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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2020Doug BrunoLexi HeldChante StonewallChicago, Illinois DePaul - 83, Seton Hall - 80 DOUG BRUNO: They're playing the best basketball right now, and they played a great game last night against Butler. We knew we would get their absolute best shot, and we did. And just proud of our players for starting to grasp and understand what postseason basketball is all about, it is about, you know, one possession at a time and you know just battling and executing little things, each possession. I'm very proud of the way they hung together through a lot of ebbs and flows in that game. There were many of them. I mean, the fourth quarter when -- the unique beauty of basketball, sometimes the whistle blows, the stops and chops of the game every 15 seconds, sometimes the whistle doesn't blow for four minutes, and we had a stretch there in fourth quarter with both teams going back and forth and, you know, I thought they really hung tough. When we got good open looks and couldn't make a shot, I was proud of how they hung tough through that adversity because they could have sent them down the tank. I thought they hung tough at that moment. I think that was a key moment in the game. I'm just really proud of them, proud of both players sitting next to me, but proud of the entire team. Q. Happy International Women's Day to you guys. LEXI HELD: Thank you. Q. My question, throughout much of the game it seemed every time Seton Hall came within three, within five, you guys answered, the three-pointer. Can you talk about your ability to maintain composure in those moments and just never giving them -- obviously, that changed in the fourth, but throughout most of the game. That was how it was? LEXI HELD: We -- they're a good team. We knew they weren't going to go away. We were trying to focus on getting stops, rebounds on the defensive end, and that helped us separate the lead at times when they were coming close. CHANTE STONEWALL: Also learning from previous games, being the team come back, something we have a theme of, we wanted to make sure that we didn't have that happen this game and it goes back to our experience in big games like this, understanding if we can get a stop, we're just going to do good things for our team. Q. Lexi, good looks in the fourth quarter, seemed like how the game was going, was going to be 100-point game for both teams, but things got stagnant offensively in that fourth quarter, and then you hit that three that broke the ice, broke the tie and the other three gave you breathing room. Let's talk about that stretch and those two shots. LEXI HELD: We were running the floor, we knew we could get open looks if we sprinted the floor after we got stops or got the ball out quick. I was just -- Kelly was able to push the ball to me, and my teammates were able to get me open and I was able to knock it down. Q. At the half (indiscernible)? LEXI HELD: I don't know. I knew the first half I had to sit because of my fouls. I was trying to do whatever I could do help my team. Q. During that time in fourth, what were you communicating to each other on the floor, just obviously shooting and knowing eventually they would have to drop? CHANTE STONEWALL: We understood that the fourth quarter is where our defense needed to be perfect. Or at less close to perfect. We knew our shots were going to fall. We play DePaul ball for a reason. We have to keep shooting and then we're going to fall. I thought our team really, really did a great job of offensive rebounding at the end. LEXI HELD: Controlling, we couldn't control the shots going in or not, getting it done on the defensive end. Q. For both you guys, beating a team three times in one season is difficult. Take me through how -- you know, you have seen this team before, do you kind of expect what's to come or do they change things up for you? Take us through that mentality. CHANTE STONEWALL: I think every game has a life of its own. That's something we preach in our program. We knew it would be different. I felt this was actually one of the first times we played them where the pace was up/down, up/down. Sometimes when we pressure them, slow them down. But this was definitely an up-and-down, fun to watch basketball. Like I said before, every game has a life of its own. Our coaches definitely prepared us to play them, clearly, from the previous two times, but we did a great job just learning as we go throughout the game and adjusting. LEXI HELD: Same. Q. How much would you guys like to play Marquette in this championship? LEXI HELD: I mean, they're both really good teams. Whoever we play, we just got to focus on what they do and what we do. Hopefully we get it done. CHANTE STONEWALL: Whoever wins, I'll take either or. DOUG BRUNO: I would like to share with you that they're coachable players and they answered that last question exactly like I told them to. Q. Doug, talk about the strategy late, you had fouls to give, I know you guys probably practice those situations, sometimes it is hard when you want them to foul to foul the right way, it seemed like Seton Hall was trying to shove it a little bit, getting the shot off before you had a chance to foul the last couple of chances they had to score? DOUG BRUNO: Fouling, when you have fouls to give, it is a thing that everybody in every bar in America knows and knows what you should do, every coach knows what you should do, it is a lot simpler to do it. It is a lot simpler to say it than do it. In a perfect world, I would have liked to have used a little bit more -- eaten a little bit more time with each of those fouls we had to give. At the same time, you know, you start messing around, trying to wait a second or two, then the next thing you know, bada bing, bada bang, and all of a sudden the ball is flying. This time of the year, that's when balls are flying all over the place. We tried to use the fouls. And then at the end we put Katie and Kiara Dallmann in to try to guard the little girl -- that's not fair. I mean, you know, Park-Lane rebounding the ball is a small player, we wanted a big player on her. But still we knew they had to make a three, we were going to give them a two, we weren't going to foul them on a two. It was good to have the fouls in your pocket, but it is never as easy to execute the fouling at the end as it seems. You have to be very careful too that you don't commit that foul on a shot. You saw Alexis Lewis throw a couple up there that crazy things happen at this time of the year in these kinds of situations. Q. Coach, can you talk about Campbell's play in the first