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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 6, 2020C. Vivian StringerKhadaizha SandersIndianapolis, Indiana Indiana - 78, Rutgers - 60 C. VIVIAN STRINGER: That was a hard-fought battle. I'm not surprised at all. We had a tough game at our place, as well. Q. Can you talk about the battle (indiscernible)? KHADAIZHA SANDERS: I think it was just a game that showed how tough our conference is. Every team in the Big Ten is a contender, and I think we had a hard-fought game, like Coach said, and unfortunately we came up short today. Q. Seemed like you specifically came out really aggressive in the second half. Was that something Coach talked to you about at halftime? Was that a personal thing? How did that happen? KHADAIZHA SANDERS: I mean, it was kind of personal. I mean, I know that somebody else got to be an offensive threat, not just Arella. They're sending two and three bodies at her every game. So my job is to try to relieve some of that pressure from her, so I just wanted to be aggressive and hopefully open the floor up some more. Q. For the most part or whenever IU did get on a run, you guys were able to respond. Moving forward, wherever you guys do play in the postseason, how is that going to feel, that you guys were able to do that today? KHADAIZHA SANDERS: I think it just goes back to what I was saying earlier. The conference is tough, and playing Indiana got us prepared for the next level, which is going to the NCAA Tournament. I mean, it was a hard-fought game. Hard-fought game, obviously we're going to learn from it, we're going to go back, watch film and just prepare for whoever we have next. Q. You're a team that likes to press. In general, why do you like that style? And also, in past years it's been more successful against IU. This year as a better team they've countered it. Can you talk about in general your propensity to press a lot as a team, that's like a style you like to do. C. VIVIAN STRINGER: Yeah, everybody has a style, a particular style, and that is what fires us up and gets us started, and aside from that, it's good. It allows a lot of people to play. On the other hand, a lot of times you can do that because you have enough people to really work up a sweat and they can come in and they can be as effective as you would normally want to be. But if you notice, we didn't do that at the beginning, and the reason why we didn't do it at the beginning is because we had to do it in our last game, and so we only have like eight or nine players -- nine players really. And so it was a bit much because it was the same two people that would be involved in all of the running, and that is at the top, that's TK as well as Mael Gilles. So we tried to back it off a little bit and do it when we had to. But the team jumped out to a quick lead, and that was a problem. Q. Your team had two assists today for the game. Would you blame that on maybe Indiana -- C. VIVIAN STRINGER: I've never seen that in my life. That's the most amazing thing. Hats off to Indiana. I mean, really and truly. But to tell you the truth, I think that if we had done a little better job in terms of spreading our offense and allowing those passes to take place, but I think that we got a little rattled at the beginning and wanted to hurry up and try to overcome what was happening, and it is surprising in a way because we know how Indiana played in the first place. But we nonetheless just found ourselves getting into that situation where we were taking quick shots, and the ball did not move from side to side. And when that happens, they had touches -- they were putting -- Arella Guirantes is a special player. To me, quite frankly, she's probably one of the best players in the country, aside from the Big Ten. That's what I'm going to say. But what happened here was that when we made the pass to her or to anyone on let's say the right side, then instead of us reversing and getting over on the other side, which we knew it would open it up more, we didn't. So any time that we attempted to drive, then there were people all around the ball. So we needed to move from side to side to side, but we didn't, and sometimes that happens in a coaching situation. It was just the players really desperately wanted to win, and we weren't having shots to fall. And then if you look at it statistically, you can look at this and see that Khadaizha Sanders as well as Arella were the only two productive people in the scoring column. They shut down everybody else, and that's the reason why Khadaizha was saying that she wanted to score more, because we needed the help. It would have been great had we been able to contribute more, but we didn't. We didn't. We wanted to, but the reason for that was we just did not move the ball from side to side, which is exactly what Indiana did. They moved it from side to side, and we didn't do that. So we didn't stick clearly with the game plan. They are an outstanding team, though. Make no mistake about it. I'm not surprised that they beat South Carolina. Not at all. And I'm sure that that's the reason why our conference has the recognition that it does have. But that's the name of the game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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