NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - CREIGHTON VS IOWA

March 20, 2022

Lisa Bluder

Monika Czinano

Caitlin Clark

Iowa Hawkeyes

Media Conference

Creighton 64, Iowa 62

LISA BLUDER: Obviously just want to congratulate Creighton. A very well-played game, executed really well, defended really well. That's a hard matchup for us. Five guards is a hard matchup. We knew that.

But they did a great job, and Lauren Jensen was here last year, obviously that's an incredible storyline. She goes over there and she comes back and beats us on our home court, and I want to congratulate her because she's a great kid. She is a really, really good kid. I'm happy for her. I wish it wasn't in this situation, but I am happy for her that she's found a really good home and is really having a lot of success.

Our crowd today was amazing again. I think we broke the NCAA record for first and second rounds of attendance, and I apologize to our fans that they couldn't celebrate a victory with us today.

They have been amazing all year, but boy, these last three games they've been incredible. So I want to thank them.

I want to thank our administration because it's a lot of hard work putting on an event like this and doing it with the class that Iowa does. And I want to thank them for that.

Lastly, I'll say I do believe that that game was called differently than what we've seen all year, and I really think that's unfortunate. We average going to the free-throw line 18 times; we go eight tonight. We averaged 34 fouls being called in a game, 22 were called tonight. It's pretty frustrating when an NCAA championship game is called completely different than the 30 games that prepared you for this point, and that is very frustrating.

But I don't want that to take away anything from Creighton's excellent preparation and their excellent performance.

Q. Monika, the last shot, what did you see and the ball just seemed to hang on the lip there it felt like two months but it was like a quarter of a second. What did you see on that play and how did it shake out?

MONIKA CZINANO: Yeah, I think I had a hook shot. I've shot a million hook shots in my life and that one happened to not go in. I think we've run that play a lot. We needed to run that play, and it was just unfortunate that it didn't go in.

Q. Caitlin, with these teams knowing each other so well, did you feel like that had any impact on kind of the back and forth play there?

CAITLIN CLARK: I mean, obviously yeah. I think we knew each other pretty well. I thought we battled and battled and battled. Obviously didn't perform the way we needed to to win in the fashion that we wanted, and I think we still had a lot of opportunities to win the game. But overall they executed down the stretch and we didn't, and there's a lot of little things that you can go back and pick out from a one-possession game. And I think it's overall just going to be a lot of fuel to the fire next year. I think that's really all you can use it as.

Obviously we're frustrated, we're disappointed, we're sad, but we have our core coming back, and I think that's something bright to look forward to, as well.

Q. Caitlin, can you talk about the emotion part of this game? It seemed like out there at times you were frustrated, whether it was with calls or shots not going in. How were you able to not check those emotions at times and it kind of got you out of your game a little bit?

CAITLIN CLARK: Yeah, I think I'm an emotional player no matter the situation, good or bad. I think that's how I'm going to play really if we're winning, we're losing, I'm playing good, I'm playing bad. Obviously frustrated with the calls, but I think at the same time, I missed some bunnies that I usually make and sometimes that's how basketball goes.

Yeah, it's disappointing, it stinks. Yeah, I would have liked to get more calls. I could say that every single game, Coach Bluder could say that every single game, our opponent could say that every single game. And I'm not going to sit here and make excuses for how I played.

I think just coming back and working harder than I ever have is really all I can do.

Q. Could you guys describe the defensive situation when Lauren took the three-pointer that put them ahead? Was it kind of a scramble there with the screen?

MONIKA CZINANO: Yeah, I mean, at that point we were switching all ball screens. All of their players shoot threes. They're all good from the three-point line. It was easy to switch every single one in that last stretch, and she's a good three-point shooter. We had hands up, she shot over it. It's a great shot down the stretch. She's a great shooter, so props to her for that.

Q. Rebounding was a problem. I think at one point the second-chance points was 15-0. I don't know how it ended up. What happened there?

CAITLIN CLARK: Yeah, I think that was kind of the story of the game as well for us. Obviously in games we've lost, rebounding has been a pretty big issue for us, and it was tonight. When people get more opportunities -- basically double you up on opportunities to shoot the ball, it's going to be really hard to win a basketball game. And the O-boards that they did get, they executed and basically scored on most of them, and that hurt.

At the same time we didn't crash to the best of our ability to get those second-chance opportunities, as well. Yeah, rebounding was an issue.

MONIKA CZINANO: I think something too that they do a little bit differently is they shoot a lot threes, and when you shoot threes it's a lot of long rebounds, which is something that we know, but we might not be as used to the volume of three-point shooting. But I totally agree with Caitlin that that is something that needs to improve for our team and something that has improved this year but can go even further.

Q. I know this one is going to linger for a while, but walking in, seeing the crowd, seeing 14-plus-thousand people, knowing the stage you're on, the network you're on, how do you feel about maybe how you helped elevate the sport and then also the ramifications of a game like this because it's an exciting game in front of a lot of people.