half? DOUG BRUNO: For sure. She had 16 at halftime, that was a big deal to keep us going. You know, we have been telling Kelly Campbell to shoot since she got here. Kelly Campbell gets rebounds. Kelly Campbell gets assists. And Kelly Campbell, she's a leading three-point shooting percentage player in the Big East. And that's not lost on her head coach. Her team knows it. At the same time, she's got to take them to make them, and she took them in the first half and knocked them down. It was really, really huge for us. Then, you know, she didn't have -- you know, Lexi -- that's the kind of team we have, where one player gets hot in one half, another player is hot in the second half, and don't forget Lexi got to rest the second quarter. Lexi got rest tonight other people didn't get because if I can keep a player on the bench with two, I will; if I have to play them with two, I will. I just read the situation, and we left her on the bench in the second quarter, so she did get to rest in the second quarter. Q. Chante played 40 minutes, Kelly, 40 minutes, almost 38, how would you describe how it is to come back and such a physical battle tonight? DOUG BRUNO: They're tough people. I mean, they're really tough players. I really would like to use the bench more deeply, and there's a reason why all coaches get tighter at this time of the year, there's reasons that the bench shorten this time of the year. There is no margin for error, the bench either puts you in a place to have total confidence that they can play the same minutes, and right now basically we have got an eight-player rotation, Kailah, Mya. As a game, we have to play everybody. They're tough players. And if you asked them, they like to play 40 minutes. Tomorrow they'll have to gut it out. And it is the only time all year, except for the preseason tournament, that you play three in a row. We get through tomorrow night's game, they're not going to have to play three in a row again or two in a row again. It is just right back to the rhythms of the Big East Friday/Sunday weekends, which some of us that like Friday/Sundays try to preach, this is how it will be in the NCAA Tournament, it will be a Friday/Sunday situation, Thursday/Saturday, Saturday/Monday. So we have one more game to gut through with our rapid-fire game after game after game, and then it is going to get in the actual rhythms that the Big East is preparing us for with our Friday/Sunday format. Q. Can you talk about the way they had the (indiscernible)? DOUG BRUNO: It is amazing to watch young great players come out of high school that most of them don't value rebounding, they just don't value it, they just don't get it. You know, we put a real high emphasis on it here at DePaul. She's starting to grasp it. She's a really, really athletic player. She's really explosive. And once it starts dawning on you that every time you get a rebound for your team, it is worth a point, even though it doesn't show up as a point in the box score, it is huge. So for her to start rebounding this way, we need her to rebound this way. We're a small basketball team. We need everybody to rebound this way on this team. We got beat on the boards. We were beat most of the game. I'm pretty sure -- I haven't looked at this yet -- that we did get beat on the (indiscernible). Q. Seton Hall got 50 points in the paint, (indiscernible)? DOUG BRUNO: You know, they're strong in the paint. You know, we're just going -- we got an hour shootaround tomorrow. Basically we can show videotape, we can emphasize the concepts of guarding, you know, not letting the ball dribble penetrate the way we did. We had six lay-ups, and we gave up six dribble-drive lay-ups in the second quarter alone. That's 12 points. We're sitting 50-46 at halftime. That was just at halftime, not talking about the (indiscernible) one on one, I'm just talking about the bounces facing you going at the rim. I mean, that's got to change for sure. You know, we don't know who we'll play. Each team brings a different -- each team brings a different way they get the ball to the paint with Marquette being the big, strong team that gets inside, and St. John's a team that drives it inside. You know, you got to get paint touches yourself, and you have to keep the opponent from getting paint touches. I wish we had a magic wand to tell you how to fix it. I don't know that we'll do everything we can to fix it. We do understand we have to try to keep people out of there. Q. Is this how you expected this tournament to play out? Tomorrow, what's the key for the team (indiscernible)? DOUG BRUNO: This is really a great league. The Big East is a great league. What makes it great are teams -- I mean, like St. John's, Seton Hall, they're easily better than many -- many teams in the 64-field team, those two teams are much better than many teams are going to be in the NCAA Tournament. We're playing against this kind of teams and players and coaches every night. It is a great league. You know, it's -- you know, you're prepared by having to play against this diverse group of coaches and players every night. As well as the second part, what do I expect? Q. Looking ahead to each team, are you able to avenge -- DOUG BRUNO: You have to be careful what you wish for. There are two really good teams playing out there. You start wishing for one team, then you get whacked upside the head by the other. They both bring great talent. And John's guard are really hard to guard, all of them. Every one of them is a great, scoring, penetrating guard. And they're small, like we are, and then Marquette brings the size, really, really great players. And they bring a size and the rebounding. You know, they're just doing a great job of being a team in this league that's been the big dominating team. They have dominated the league with their size, and they're the only team in the league that's really dominated with their size, whereas St. John's is much more like us, much more of a guard-penetrating basketball team. Both really tough basketball teams. I think it's pretty fair to say Marquette is going to go to the NCAA Tournament for sure, and they'll be a really good team in the tournament. And Coach Duffy has done a great job of earning their way to that point. These are all teams worthy of being in the NCAA Tournament. I'm not sure that's going to happen. They are worthy of playing that NCAA Tournament. It's going to be a great game out here in the next couple of minutes, and we'll see what happens. Thank you all for covering women's basketball. We really appreciate it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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