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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2019Doug BrunoAshton MillenderMart'e GraysChicago, Illinois DePaul - 80, Creighton - 69 DOUG BRUNO: The Big East is a great league and it's a great league because it has great coaches, and Jim Flanery is one of the best, but it also has great players. The Creighton basketball team here fought through a really tough season because of the injuries that they had early. Coach Flanery doesn't back down on a schedule. It was a great schedule that they played, and Jaylyn Agnew came into the season as an all-Big East player, didn't quite have the year that we thought she was going to have, but she was just absolutely magnificent tonight. And then when you have to guard Faber and Carda, it's just a really, really special Creighton team that we were just able to beat. Whenever you win a game, it's always about the players. The coaches set them up, but the players have to go on the floor and do it, and I was just really proud of our players for maintaining their resolve into the fourth quarter when we gave up a couple threes there. We had a six-point lead, gave up a couple threes, and then our players kept the resolve and kept their wits about them and did a good job then in the fourth quarter of executing in the fourth quarter. Marté is playing really good basketball. So is Ashton Millender, and one of the things that was most important about Marté tonight outside of the basketball was that she lost her composure slightly at the beginning of the second half, and I thought she did a great job of recapturing her composure, and I think that was very, very important to getting the win. Marquette has had a special year. They've had a special four years. Coach Kieger and Marquette has really done great things. It should be a great game to play tomorrow night. Q. Marté, that run that you guys had in the third and fourth quarter, to come back on top, what does that say about the resiliency of your team? MART'E GRAYS: Yeah, we preached and preached about it, like just defense and rebounding. That's what was going to bring us back into the game, and I think we done a great job with that going down the stretch. That's what created our lead. So I think we did a great job with that. Q. Ashton, Coach talked about this before the season; how much do you think this group has evolved defensively, and how much did it show in this win tonight? ASHTON MILLENDER: I believe we evolved very well. It took us a minute, it shouldn't have, but I feel like we've all come together, like he said, because we're always talking about how we look for focused on getting stops and getting rebounds more than we did in the beginning of the season. So I feel like we just talk to each other and then like it's go time now so I feel like we all just we came together and got it done and started focusing on rebounding and getting defense. Q. What Marté is on a roll, what does it do for this team? ASHTON MILLENDER: When she's on a roll inside, I feel like it opens up the outside for us. But at the same time, when she's doing good on the inside, just give it to her, that's what I said in my head. When she's taking advantage inside, give it to her. She's going to get it out, she's not a selfish player, so I feel like if I give it to her, she'll give it back to me. Q. Marté, tomorrow is going to be the third time you play Marquette this season. Obviously you lost both times to them, but that second game, the second half, you guys kind of found some answers against them and almost won the game. Do you feel like that's going to give you some confidence heading into tomorrow night? MART'E GRAYS: I feel like our confidence is coming from what we've done these last nine games. I'm telling you, this stretch has definitely just been -- our main focus has been defense, so I know if we just continue to focus on our defense end and rebounding, we'll take care of business, because we have great players, and I'm not saying that Marquette doesn't have great players, but we know we need to be on our defensive game tomorrow, so that's where I'm really confident about this one. Q. Ashton, how big was ball security tonight with you guys only committing five turnovers? ASHTON MILLENDER: That's very big. I feel like every game, turnovers are very big. For us to only have five tonight is great, making history. DOUG BRUNO: Oh, my gosh. (Laughter). Q. Ashton, what do you think is going to be the key tomorrow night against Marquette and trying to win the Big East Tournament final? ASHTON MILLENDER: Like Mart'e said, Marquette has very good players, so just containing them, playing defense and getting rebounds, offensive wise and defensive wise, they're very good in transition, so I feel like us getting stops, focusing on defense, it will get the job done. Q. How great of a spotlight is it for the Big East to have Marquette and DePaul in the final? DOUG BRUNO: Well, again, we're proud of what we've achieved here at DePaul, but we don't look back. We only look to the future. You know, we've done a little bit here at DePaul over the years, and Marquette now is in a place where they've really had a great year, a great couple years, and so to have the two teams that were picked in the preseason to win the Big East Conference and then the two teams that finished one game apart from each other in the regular season, and to have the two teams that have played in the championship the last two years, I think it speaks -- it's a great -- it's good for the Big East -- again, I just love this league, and the league was so much better this year than it was last year, and people beat each other up this year because there were so many better teams. But we're looking forward to the opportunity to compete against a really, really strong Marquette team, and the Marquette players are special players. They're good players. Hiedeman is the Player of the Year in this league and she's a very tough matchup for anybody. Blockton is the preseason player the year in the league. She got hurt, but she's back at full health now, very, very difficult match-up, Dani King has really hurt us. So Lott's playing really, really good basketball. It's just a really, really good basketball team. Everybody just talks about the only college basketball rivalry that exists is Duke and North Carolina, but here in the Midwest, Marquette and DePaul have been going at it for a very long time. And I was lucky enough to play for Coach Ray Meyer, against Al McGuire, and I know what this rivalry truly means, and it's a great rivalry, and so many young people from the city of Chicago, pick a Catholic school, and they'll be DePaul or they'll pick Marquette. So it's a big deal. There's the Wisconsin border. North of Wisconsin this team called the Packers plays. South of the border this team called the Bears plays. So there's a lot that goes into this rivalry that maybe people across the nation don't understand, but it's a healthy, fun, great rivalry, and we're looking forward to the opportunity just to compete. Q. Would you say there were times over the past three seasons that pressure usually doesn't pay dividends in the first quarter but it almost always does in the fourth. Was that an example of that tonight? DOUG BRUNO: Well, when you commit to pressure like we commit to pressure -- and I'm