NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST FOUR - DAYTON VS DEPAUL

March 16, 2022

Doug Bruno

Aneesah Morrow

DePaul Blue Demons

Media Conference

Dayton 88, DePaul 57

DOUG BRUNO: Dayton was great. We were an embarrassment to DePaul, Big East and ourselves most probably importantly, but at the same time Dayton was great. You always want to make sure you give credit to the victor in a situation like this, and they played a really, really great basketball game tonight. I just think we're better than what we showed tonight.

Q. Aneesah, the coach for Dayton said she thought that they had done a pretty good job on you, and then she looked at the score sheet and you had 17 rebounds. What is it that allows you to get that kind of number of boards against a team that had such length and had such tall players at every position?

ANEESAH MORROW: I would just say my determination to go get after the boards. That's something that our team really needs, and I felt like it's something that I had to bring tonight for us to be successful.

We also could have did a better job on the boards personally, but it didn't happen.

Q. Have you seen size and length like that before, and how do you battle that?

ANEESAH MORROW: I've been playing against size all season. I would say personally -- I always say it's me against me. I personally felt like I didn't take my time around the basket. There's a lot of chippy shots that I could have made, a lot of times where I could have dished the ball back out to shooters.

Q. This was obviously your first NCAA Tournament experience. Do you think you can take something from this and maybe learn something to help you take another step?

ANEESAH MORROW: I know that the scoreboard shows that it's a loss, but I always take every loss as a lesson, so I've learned something from every game that I've played this year, wins and losses, and I learned something tonight, as well.

Q. You said that you'll learn from tonight. Is there anything that comes to mind? I know it's still fresh, but what do you want to learn or what do you think you will learn from this experience?

ANEESAH MORROW: I would say defensively there's a lot of times where I wasn't as disciplined defensively. Taking better shots, focusing around the basket. I feel like it's something I've been continuously learning all season, so those will be one of the main three things.

Q. It looked like even as kind of the score gap got larger you were still trying to hustle and giving it your all out there. What was going through your mind as you were finishing the game and trying to still make those plays?

ANEESAH MORROW: When you finish the game and you feel like you gave it your all, there's nothing to be upset about at the end. So I knew I had to give my all, even tonight, so there was nothing that I could be upset about but I could look back on and be like, I could have done this differently or I could have focused here or been more disciplined.

Q. Aneesah, it seemed like in the second half you really attacked the inside, the interior a lot more than you did in the first half. Was that something that you were looking to do coming out of halftime, and was that something the coaching staff was trying to push forward heading into that time?

ANEESAH MORROW: Yes, I would say my first shot was a three, and I made it, so I felt like I would knock some more shots down, but unfortunately I didn't. I know my strength and Coach Doug always talk about my percentage around the basket is way better than shooting out from the field.

So I knew that I had to play my strengths in the second half.

Q. Did their length, their size all over the court, how much of a factor was that tonight?

DOUG BRUNO: Like Aneesah says, we play a very difficult schedule, a very rigorous schedule, and I do believe their length definitely was a factor, but at the same time we have played enough good, strong, big teams. UConn is not a small team and is a very long team themselves, but there's more than just the UConn game.

At the same time their length was definitely a factor, but our lack of ability to display any kind of patience -- it's very difficult to make shots that are not open shots. You have to have the patience to get open shots, and this has been a group that's been very hard to get them to understand the quick-shoot mentality has to be tempered by an understanding if you're open you can shoot it but if you're not open you have to share it and we're not sharing the ball very well tonight.

I think we ended up with 11 assists, and that's always a telltale sign for our team. I just thought we took a lot of terrible bad twos. At halftime I think our four guards were -- at the end of -- the second quarter we were down 16, 15. It was just continuous bad shot after continuous bad shot. That's where you have to be able to be patient and quick -- you have to be able to combine them, we tried to combine them, but that was really where the situation was.

Yes, their length bothered us, but another pass, another pass, another pass, you can find a good strong open shot, a better open shot. Tough twos you lose, and we took a lot of tough twos.

Q. Seemed like maybe it was difficult for you to get some transition going. You didn't get a lot of live ball turnovers and of course they were making a bunch of shots and you can't rebound and get going. Was that a factor in the game?