MONIKA CZINANO: Yeah, I mean, I think what Iowa does and how they support women's basketball is unlike anything anywhere. Walking out of the tunnel and seeing that many people is almost unexplainable. It fills you with joy and it makes the game so fun and it fuels you.

I just thank you so much to everybody who came out today. It does suck to have that volume of people here and not be able to perform, but I really think that getting that many people in one gym to watch women's sports is huge, and it just goes to show the love and dedication that they show to us here.

But I think we're a fun team to watch. I think people are picking up on that and I think it's drawing more eyes to the sport. Obviously Caitlin is a phenomenal player and that brings it, too. But people come a lot of times for Caitlin's name and they stay because we're so fun to watch as a collective unit. I'm just so proud of what we're doing here, and the story is not over for us.

CAITLIN CLARK: Yeah, I think Monika basically said it all. Obviously a wonderful opportunity for a women's basketball game today on ABC in front of a sold-out crowd. I just feel bad for the fans because they've given us so much over these past two weeks, really willed us to a regular season title here at home versus Michigan, and I hope they come out and support us the exact same way next year. I know they will.

I think there's a lot of exciting basketball ahead for this group, but obviously the feeling of letting them down, letting the coaches down, our teammates down, it stinks right now, but I think overall just more fuel for us going into next year.

Q. A question about rebounding. There were a lot of times Creighton went in and tipped it out to one of their teammates. How hard is that to try to simulate when you're getting ready for this game? They rebound really well as a team, but it wasn't just one person that was doing all the damage.

CAITLIN CLARK: Yeah, I think it is hard to simulate. Obviously you only have one day to prep so you can't work on every single thing that they're going to do. Every team crashes. I think that's the story for every team. It's not like they just go and run back every single time they shoot it. I think like Monika said, it was a lot of long rebounds so I think that led to the tip-out to their teammates, and that's probably something they work on every single day in practice. But at the end of the day, those are rebounds we can still get. I think finding somebody to box and just being better prepared in that area, having the mentality to go get the balls, more than anything.

Q. It felt like throughout the game you guys would get within a couple of points and then even when you took the lead, there were just shots that weren't falling that felt like they would be really big to not only cut the lead down or grow your lead. Did you think you were getting good shots? Did you feel like your offense was getting you good looks and they just weren't falling?

LISA BLUDER: That's a good question. I think we got some shots that we usually make, but I do think we started adjusting our shots a little bit based on -- we were getting really bumped hard, and so you just alter your shot a little bit. I don't think that boded well for us.

We could have done other things. We kept talking about we want a two-foot jump stop instead of a lay-up and those are things that we could do to help ourselves that we didn't do.

For the most part, we got shots that we normally get within our offense except for maybe some drives to the basket.

Q. You said the game was called differently than most here. Was it just called more loosely or inconsistently or what?

LISA BLUDER: There just wasn't many whistles. When you're used to having fouls called 34 times a game and it's 22 this time -- again, I don't mind if it's called -- but call it that way in November, call it that way in December, January, February. Don't come in March and change our style of officiating. That's what frustrates me.

Q. You guys had four-point leads a couple of times there at the very end of the game and then Lauren got through for a drive and then hit the three. Did you see anything on either one of those plays that maybe the defense just didn't quite pick up?

LISA BLUDER: Yeah, you know, the drive, I think they do such a good job of hitting threes, and they had eight threes in the first half. They only had two in the second half, one in each quarter. So we did a better job of guarding the three. But when you do a better job of guarding the three, what does that open up? Drives to the basket. And she exposed that very well.

Q. Going off of what was said earlier about the excitement and the thrills that you all generated this season and the attention that's been brought on to this team, what do you want people to know about this team given all the adversity and all the obstacles that you've all had to overcome this year to get to this point?

LISA BLUDER: I'm just really proud of this team. I mean, and the exciting thing is we return everybody from our starting lineup, and that's exciting. We have three great recruits coming in.

But I couldn't be more proud of this group. I love them. I can't believe I don't get to go to practice tomorrow. That's the hardest thing for me right now is that I don't get to go to practice tomorrow.

Q. What was your game plan going into those final three seconds, that final shot? Did you want to get it to Monika?

LISA BLUDER: We did. We wanted to get it to either Monika or Caitlin. Those were our two people we were trying to get the ball to.

Q. I know of course that you don't want to be on the losing end of an upset, but when we're trying to talk about growing the women's game, how much does it help to have not just upsets, but to touch on what Monika said, people came for Caitlin but they see so many other people who can play good basketball.

LISA BLUDER: I'm sorry, what was the question?

Q. Do you think this is good for the game, these type of upsets? Do you think parity is growing --

LISA BLUDER: Yes.

Q. I know you don't want to be on the crappy end of it.

LISA BLUDER: Thanks, I appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, parity is good for anything, right? It's more exciting when there's parity. But you're right, you don't want to be on the wrong side of that.

But no, it's great for the game of women's basketball to have parity and to have upsets, and that creates excitement.