlene was really good for us in that segment. She had steals and just had really strong takes in the basket. And that just really helped us. Her game was really significant tonight for us.

Q. Talk a little bit more about Marlene. We haven't really seen much from her until now. So tell me about how awesome that was to see her succeed?
COACH FINKBEINER: First of all, we still can't pronounce her last name. So we just call her Mar or Marlene.

ELIZA WEST: Aniambossou.

COACH FINKBEINER: Very nice. I told the girls in the locker room, all these individual achievements, we got a win. There was a lot of pressure on both teams tonight. The first-round win is -- I hope the wrinkles have now been ironed out for tomorrow and maybe the pressure might be on Wyoming a little bit.

But Marlene might get the game basketball tonight. She came off the bench, played very limited minutes all year. She's going to have a good senior year. But she's probably the difference of our game tonight, just come off the bench and give us spark.

Hailey Bassett-Meacham struggled tonight. And Deja Mason struggled tonight. They're our 2-3 posts along with Shannon. And Marlene is our fourth post off the bench and she came up big.

Q. Rachel had nine points going into the half. She's your leading scorer, goes scoreless in the second half. You end up having six players score more than eight points in the game. How did that overall distribution help you guys to stay ahead throughout the game?
COACH FINKBEINER: That's a good question, because that's one of our internal issues of trying to be where we want to be. We have struggled all year long with scoring. Shannon scored all year long. We've had a really hard time having other people score with her.

And the last five out of seven games, six out of seven games we've had, finally had two, three, sometimes four double-figure girls. Even though Rachel's was in the first half, Olivia West also had nine in the first half, ended up being our leading scorer. And now we're starting to get some punch there offensively.

And I think our late-season run has been due to the fact that we're starting to score more points.

Now, tonight we didn't shoot the ball very well. But I think it was nerves, and I think it's Colorado State. But it's big time. Olivia, that one comment there, I mentioned the girls in the locker room a few minutes ago, Olivia and Rachel, we needed that first half out of them. Definitely needed them.

Q. Coach, how would you describe that last minute overall, pretty hectic where you pulled away and they came back, repeated two or three times in that final minute and 30 seconds?
COACH FINKBEINER: I was asked by the Mountain West Network, what did you guys do? I told them I can't remember. I have to watch the tape. Sometimes you have to have those situations, your players make plays, both offensively and defensively.

Like Eliza said Marlene made a couple plays, got a steal, made two free throws. Eliza hit a 3. Shannon hit a 2. Just things came together there.

And you wish it could happen over 40 minutes. But I think the biggest positive we can take away tonight, we just did the things we had to do to get over the hump. We did the things we had to do to get the W.

I know there's two sides of the picture here: Colorado State's view and our view. And we did the things that we needed to do to get the win. So we're really proud of the girls. We have worked a lot on situations.

We've worked a lot on plays when the shot clock is running down. So I think it gave our girls a little confidence in those situations when we had to make a play.

Q. You mentioned a couple of times the poor shooting night overall. You had a lot of offensive rebounds. I think 13 or 14 or so. Like, how big is getting those offensive rebounds on a night where not all the shots are falling?
COACH FINKBEINER: Shannon's our lead rebounder. She's averaging a double-double on the season and I think about 12 or 13 in conference.

And Colorado State has a really interesting game plan. They don't bound offensively; they just get back. They don't want to give up a layup. They can give up offensive opportunities.

On the flipside, we try to really impress upon our girls let's get offensive rebounds, let's get putbacks. So that might have been true, besides the assist-to-turnover ratio, second-chance points, 10-0, two are probably the two stat lines that really gave us the win tonight.

We need to do more than that tomorrow night, because tomorrow's nights game against Wyoming, they have an inside-out, and they have one of the better records in the conference.

But I think Colorado State, it's just their tempo tonight. That probably makes our winning better because we played their style, their tempo, and we walked away with a win.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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