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March 2, 2020
Las Vegas, Nevada
Fresno State - 75, Nevada - 71
THE MODERATOR: We're ready to begin with Nevada.
COACH LEVENS: Just first congratulations to Fresno State. I thought they just played a little better than we did today. Made some timely plays down the stretch. And I think just showed why they were our conference champs this year.
From our team, I just didn't think we did quite enough to win, unfortunately.
THE MODERATOR: Questions?
Q. I thought you had some big shots down the stretch to keep yourselves in the game. Was it frustrating there at the end or did you just battle through everything?
IMANI LACY: I would say just being frustrated is not a good way to want to end a game. So you always have to keep yourself, have good composure, I guess you could say, and just battle it out to the end.
MIKI'ALA MAIO: I'd say I'm just really proud of our team and how we still got shots off at the end of regulation time. And we still executed our plays well and our trapping well. But we were definitely frustrated.
Q. Coach, I know it's a tough turnaround like that, but I thought your players gritted it out. You feel like you played as hard as you could and just didn't fall right for you?
COACH LEVENS: Yeah, I think the second half of the season I'm just really proud of the way our team finally, I feel, like got it. They kind of got the bigger picture of everything that goes into being a good team. And obviously we had a great second half of Mountain West Conference.
We started the first nine games really poorly, and it's tough to dig yourselves a hole like that. I think if we could have been half as good as we were in the second half, we finished in a higher place and you're not playing the 1 seed in the second game of the tournament, maybe even earn a first-round bye.
But we only lose one place in our rotation, I think there's a lot of great lessons for our team. By the end of the season, as a coaching staff, we really liked our rotation and the way everyone was really committed to playing their roles and doing a great job. And I feel like we had nine starters and different people step up on different nights and make up for other people's absences.
And I think there's a lot of positives for us to build on. And going home this early we'll have a lot of time to reflect have spring workouts and get a lot better and hopefully be really hungry going into the next season.
Q. You kept it pretty close the entire game. What were you seeing from Fresno State both on the court and as a coach to kind of keep making those shots you guys were making as time was winding down?
COACH LEVENS: Did you say what was I seeing to help us keep making shots?
For us we just wanted to try to move the ball against the zone. When we played at Fresno the ball really stuck and we just didn't get a lot of movement against it. And I feel like if we were able to cut in and out and make a lot of passes in the half court, we would get a good shot eventually. And I think we did. Also, with that it helped us offensively rebound.
I thought in transition we were pretty aggressive too, and we were able to get some good things going there. We work a lot on certain types of zone shots. And both times we played Fresno State this year we didn't really shoot those shots at a high percentage. That's disappointing from our aspect.
And for our players, because they know those are shots we're capable of making. And we just didn't do a good job either game of doing that.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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