talking defensive pressure here, and I think that's what you're talking about -- yeah, the first objective of defensive pressure is to get a steal. But against the talented college players you're not going to get steals. So then can you wear people down, and I think tonight was a good example of wearing a really, really good team down. Marquette is a very difficult team to pressure. So that's something that, looking forward, I don't even know that we can or will. We'll see what happens. But at the same time, I think that's what our pressure is designed to do is to beat you over time, and I think it did take a toll tonight as we moved into the fourth. We generally -- that second and fourth quarter usually is a quarter where we can -- the pressure usually pays some dividends. Q. Coach, after that second game against Marquette early in the season, you talked in the press conference that that was DePaul ball at its best in the second half. Can you talk about how that gives you confidence heading into tomorrow? DOUG BRUNO: I don't know that I said DePaul ball at its best, but in the second half against Marquette, we were down 12 at halftime, and I think we had 27 points at halftime. We were down 39-27. Scoring 27 points isn't what we're out here to do. And then I think we had a 37-point third quarter. We got the game tied at 80 with three to go, and then Marquette finished and we didn't finish. At the same time, I said it's the first time this year that I felt like I saw DePaul ball come back. I didn't feel like it was there in the first non-conference part of the season, and even the first part of the conference season. You know, I think the second half of Marquette was the beginning of a turnaround for this basketball team that, we won in the non-conference, but we weren't ourselves. I just think it was -- we started to come back after that half. But let's not get carried away here. Again, you poor people that cover us all the time have to live with my statement and belief that every game is a life of its own, every season is a life of its own. So what happened in the game last year here isn't really going to have a lot of bearing, except for Marquette's motivation tomorrow. What happened in Game 1, what happened in Game 2, it's still going to come down to what's going to happen between 7:00 and 9:00 tomorrow right here against a very good basketball team. Q. Can you just speak about what it meant for your team to just remain calm and in the moment when trailing at times? How important was that? DOUG BRUNO: I'm one of the crazy people in coaching that doesn't like the word poise. I like the word resolve, all right. Poise, I mean, it's a very important adjective to describe athletes. There's no question about it. But I think dancers have some poise -- once we get into pure competition, I like to think it's more resolve than -- and we could get into a semantic argument and a coaching argument, okay, but I just think that our players have had some pretty strong resolve here down the second half. You start the Big East season 1-2, having played two home games, that's not the way to think you're going to win a Big East conference championship, and we still put ourselves in position to almost pull off the regular season tie coming down to the last game of the year. So I just think our players have had to have a lot of resolve through this stretch here. I've had to learn our team, and it took me a while to learn this basketball team. I'm still learning it, but I think we're getting more educated about what we have with our different combinations. We have a solid four players and our two seniors, Mart'e Grays, Ashton Millender, Kelly Campbell, our juniors, those are four staunch players, and then you pick it and you try to figure out who's going to -- Tanita Allen gave us some great ball tonight, maybe six minutes and seven points, and she gave us some great minutes tonight. Lexi wasn't really, really having a great night tonight, Lexi Held. I really was questioning who could be the fifth player coming down the stretch of the game, and I was ready to go back with Tanita Allen with an older lineup and even a bigger lineup, and Lexi then kind of caught some fourth quarter resolve, all right, and did a pretty nice job in the fourth. Q. Are you able to expand on your bench play tonight? DOUG BRUNO: Yeah, I mean, Dee Bekelja gets in the game, and she just -- she just gives you -- she just finds ways to score the basketball. It's unorthodox looking, but she just finds ways. Then Sonya Morris, I thought, let's start with Maya Stovall started the game but she's really in that rotation, even though she starts, I thought she had a really good beginning to the game. I didn't think it would continue, but I thought Bekelja gave us some really strong minutes, Sonya Morris gave us some strong minutes in there, and Tanita Allen did a good job, as well, and then Bekelja -- but Bekelja also was involved with giving up a couple of those threes there. We're not trying to give a very good Creighton team threes, and we gave up threes after we gave up a five-point lead. Q. I know you mentioned that every game is on an island, but the dynamics change maybe a little bit for Marquette, no Davenport this time around. How do you think that perhaps changed the interior game plan? DOUG BRUNO: Well, it's tragic that Marquette has had to deal with -- Davenport is a really part of the Marquette equation, and yet sometimes when we talk about these seasons having lives of their own, if you would ask -- I don't want to speak for Coach here, but I don't think she would have liked to see Blockton go down this season, I think she would have liked to have seen Blockton play every game. But sometimes you find some silver linings, Blockton going down created the emergence of Lott. So now obviously the Lott factor here, and that's a very, very good player. The dynamic changes. There's no question about it. But they weren't overly big to begin with, even though Davenport gave them great strength in the middle. I'm not trying to take anything away from her about that, but they still weren't a big basketball team. I didn't mention Wilborn before, I should have mentioned Wilborn, that's one of the toughest basketball players in this league. She's just a really, really good basketball player and a tough, tough match-up. You know she's going to get to the rim. You just can't keep her from getting to the rim. With Lott and Wilborn and Hiedeman and Blockton, this is still a really, really good basketball team, and Spingola is coming out and making some threes, and I think they're still a really, really excellent basketball team that has earned the right to really -- I mean, I believe they've earned the right to still play at home in the Big East, in the NCAA Tournament, but I'm a person that believes in the Big East, just like I believe we deserve three teams in, and I think it's going to be a stretch at this point. But I think we deserve it, and the reason -- we're better this year than last year, and we got four in last year. I don't want to get off on a tangent right now about that. It's going to be a really tough Marquette team to play against tomorrow night, and I feel for Davenport. We always feel for any injured athlete. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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