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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2020Megan DuffyLauren Van KleunenJordan KingChicago, Illinois Marquette - 72, Villanova - 59 MEGAN DUFFY: I'm just thrilled, obviously, in March to get a win no matter how ugly or how pretty it looks. I thought our team was able to just keep our composure when Villanova continued to make different runs throughout the game, and I just can't tell you how proud I am of just this overall group for individually making plays, whether it was on the defensive end or offensive end to get this win today. Q. I saw you guys going crazy when your coach got her Coach of the Year Award. What's the best thing she's done to prepare you for March? JORDAN KING: I think just giving us confidence and the way that she believes in us is something very special, and I think each one of us understands that in a different way, and I think just like we're really excited to keep playing this March, especially for all of us and our coach, too. So I just think that the way that she's believed in us and our resiliency has been the biggest thing. LAUREN VAN KLEUNEN: Yeah, I'd also offer just the preparation that she does with herself and the coaching staff has just been phenomenal for us, and again, that gives us that confidence to go out on the floor, and we know basically everything we need to do to get that win. Q. How were you able to withstand all those Villanova runs in the third? LAUREN VAN KLEUNEN: Yeah, we just understood that basketball is a game of runs, so we understood that, and we just kept fighting, we kept our composure, we didn't get down on ourselves, and we knew if they're going to go on their runs, we're going to go on ours. So we just kept confident with each other and understood with who we have, we can make plays when we need to. JORDAN KING: I think another point off that would be our toughness inside with the post players. I think loose balls and rebounds, that is what will keep us in games when they're going on runs. I think to get stops is important. So just our overall toughness is something that kept us in that game. Q. I know winning Coach of the Year, first year, take me through when you guys first met her what she was like, what your expectations were until now? MEGAN DUFFY: That's a loaded question. We still have a game tomorrow. LAUREN VAN KLEUNEN: So when I first met her, I just -- it was like -- it was great. It was a joy to meet her, just a bunch of energy, and just wanted to get up and down -- our first workout she was running up and down with us. It was awesome to see that and awesome to see how much she loved the game, loved us, and we had met her not even a day. You could just see that caring side of her, and it was awesome to see that and awesome to have that. And then just kind of throughout, we weren't really sure what was going to happen. She just said, we're just going to take it one game at a time, one practice at a time, and she gave us that confidence throughout the summer and into the fall and now the winter and spring. So it's been great obviously getting to know her off the court, too. She's really big about that in terms of the student-athlete part, and I think that's huge for being able to coach us on the court. And it's just been a lot of fun. Certain things, she doesn't care about how many points you score or anything like that. It's the intangibles to her. Are you working hard, giving effort. It's really fun to have a coach like that. JORDAN KING: Yeah, so I'm in a different position than her. So obviously I didn't get to see her right away with workouts and stuff but I think the very first conversation that I had with her when she got the job was just, I could see like the determination that she had for this program and the way that she believed into those five returners stepping into new roles. And then us freshmen coming in, I think just the way that she believed in all of us to come together is something really special. And then Lauren touched on it, like her energy in practice and just all around her as a person, I think her energy has been really great for us in this journey. Q. Lauren, talk about that three (indiscernible)? LAUREN VAN KLEUNEN: Yes. You know, it was -- me and So were kind of in a ball screen, and I wasn't sure if she was going to pull it, and I saw out of the corner of my eye that the clock was ticking down. Even though I don't shoot in games, I do work on threes. So I knew -- we were talking to Coach just after the game, and she goes, "In March you make plays." When it left my fingers, I knew it was going in, but it was cool to see one go down for me, so yeah, I was excited, and I was glad it went in. Q. The look you gave Lauren when she said she knew it was going in when it left her fingers, did you know it was going in? MEGAN DUFFY: I mean, she had to shoot it. She's actually a really good shooter. With our offense she probably doesn't get as many opportunities - or any opportunities - to shoot the threes as much as she's probably capable. And it's interesting, a few plays before we ran a little pick-and-pop action for her to get her a 15-footer and she airballed it. I think it's indicative of kind of who they are and just those two standing up, I'm just so proud of their resiliency to bounce back. Nova is so hard to play against with their style and you get a little tight, and I thought we were a little tight at times to start the game, a little anxious, but to see that ball go through the net on the three, I think it was just part of many pieces of making plays in this game by different people. Q. Your team responded really well coming out of time-outs. What do you say to them? What is your formula when you're in time-out? MEGAN DUFFY: I'll tell you what, we've gotten so much experience this year by playing different styles and being down and being up and being able to execute in late-game situations or out of a time-out. I have kind of an annoying memory of all that stuff, so I try and reference different things of like, hey, here's our time to make our run or hey, we just worked on this in practice yesterday or back on Tuesday or back on December 12th. To give them that confidence of hey, let's just take a deep breath and execute, and I thought we did -- I don't think our execution -- we'll watch the film tonight, was perfect, but I thought the way we did it timely, allowed us to win that game. And they were locked in, and like any other team, we have a set of money plays that we run when we need a quick basket. Q. I thought you guys early on were very aggressive on the boards. Were you more instinctual or do you drill a lot? Just talk about that. MEGAN DUFFY: Yeah, we've held our hat on just the ability to rebound, especially because we are a little bit bigger than everybody and just our motors. But what was interesting I thought the whole first half, we were crashing and I felt like we got nothing out of it. The ball was getting tipped out of bounds. We were throwing the thing over the basket at times I felt like, and I thought finally we settled down and continued to crash the glass and continued to get rebounds, but we started executing out of that a little bit more, which helped us. Yeah, that first quarter I think we were just so amped up to be here, and we had to wait a little bit to play, but it's been our bread and butter all year and it's something we emphasize and talk about on a daily basis, whether it's our guard play or our posts being able to create extra possessions. I think that's a little bit of what they alluded to with their confidence of when we know we have a team who's going to hit the glass hard, you can kind of let that thing fly and shoot some shots and not be afraid to miss a shot because you've got your teammates around you that are ready to get extra possessions for you. Q. Jordan (indiscernible) hot hand. What did you see from her, especially this being her first trip to the Big East? MEGAN DUFFY: She's been great the last couple weeks. One of the things that her and I have talked kind of privately about is we're not going to wait until the end of the season to kind of reflect on your freshman year. We're going to continue to give you new challenges and continue to give you different parts of our offense that I think you can take advantage of from the offensive end. And she's a big-time scorer, and some of her numbers maybe haven't shown that all year, but after that DePaul game on Sunday where she came out in a very similar way in the first quarter with just a different look in her eyes, she really carried that momentum. And for a freshman like I said to play point guard for me, I'm always yelling at her, always just challenging her to have the composure to now be an offensive threat a little bit more and just score is tremendous. You know, just she's just a composed kid. She doesn't get too high or too low and even during their freshman year, where they're going to hit some really, really low moments because it's hard, she really has stayed steady, and she's had that positive demeanor about her. Her best basketball is still ahead, but it was so great to see her again have another great start to help our team. Q. (Indiscernible). MEGAN DUFFY: Man, she was great for us, just settling us down, and I trust her so much on the floor, and even her and Camryn Taylor had a great one-two punch tonight, just being able to get them a little bit of rest when they hit a wall. Obviously Lauren is a tremendous player, she's getting her opportunity to do some great things for us, but she's been a huge mentor for Camryn Taylor and that entire post group. One of the greatest kids I've met. She's a kid you root for and maybe we'll set up a play for her tomorrow to hit another three or something, who knows. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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