NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - CHARLOTTE VS INDIANA

March 19, 2022

Cara Consuegra

Octavia Jett-Wilson

Charlotte 49ers

Media Conference

Indiana 85, Charlotte 51

CARA CONSUEGRA: First and foremost, I want to say that I love my team. I enjoyed coaching this team. We went through a lot together, and to start our non-conference 4 & 6 and to get to this point, to have the best season in the history of Charlotte women's basketball, we were really, really proud of it. I'm really proud of this team.

Indiana is outstanding. They are a great, great team, and you could see that today. So credit to them for what they've done, what they will keep doing in this tournament.

We knew to come in and compete in this environment, we would have to play our very best, and we didn't play our very best today, and a lot of that again is credit to them. But we're just not good enough of an offensive team to have the defensive performance we had today. I felt that Indiana really got what they wanted to get out of their offense.

Our keys to win was to take that stuff away, and we just weren't able to do it today. But again, that does not take away from what we've done at Charlotte, the season that we've had, the season that Octavia has had. I certainly want to highlight her. She made the decision to come back and use her COVID year, and when she came back, she said she wanted to win a championship at Charlotte. It hadn't been done in a really long time.

And for a young lady to have the target on her back that she's had all year -- pre-season Player of the Year, we were picked No. 1 in our league -- and for her to lead us there and to be Player of the Year, to win a regular season and a conference championship, that's really hard to do. It's really, really hard to do. I'm proud of her.

I'm proud of you. I'm so glad that we got to do it together.

Q. Octavia, can you sum up your emotions that's going through your mind right now? You accomplished what you set out to do at the beginning of the year, but now that it's come to an end, how are you feeling?

OCTAVIA JETT-WILSON: There's a lot of emotions in the locker room. Most of them happy. Just thankful for the memories that I've created here. I would say one thing about me leaving here is everybody is going to remember my name now. That's what I came here to do. We're just happy to be here, like I said before. So all good memories, all good things. I'm just happy that I got the chance to put on my Charlotte uniform again, and I'll never take that for granted.

Q. Could you just talk a little bit about the different looks that Indiana's guards were throwing at you defensively and what makes them all tough match-ups?

OCTAVIA JETT-WILSON: I would say for sure they're a very aggressive team. For myself, I don't think I let that rattle me. As for our offense, we've always kind of struggled on the offensive end.

But for sure, once we -- we couldn't really get in a rhythm, I would say, because as soon as we scored they would score, too. That's hard to compete with when you can't really get stops on the defensive end.

I think but for us and for myself, it was just play until the clock hits all zeroes. As y'all could see, we never gave up even down the stretch when we were down however much we were down. I think that goes to show how this program is built. We're never going to back down. It doesn't matter what the score was. When we started pressing them, a lot of y'all probably looked at us like why are they pressing when they're down by that much? But for sure we weren't going down without a fight. That's just a credit to them. As soon as we punched them, they punched us back. It was just good competition.

Q. Coach, can you just elaborate on what your seniors have meant to you, not only just this season but their entire career here at Charlotte? Some of them transfers, but the ones that have been here the whole time as well as the transfers?

CARA CONSUEGRA: Yeah, I think our senior class is special. It's easy to point out Octavia and Jada. Octavia has been here five years from me, Jada has been here four years with me. It's kind of bittersweet when you think about it. With the way that college basketball is trending and the transfer portal, I wonder how many years I'll get to be with a player for five years or for four years. I don't take that for granted.

Those two have certainly become an extension of me. We've been through a lot during our time at Charlotte. But they've always had my back. Octavia has always had my back, Jada has always had my back, and I have thoroughly enjoyed coaching both of them and seeing them succeed. Both of them, too, really grew during their time at Charlotte. They came in -- we obviously thought they were really good players, but I do think maybe they were overlooked in the recruiting process by a lot of folks. But we believed in them and we poured into them and they poured into us back, and you can see what they've done on an individual level and a team level.

I don't want to leave out Keke, either. I've only had one year to coach her, but she's had a tremendous impact on our program, mostly from a leadership standpoint. It's easy to look at what she did for us on the defensive end throughout the season, but her leadership, her steadiness, she's been there before. And when she came into the program, one thing we talked about is we wanted to go where she had been. She had been to the NCAA Tournament, none of us had.

She certainly poured a lot into this team and this program in the short time she was here, and we're really thankful for that.

Q. Coach Moren than just alluded to simply the magnitude of making the tournament. Can you tell us what it means to this program to not only win the conference championship but be in the field of this championship for the first time in 13 years?

CARA CONSUEGRA: I appreciate that. It's meant a lot to us. To be a team that -- this is only the third time in the history of our program at Charlotte. Charlotte has traditionally been a really good women's basketball program, but for whatever reason, it's been hard to get to the NCAA Tournament. It's been hard before me, it's been hard during my time. So when we actually break through and we do it, it's meant a lot to us, and I think you could see that throughout the week.

Our players were really excited to be here. They were excited for the opportunity, because it didn't come easy. I think when things don't come easy, they just mean that much more to you, and it meant a lot to us to be here, and we hope that we'll be back.

Q. What are some of the many positives that you have seen from your team and your staff this season?

CARA CONSUEGRA: Well, I think just our ability to blend a team is probably the biggest thing that stands out. And again, I talked about this earlier, but a lot of people have forgotten we were 4 & 6 in non-conference, and we were not a team at that point. We were a bunch of individuals trying to figure out how to come together.

And the way we came together after Christmas and learned to battle for each other, we made some changes from the coaching staff standpoint. We couldn't do everything that we've done in the past because our pieces were different, our roles were different.

And I think it's a testament to our coaching staff that was able to listen and make changes that we needed to make. And when I say listen, like it was a collaborative effort. We listen to our players here at Charlotte. It's not just about my way, it's our way and how we can do this together. At the same time our players were able to get onto the same page, and you could see as we went through the conference season that we became a team.

I think when you just talk specifically about the basketball aspect, we didn't see it tonight, but this team was the best defensive team I've coached, and that is a big reason why we won championships. I think that is something I'm really proud of, the steps and the strides that we took on the defensive end. We really truly believed that we could beat anybody we played because we felt like we could always get stops. And again, unfortunately we didn't see that tonight.

But that's something I think we're really proud of.

Q. Could you talk a little bit about what makes Grace Berger a good player and a tough player to prepare for?

CARA CONSUEGRA: Yeah, she's certainly one of the best players we've seen this year and one of the best players in the country. I've said this kind of to my team prior to us coming here. I think what makes her so good is she does what she does. I mean that with the highest compliments. She knows what she's good at, she knows what her kill shot is, which is that pull-up, and she knows how to get it. As hard as we tried to take that away from her today, we weren't able to do that.

I think that's what impresses me the most about her. She's kind of like a silent assassin. She's going to come in, she's going to do what she does and she's going to make it really hard to stop her.

I think the other thing that's impressed me, it's easy to talk about her mid-range game and her ability to score, but just her playmaking ability, at least from my perspective, is really underrated. She's got a lot of great pieces obviously around her, obviously but she does such a tremendous job that if you do try to take something away from her, she's able to adjust and create a play for somebody else, and that's what great players do.