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MOUNTAIN WEST WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 11, 2019

Las Vegas, Nevada

Wyoming - 64, Utah State - 41

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Wyoming head coach Joe Legerski and student-athletes Marta Gomez and Bailee Cotton.

COACH LEGERSKI: I thought our senior leadership showed tonight. Marta and Bailee have been through so much in this tournament, being seniors that have played extensively. The same with Clara Tapia. We talked about our big start and what we wanted to do defensively. I thought we executed it at a high level.

When you have players like Marta and Bailee, get you going offensively, makes it a game, where all of a sudden in the second half we can kind of determine how we want to play it, whether we want to speed it up, slow it down. I thought the first half really gave us that opportunity.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. The hot start offensively, did that set up your defense, or did the defense set up the offense, or a little bit of both? What attributed to the fast start?
COACH LEGERSKI: I thought our defense really set up our offense. To be able to hold Utah State, which is a very potent offensive team, to make it very difficult, as we talked about, one and out.

And we knew having played them twice that there were going to be switches happening and we just had to make sure that our motion offense had a lot of cuts in it; and the players, as I said, experienced players, and I thought the play of Clara Tapia. She took to heart what we talked about doing. To go from 5-of-6 from the field and no 3s from her, and she finished. And that was a big plus for us throughout the whole evening.

Q. Marta, their coach called you the best half-court offensive team in the Mountain West. You guys shoot 53 percent tonight. What was working offensively to get the kind of looks you got?
MARTA GOMEZ: I think just our motion offense. We practiced that for four years. We really mastered the motion offense and I think it's really hard to guard. So I think that's what makes us a really good team, that we always talk about that we don't even know what we are going to do, because motion is like so free for us to run whatever we want. And I think that confused a lot of teams. When we run it and we do it good, I think that's pretty hard to guard.

Q. Bailee, Dufficy had 11 first-half points but then just six in the second half. I know she had foul trouble you guarded her a lot, the defensive player of the year in this league. Did you do anything different defensively against her to slow her down?
BAILEE COTTON: Yeah, I noticed when we went in for halftime that she had 11 points and she was the only one in double figures. So it was, like, I knew I had to step up a little bit. And we knew she was going to get her points. She shot 20 times. And so I think holding her to 8-of-20, I'm still proud of that, because we knew she was going to shoot so much. And I wanted to make sure every shot she had, it was tough and it was tough to get it into her and tough for her to even move.

Q. I know you probably want another shot at New Mexico but San Diego State pulls the upset. You guys beat San Diego State pretty handedly when you played them earlier in the year. What's your thoughts on that matchup?
COACH LEGERSKI: What I looked at they defeated New Mexico that's something we've not done this year so that's a challenge in and of itself. The way the conference is set up to play some teams only once and that happened to be playing them in the first week of January at our place. They've improved tremendously. And they got a big win tonight and advanced on it's something we're going to spend coaches are going to be up late tonight breaking down film, going through it again, taking a look at it, it may not be much you can take back from that January game as much as what you're going to find over the last few games because they played very well, they're excited, they're rolling and that's a dangerous team right now.

Q. For either of you guys, how much of a benefit is it they're going to be playing their third game in three days?
BAILEE COTTON: I think it's something that's kind of in the back of your mind. They might not think about it that much. It may not affect them. But as the game goes on and as the minutes go on I know that their legs will start to get tired. My legs got a little bit tired going into the fourth quarter. So I'm sure that hopefully theirs will anyways for us for our sake.

MARTA GOMEZ: I think they just beat New Mexico. So probably tomorrow they're going to forget about how tired they are and they're going to be let's beat Wyoming. I think we really need to be ready for that, just don't assume they're going to be tired. Don't assume that we beat ...

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