MOUNTAIN WEST WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 7, 2022

Mike Bradbury

Jaedyn De La Cerda

Thomas & Mack Center

New Mexico Lobos

Postgame Press Conference

New Mexico - 63, San Diego State - 60

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

MIKE BRADBURY: I think a hard fought defensive game. I give San Diego State a lot of credit. They defended us. They played really hard. It's a good team, well-coached team over there, and they have had a good year.

Proud of our team for fighting there to the end. Game was close throughout. We had a couple chances there to kind of separate and didn't and San Diego State kept battling back. But proud of our guys, especially Jaedyn here carried us tonight offensively.

THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for our student-athlete.

Q. How important was it to never let them get over the top to actually just kind of hold them off and kind of dictate the game at the end?

JAEDYN DE LA CERDA: That's always important. You don't want a team to get on a run and get that excitement, get that energy, and then go on from there. We got to stop them, stop the run, and just don't let them get what they want.

Q. You got off to a great start shooting, scoring 12 points in the first half. How did that give you confidence to play the rest of the game?

JAEDYN DE LA CERDA: Just going out there and playing, doing what I do, playing with my teammates, just looking at the basket and attacking it. You can't go out there and be scared of taking shots and attacking the basket.

Q. You had eight turnovers in the first half. How much did that prevent you guys from kind of getting into a rhythm and kind of continuing because you got off to that great start and then the turnovers kind of hurt you a little bit.

JAEDYN DE LA CERDA: Oh, yeah. Honestly, just, I don't know how to answer that. Just not turn the ball over and fix those mistakes for next game. I didn't really know that I was turning the ball over that much.

MIKE BRADBURY: He didn't mean you.

JAEDYN DE LA CERDA: Oh, us.

MIKE BRADBURY: Yeah. It was a group effort.

JAEDYN DE LA CERDA: Oh, I'm like I didn't know that I had that many.

MIKE BRADBURY: You're good.

It's his fault. He asked a poorly executed question. Is that right? (Laughing).

I know. You get to hammer me next. I got it. (Laughing).

Q. What did they do -- let me rephrase that. What did they do to kind of prevent you guys from getting into a rhythm?

JAEDYN DE LA CERDA: Just pressuring us and getting in the gaps and just reading the play. They were in the right time at the right place.

Q. Looking back at those last two defensive possessions what was going through your head?

JAEDYN DE LA CERDA: A lot. But I know that if we stay together and do what we do best that we would come out on top.

THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you. You are dismissed. Now we'll take questions for coach.

Q. What's it say about this group that they never really gave up the lead? You just kept them at bay enough to finish the deal.

MIKE BRADBURY: Yeah. I thought we really grinded one out and kind of gutted one out and that's not really what we do. For us to have any success it's usually got to be pretty, we have to play pretty.

This definitely was not that. It was good to be able to win a game where we had to get a tough defensive rebound or a stop instead of just going out there and making a bunch of shots and everything looks nice.

San Diego State, again, to their credit, they took us out of that stuff and they're bigger than us, they're more athletic than us, and they took us out of some stuff that we normally get. So really proud of our team for being able to find a way to win.

Q. You guys shot 32 threes. Was that a point of emphasis coming into this game to score around the perimeter?

MIKE BRADBURY: No. That's who we are. That's actually kind of a low number.

Q. Was there any sort of message to your team when San Diego State had the ball right there when LaTora took the charge? Was there any sort of defensive plan that you had in place that you told the team?

MIKE BRADBURY: We just went zone and we were just going to try and keep them from driving it by us. At that time we were up one, so we were just trying to keep them out of the paint and if they made a three, they made a three.

And then the second time it was different because we were up three so we defended things differently.