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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 5, 2020Jonathan TsipisIndianapolis, Indiana Rutgers - 63, Wisconsin - 55 Q. Give me your initial thoughts on the game today. I know you played well up until the fourth quarter. JONATHAN TSIPIS: Yeah, I think the basket they scored at the end of the third helped, as well. Obviously we got the five-point lead, and were trying to rest some people, and they turned the pressure up to start the fourth quarter. And we didn't handle it the way I think we're capable of. How we handled it even at their place when we lost last week, we did a good job handling the pressure. So it was a little bit of the shades of that game to start the Big Ten Tournament. You just want to go down if you miss shots, and obviously we out-rebound them and just playing your best basketball. Q. Last couple of years you really kind of built a culture here at the Big Ten Tournament of being a scrappy underdog. Talk about how your team has performed the last couple years in the Big Ten Tournament. JONATHAN TSIPIS: Well, I think the last two years the seniors have done a tremendous job. Obviously last year Kelly Karlis and Marsha Howard had great games, obviously, all the way through all three that we were able to play, and obviously Abby (Laszewski) had a great game yesterday, and just the -- and some people, what Kendra Van Leeuwen does doesn't show on the stat sheet sometimes, but her getting us into things, running our defense, getting 50/50 loose balls, good things happen, and she's done that for four years. And then obviously I think that they have that confidence after what happened last year. They have that confidence that it is a new season. As much as that's "coach-speak," I think they believe in it, and to play better basketball both yesterday and today than maybe we had down the stretch is really important for us moving forward to next year. Q. You talk about next year, and really you've got a young team coming back, a lot of kids coming back next year, and they performed well in what is probably the strongest conference we've had in a long, long time. Talk a little bit about the future of your program. JONATHAN TSIPIS: Yeah, I think it's real easy to get caught up in wins and losses, and it's what competitive level are we on, and I feel like obviously Imani Lewis has been an all-conference level player for the first two years, and you have somebody like Sydney Hilliard, who has started most of her freshman year, and Julie Pospisilova that started and is contributing. And some great things ahead, also: Obviously, Niya Beverley's senior year and Sara Stapleton providing us great minutes in the post, especially at the end of the year. I thought Imani did a great job of enhancing her role with Marsha leaving, and again, similar to the field in the Big Ten Tournament, you hope you take that momentum and you take that challenge, and now you start putting in the work individually as a player, that shows once you start doing team activities and things in the fall. So I'm excited. It's a great group coming back. Obviously we had some kids that we're really excited about on the recruiting front, and again, it's important for us that we sit there and see the level of competitiveness outside of the Maryland game, even a game if we got behind we scrapped, we fought, we got back into games. Even if we didn't win that, we got back in and had big leads, at Indiana, at Iowa, against Rutgers the first time. Just, again, I think we're going to spend the spring and the summer figuring out how we can do things that emphasize finishing. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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