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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2020Joe TartamellaLeilani CorreaChicago, Illinois St. John's - 70, Creighton - 54 LEILANI CORREA: The way we started wasn't great at all, but I think our defense is what really won the game for us tonight. Defense wins championships. That's what I've grown up with, so just defense leading to making shots and all of that is what led to the double-digit win tonight. Q. How much fun did you have? LEILANI CORREA: I had a lot of fun. I love playing with teammates. They're the best. I really enjoyed playing with them. Q. After that first quarter, you sort of settled into the game and made a comeback. What really changed? What was your message to the team? JOE TARTAMELLA: I think I took care of the frantic part in the first quarter instead of them, but no, again, it was just more about being patient, tried not to get on them too much, but we had to create some type of energy. I thought a couple things that went our way were the couple deflections and some energy plays I thought started to spark us a little bit. They're confident in themselves. They're resilient. They've been like that all year. We've been down, as much as people talk about leads and things like that, we've been down two now in the last few weeks and have been able to really put it on and finish strongly. But no, I mean, listen, we knew we could score. I said it to them at the end of the quarter. I'm like, guys, we've scored five points, we're going to lose if you do that again, but we scored an average of over 70 a game, so relax, be patient. I thought we did a better job of being patient. I thought we did a better job of reading things, and then we had a few players get hot and make some shots. That was the bottom line. We didn't manufacture as many points as I would have liked probably from the line, which always helps you, but it was a crazy game, and the physicality and the stoppages and everything else throughout, so it was a physical battle. That was a war. Q. Who's the spark on your team? JOE TARTAMELLA: I think Leilani obviously made some big steals. When she missed the lay-up at the end of the quarter I was hurt, but she did a lot of really good things. I think even Kadaja got some hands on the ball, Alissa, and I thought Tiana played probably an undervalued game on paper in just controlling the game. The beautiful part about our team, to have a freshman who can be probably a starter, who becomes the Sixth Woman of the Year was a unanimous kid who can drop 27 and 11 when your best player, quote, unquote, doesn't play well is a testament to our group. Probably a few weeks ago we would have took ourselves out of the game mentally, and I thought we didn't do that. So energy-wise, though, I think a few of those guys made some big plays and made some shots. Tiana I thought got us sparked. The play in my mind is just coming down the floor and the little pull-up in the lane. To me that was the play that kind of changed I think the complexion of what we were doing, for whatever reason in my head, but my head is whack, too, so just got to go with that. Q. You knew this was going to be a physical game. How do you think you guys handled that? JOE TARTAMELLA: To be honest with you, this was probably the most physical game we've ever played against them. Usually it's not this bad. But both teams were fighting, and that's okay, obviously, but I thought we handled it well. I think it played to us a little bit at times. I think the physicality probably played to us a little bit. I thought Alisha, I was worried about Alisha and I was worried about trying to make sure we were going to have fresh legs, but that's where Kadaja coming back in the second half and playing really hard, especially in the fourth quarter really changed the game. Q. (Indiscernible). JOE TARTAMELLA: Obviously we want to compete and win. We've had some tough match-ups with them this year, so they posed some things for us that we've got to figure out. But that's the beauty of the game and you've got to play it. So we're excited to get ready, and obviously we want to get out there and to be able to play the best game we can play, that's the goal for tomorrow, regardless of the win or loss but obviously we want to play the best game we can play and obviously move on into the championship game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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