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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: LOUISVILLEMarch 22, 2019Charlie BuscagliaNneka EzeigboNatalie VillaflorLouisville, Kentucky Louisville 69, Robert Morris 34 COACH CHARLIE BUSCAGLIA: Very proud of my team. We didn't get off to the best start when it came to finishing and knocking some shots down, you know, we make a lot of the time. I think the arena today saw how a team could continue to fight and continue to work hard, stay together, even when things get tough and continue to defend and just keep going to that next play, is what we've always been teaching. You know, I'm very proud of them for that, and just to continue to go on and to finish the game. I thought we really finished the game, even though the ball didn't go in, there was no lack of effort or no putting our head down, even though going against Louisville, with how tough they are, these guys, they didn't back down and they kept going. I'm very proud of the effort today. Q. Did their height, did that intimidate you a little bit? It seems like the first couple of minutes of the game, they blocked a couple of shots and some of your players maybe got a little bit intimidated about that. Was that the case? NNEKA EZEIGBO: Speaking for myself, I didn't think the height intimidated us. I think that it was mostly coming out and being ready to be -- to stay at our pace. For our new players, it might have kind of shaken them a little bit, but as time went on, I told them to kind of try to brush it off and just try to play their game and try to get their own pace going. Q. Nneka, you went for nine and nine today. Did you ever play against Sam in high school at all back in the days? NNEKA EZEIGBO: No. I didn't know who she was before I came here. She was new to me. Q. What's it like having such a big game for you on the big stage in college basketball? NATALIE VILLAFLOR: I feel like it was a good experience coming in and honestly, we talked a lot about having no fear and faith in our team. So just coming in and trying to emulate that and doing whatever my team needed me to do, that was the focus. So I'm just really proud of our team and the effort we gave today. Q. Once a game gets out of hand like that? What are you thinking about as the game goes along, and kind of explain that. I know it was 57-13 at halftime and you all played a lot better in the second half. NATALIE VILLAFLOR: During halftime, Coach was telling us, like we need to stay on the path and he's always telling us there's a light at the end of the path. Just focusing on that and playing our game and relying on our team to continue to push each other. I think that really allowed us to stay focused and finish out the game strong. Q. For both of you guys. As a whole, this it was a really great season for you guys. You started off 3-al conference and came back and went 16-2 in the conference, avenged last year's conference championship loss. What's the biggest takeaways from this season? NNEKA EZEIGBO: Just finding our own pace and keeping our own strength and trying to utilize them. We have a lot of confidence in our players and each one of each other, so a lot of it was instilled from trust and confidence. So being able to work with a bunch of girls that you really do trust and are considered your family, and just growing off of that and being able to play really hard for each other. NATALIE VILLAFLOR: I think just learning that the start and the end of the game are both extremely important. Early in the season, we struggled to stay consistent, and I feel like throughout the season, that's something we really improved on. Q. When you go back and look at this and talk to your team in the off-season, what are some of the teaching points? COACH CHARLIE BUSCAGLIA: I think one of the questions earlier about the length and the disrupting, some of the things that we're doing, I think it's a motivation to continue to get in the gym and improve your pace and your explosiveness. You know, you don't see this every day at the mid-major level. You don't see this kind of length and athleticism like with Fuerhing and Dunham. They are long and they are athletic. So they kind of juked our pace when we got into though gaps as we were punching into the elbow area that we live off a lot in our offense. It disrupted our timing a lot and you see at the end of the game, Esther hit a nice pull-up going right down the alley, and that was kind of a look into just continuing to go after it and use these clips as a way to motivate, to get in the gym and work harder and get more out of yourself. We played Iowa this year at Iowa and they had a great post player and they were tough. We were down four in the fourth quarter with a few moments to go. That was a great moment for us, playing against a team that obviously has an opportunity to go deep into the Tournament, and we learned a lot from that. What we were talking about up here with student athletes, that they were talking about, a lot of what they are saying is an extension of myself. You can see they are quoting me and talking about the things we talk about every day. But no matter if we won a game this year or lost a game; like we lost this game, we come back the same way. We get in the video room the same way. We don't live on highs and lows, and so we won't go crazy over this and really question ourselves. We'll just motivate ourselves to work harder. Keep faith strong in our heart. Q. One of the big conversations coming into this game, how young this team is, 70 percent underclassmen. How do you feel those underclassmen handled this stage? COACH CHARLIE BUSCAGLIA: They were great. You know, not always they hit the shot they wanted. Like Esther, she was a big reason why we won the conference championship. She really lit it up and she was very confident. Today she was 1-for-11, but her effort was outstanding. She had one turnover today and played 26 minutes as a freshman. That's pretty amazing. We turned the ball over 15 times this athleticism and this length; that's amazing for a freshman, as many as we have out there to be able to do that. A lot of times we get caught up in the field goals and we look at the field goal percentage and we say, well, they shot well, they played well. Well what about, we're giving up lay-ups or we aren't defending well. Those guys were out there and learned so much defensively this year, and with the underclassmen team like we have, we were ranked like 11th in the nation in defense. Think about that with freshman and sophomores out there learning how to guard, and then we have to guard on this stage. I really am proud of them for the effort and the defensive effort they had, even with the mistakes coming back the next play, I thought showed a lot of mental toughness for a young team. Q. Between you and your father, you've definitely made Robert Morris a consistent presence in the northeast conference and pursuant to the last question, what are your plans for the program moving forward? COACH CHARLIE BUSCAGLIA: You build a program by bringing in student athletes that will create stability and work hard, at least that's the way that myself and my father, you know, really believe in how to do this. You know, going forward, we'll season to recruit student athletes that will come in and represent the program well, and have a heart to go out and play on a stage like this and listen to instruction and have faith in what I'm talking about. Just going forward, the same way that we built it going. You know, we are very routine driven, and we believe in what we believe in. You know, just like this stage here, we didn't change anything about our preparation, so going forward, we'll continue to build. It's always a big plus when you could work as hard as we worked this year to get here with a young team, and then to have the reward of getting to the national tournament. You know, it's awesome. A lot of the recruits that we're looking at and things like that can see at a mid-major level, there's a great experience there to choose to go to a mid major and play in meaningful games, conference tournaments, conference championships and then get to this stage, and whether you win or lose, when you get a draw like Louisville, you go out here and you leave everything on the court and you earn everything you get. That's the message going forward, and that's what we'll continue with with the program. Just that's our culture and we won't change anything. We'll just keep hoping to grow and to continue to get these early commitments like we had like Bella Possett, who was first team all state, didn't have the best day shooting the ball today, but nobody can think about how proud I am of here. She's a big reason why we got here, someone that committed to us as a sophomore, really believed in the program. Seeing this kind of stage and the meaningful games that she can play in, that's what this means for the program. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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