MOUNTAIN WEST WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 7, 2022

Kayla Ard

Adryana Quezada

E'Lease Stafford

Thomas & Mack Center

Utah State Aggies

Postgame Press Conference

UNLV - 82, Utah State - 69

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student-athletes.

KAYLA ARD: Well, it's not the way we wanted to end our season obviously, but we give the credit to UNLV. They played a really hard game. I thought our kids played extremely hard as well. We missed some shots we needed to make. They crashed on the boards really hard.

But I just thought our effort was phenomenal. Things didn't go our way today. I thought we were going to be able to make a run there in the fourth and every time we got it close they responded. So credit to them. They're a good basketball team. Obviously they won our conference.

We had a big hill to climb today. We got there a few times, couldn't capitalize. I thought we started out really good. I thought we had one bad quarter and it just caught up with us in the end.

Second quarter hurt us but very proud of this team and what they have done this year, especially toward the end of the year when we were healthy. They have heart. They're determined. They care about each other. I couldn't ask for more than what they gave today. They wanted to win that game. They gave everything they had and I thought they left it all out there. So not the result we wanted but I'm very proud of these young ladies.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. I know this is a bad question, but 25 points on your last night in senior night. Is that away you wanted to go out?

ADRYANA QUEZADA: Yeah. It was a nice way to go out, but just not the result.

Q. Going 8-30 tonight at the three-point line how did that affect you guys tonight against the Rebels?

E'LEASE STAFFORD: I mean, it showed. It wasn't good. Like, we didn't do good shooting the ball. If we would have made those shots I'm pretty sure we would have won the game but it didn't go our way tonight, like she said.

THE MODERATOR: Anything to add?

ADRYANA QUEZADA: No, I agree. That kind of hurt us obviously in the long run.

THE MODERATOR: Well we thank you, ladies and successful season, hope to see you next year. We'll take questions for coach.

Q. Looking at the final score it's not very indicative of how close the game was. Looking back at the second quarter what did you see there that you didn't see throughout the game?

KAYLA ARD: I thought we were a little rushed. I thought they put a press on -- and good coaching, they made an adjustment. We made an adjustment which we didn't really -- we didn't really have an issue with the press, we seemed to turn the ball over after we broke the press.

So we were a little sped up and just rushing some shots like you just said, we were 8-30 from three. I like that we made 8. We probably don't need to be taking 30. So I thought maybe we took some shots, maybe we needed to get the ball in the paint a little more, but the turnovers in the second half really hurt us. Yesterday's game we had one turnover the whole first half and that showed. Today we turned the ball over 15 times, gave them 24 points off of our turnovers. So just half of that and we win the game.

So they sped us up some, that was the story of the game, the second half, we knew we couldn't have a bad quarter against these guys, we had a bad quarter the second quarter. The third quarter's 21-21, the fourth quarter's 21-23. So we came out a lot better the second half obviously had a good first quarter, the second quarter got us, I think that was the game.

Q. You guys played two games in a row and in two days compared to the Rebels who haven't played in at least a couple days. Did that back-to-back game affect you guys in the second half compared to the Rebels who came off rest?

KAYLA ARD: Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure our kids are exhausted. I asked them that all morning, No, coach, we're fine, we're fine. But that's kind of kids we have, they're not going to make excuses. We didn't even have 24 hours to rest before much less prepare. So I'm really proud of our kids, we went in yesterday and did what we had to do and then went in the film room, tried to prepare for UNLV, didn't have a shoot around this morning because that would have been at 7 a.m. so I thought they needed to rest more than we needed to get on the court and shoot. So not a lot of time to turn around, but we're not going to make excuses about stuff like that, that's the benefit of being the No. 1 seed, that's the way tournaments go. So we needed to do our job earlier in the season so we get the first day off and then we won't have to worry about stuff like that. But I'm sure it affected us. We played about seven people yesterday, and those seven kids were out there again today, so I'm sure they're exhausted, they're tired, but if you ask any of them they wouldn't even bring that up, they wouldn't make those excuses.