PAC-12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 2, 2022

Tina Langley

Nancy Mulkey

Trinity Oliver

Stanford Cardinal

Postgame Press Conference

Colorado - 64, Washington - 52

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please?

Q. What did you feel like was the difference during the last three minutes or so when Colorado was able to pull away and make this a 10-point game?

TINA LANGLEY: Absolutely, I think, well, first of all, credit to Colorado, I thought they did a great job defensively and obviously executing late game and I feel like that that's something that we went in and out of a little bit on the offensive end of the floor of being able to just kind of execute what we were trying to be.

But that's credit to Colorado's defense too. Defensively I thought we were pretty solid for most of the game and end of the game you got to make plays and so they did that.

Q. Nancy, you just played Stanford, a pretty good game, and Colorado runs a similar offense. Did that help in the preparation for this and not only have you seen Colorado before but that it was sort of the same scout in some ways?

NANCY MULKEY: You know, I think we were just ready to play, and it was our time, and so I wouldn't say that, like -- I mean, it helped in a sense, but we were playing our best basketball. We've been playing great. And so we came in ready to play Stanford. We came in ready to play Colorado, just fighting until the end. So like coach said, credit to Colorado, yeah.

Q. You guys got off to a little bit of a slow start but then in the third quarter kind of picked it up. What did you see at that point Nancy and coach?

NANCY MULKEY: I would say like we got our offense moving. We started screening for each other, getting each other open, backdoor cuts, just really adjusting to how Colorado is defending us.

TINA LANGLEY: Similar. I mean, I think that this team's always been a team that really shares the ball and is very unselfish and I felt that when it was someone's time to step up and take the shot we did that. So I liked our aggressiveness very much at that point.

Q. Nancy and coach, can you kind of reflect on, Nancy, your whole career and obviously now you've spent three or four years with Coach Langley. Just unfortunately coming to an end what has your career sort of meant to you now that it's sort of hit that final point?

NANCY MULKEY: I was dreading that question so much, but, you know, I just thank Coach Langley for just taking a chance on me and giving me the opportunity to play at Rice with her and then to come here and play and compete at the highest level.

She's really mentored me throughout my college career and so I'm forever grateful for her. She's just somebody that I will always have in my life. And so obviously everyone's college career comes to an end, sadly, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Q. Just wondering from each of you, when the injury occurred it was still a three-point game, was there anything, was it hard to kind of restart the game after that and do you think that had any affect on the final three and a half minutes?

TINA LANGLEY: First of all, I'm so sorry to see her be injured and our prayers are with her as she recovers. Tremendous young lady and player.

But you just hate to see anyone be injured. It always takes you a back a minute. But our thoughts are more with her than ourselves. I don't really know. I'm sorry if I didn't answer that correctly. Did I answer your question? Yeah, it took us back a second, I'm sure, as well as it did them.

Q. Trinity, this was obviously a rough season all over for Washington but the last few weeks you guys have played your best basketball. Was it kind of fun to see this team really rally and play its best basketball down the stretch?

TRINITY OLIVER: Absolutely. I think rough is a tough word to use. I think we're a growing team. We knew that from the beginning. We knew what we were getting into, as far as being a new team, new players, new coach, everything coming together. So you have to grow with each other and each game we got better.

We learned from each game and we improved every single time and I think that's telling on how we finished with our last three games and playing Stanford to the last 30 seconds of the game.

That's just a little bit, a little sliver of what we can do coming into or going to the next year and going into Colorado as well. I just think that I'm super proud of where we are. I'm super proud of the fight that we showed out there because when we played them at their home we didn't have a lot of fight. But I think we were ready. We were ready to punch back when they punched us.

So I would just say credit to us, credit to us to handling them and the physicality of that game and to the process and to many more successes down the road.

Q. I wonder, did they do anything to take Van Dyke out of the game at all? Did you see anything there?

TINA LANGLEY: I think they're a great defensive team and so I think that their base defense is really good, and obviously Hayley is a tremendously talented player and she's a very unselfish player and so I thought that she was very much just trying to do what was best in the offense at the time, given the defense that they were playing, for sure.