DOUG BRUNO: Well, they were awesome offensively. I mean, they did a great job of -- we knew what they were going to try to do, and they just did a great job. Whalen and Giacone together I think accounted for just a ton -- they just did a great job of finding the open three-point shooters, and we didn't do a very good job of finding them, and they had a great first half for sure. I think they were 11 for 13 or 11 for 14 at halftime. That's 33 of their points at halftime of their 54. We just really didn't do a very good job of getting back out to those three-point shooters, and they were really hot in the first half. It's our job to make them un-hot, or cold.

Q. When they're making them like that, is there kind of a mounting -- players kind of get disheartened seeing the other team, okay, well maybe we did guard them but they still made it?

DOUG BRUNO: Well, again, that's basketball. That's competitiveness. You just have to fight through that and you have to fight through it. That's all you can say. You can't let yourself get down. That's what mental toughness is all about.

Q. What can you say about the upperclassmen on your team and what they've meant to your program over the last three years?

DOUG BRUNO: Thank you for that question. It's a great question and it's an important question to be answered. First of all, Deja Church and Dee Bekelja, they didn't have to come back this year. They elected to come back. We're very, very appreciative.

What did I say in the locker room? I said basically this isn't the time for kumbaya right now. This is just too raw. I can start making a great senior speech right now, but not after what just happened. That'll come here in another week or two when we get a chance to regroup.

Specifically Church and Bekelja, they did not have to come back and they chose to come back, and we're really thankful to those two for doing that, and then for Sonya and Lexi, those two have been really, really great for our program, and at the same time they've been a couple of really talented players.

We did in the locker room talk about the seniors, how much we do appreciate the effort that they put into this, it's just, again, the moment is the moment, and I'm -- they are a great group of seniors, and we started to talk about that a little bit in the locker room, but you can just tell when a group doesn't want to hear it. It's not the time for it right now. But if they do -- they've been a really, really special group of seniors.

Q. With Aneesah having this sort of experience her freshman year, what do you hope she takes from this to propel her forward into ideally bigger and better things?

DOUG BRUNO: As good as Aneesah has been on the floor, I just kind of marvel at her dignity in defeat just a few seconds ago. The way she handled this press conference, there's coaches that don't let players come to press conferences, much less freshmen, and I just thought she was -- I don't think I could say it any better than she said it. She said how to develop more discipline -- everything that she said, I'm not even able to utter her words. I'm sure you got that, whatever she said. I just second it because I was just amazed at her poise and dignity here in this tough moment.

I don't know if that answered your question. She's just got -- go ahead, follow up, please.

Q. I was going to ask a follow-up about the emotions of the last week, just not knowing what was going to happen with your post-season fate to finding out you were going to be in the tournament, to coming here, playing in this new format of a First Four game. Can you take anything from that or what was that whole experience like?

DOUG BRUNO: First of all, we believed, and at this tough moment, Coach Bruno is not apologizing to anybody anywhere about whether we belonged in or not. As embarrassing as that basketball was tonight, we belonged in this tournament, and I made sure the players knew that after this was over with.

There's no way that we did not belong in this tournament.

Now, that said, it would have been a lot more exciting to prove with your actions on the floor that we belonged in the tournament rather than the coach getting up here after a loss like that and stating the truth as I believe it. It would have been a lot better for us to have proved it on the floor than for me talking about it.

But I really do believe this team earned the right and earned the way into this tournament. Your question about the emotions, yeah, it was a very emotional week because we really didn't -- we were hoping for the best, but we were prepared for the worst, and when we did get into the tournament -- the people at the NCAA, the people, the committee, these people work hard. Everybody jumps at them when things don't go their way. That drives me crazy when people jump on that committee, jump on the people who are the NCAA. There's a lot of hardworking people there.

But to your question, the emotion was crazy. It was a tough -- we just didn't play well down the stretch here and sit there for a week and then you find the euphoria of going and now the crash and burn. Having done this many times, I understand how hard -- this crash-and-burn thing, unless you win them all, there's going to be a crash and burn. There's going to be three No. 1 seeds here -- because they're not going to all win last game, and three No. 1 seeds are going to crash and burn, too. That's just always very, very difficult, and yet the emotion was -- we were all over the place, but we did get in and we're happy that we got in. We're just, like I said, embarrassed that we didn't show better, and I can't have it back, they can't have it back.