NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL SEMIFINAL - CREIGHTON VS IOWA STATE

March 25, 2022

Bill Fennelly

Ashley Jones

Emily Ryan

Greensboro Coliseum

Iowa State Cyclones

Sweet 16 Postgame Media Conference

Creighton 76, Iowa State 68

BILL FENNELLY: Two quick points. First of all, I want to thank the NCAA and the people of Greensboro. On behalf of everyone at Iowa State, phenomenal, phenomenal tournament as always. It was an honor to be here and really thank everyone.

Then, secondly, certainly want to congratulate Creighton. They played a great game. We knew going into this game basketball is a make shot-miss shot game. Especially with these two teams. They made a lot of tough shots tonight, and, unfortunately, we couldn't get the ball in the basket when we needed it. So we certainly congratulate them. They're a class act. Coach Flan does it right. Very impressed with how they run their program.

Lastly, couldn't be more proud of our team. Obviously, tonight hurts. Obviously, tonight is disappointing. It should be. If you invest in something in your life and it doesn't go your way, you should be disappointed, but what they accomplished is amazing. We'll celebrate that at another time, but it was an honor to say that I coached at Iowa State this year. Amazing young people. Amazing.

Q. This is for Ashley. What were they doing defensively to try to make things difficult on you at least from a shooting from the field standpoint?

ASHLEY JONES: They did a great job defensively just staying on us, kind of knowing our personnel and how to guard. I think they did a really good job, and that kind of helped them out.

Q. How did you guys feel late in the fourth quarter when you were kind of making that run and getting some momentum?

EMILY RYAN: At that point we were clawing ourselves back into the game, and we made some plays that we needed to make to get ourselves in a position to have a chance at it, and ultimately we weren't able to make quite enough of them to get the win.

ASHLEY JONES: Like Emily said, we just had to keep fighting and clawing our way back into the game, and we weren't able to get it done, but we kept competing.

Q. Coach Fennelly had talked about just how proud he is to have coached you guys, and eventually you guys will celebrate all you've accomplished. What do you guys think about what you have done this year and accomplished as a team?

ASHLEY JONES: I mean, we had a really great season. It didn't end the way we wanted it to, but looking back, we all stuck together, and it was a great team. We all stuck together and are very connected, which makes it a lot more fun when you can win and be this close.

EMILY RYAN: Going to practice every day was so fun. Really fun team to be around, and just disappointed we can't come back tomorrow and go to work.

Q. This is just for Ashley. Do you know yet whether or not you're going to come back next year after the draft?

ASHLEY JONES: I haven't thought about that yet. I'll decide soon.

Q. What happened in the third quarter I guess with defense? Some of it's them making shots, but obviously I'm sure you weren't doing some things you wanted to do defensively either.

BILL FENNELLY: No, we got mismatched a couple of times. They hit a couple of -- Rembao banks one in, and she made 19 threes all year, and they hit a tough -- we guarded an inbounds play wrong at the end, and they stuck a three at the end of the shot clock.

We tried to go smaller to keep the ball in front of us, and that was a struggle. We had real match-up problems, and we weren't scoring enough to offset it. Sometimes you have to score when you're not guarding right. But, yeah, third quarter we really struggled to even get any kind of flow defensively. We tried a lot of different things, but to their credit, they always had an answer for it.

Q. I know you had said you're very proud of coaching this team. What is it about this team that has made you so proud to coach them, and when you eventually do start thinking about what they accomplish, what are you most proud of?

BILL FENNELLY: I think what Emily referred to is it was a group that was really fun to be around. They showed up. They did what they were supposed to do. We talked at length about the Iowa State way of doing things, and coming out of COVID you didn't know what was going to happen. Everyone is, like, oh, this is great. Well, sometimes when teams are together, it's not great. This team, it turned out to be an unbelievable thing, and the disappointment of how last year ended motivated them all, and I thought they handled themselves all year.

You win 28 games. You get to the Sweet 16. I think it was a team, Tommy, as you know, I think our fans loved watching this team play because they can tell that they're connected and they play the game the right way. Yeah, like Em said, it's hard tonight, but I could not imagine being more proud of what they've done and how they've done it.

Q. Knowing that, okay, it's a good core coming back too, does that maybe soften tonight a little bit knowing that you're going to still get the chance to coach a lot of them moving forward?

BILL FENNELLY: Yeah. No, obviously, I think not really -- I should have an answer to that, but I can't process next year yet. When you have Emily Ryan and Lexi Donarski, obviously, Ash has not made her decision, but Em and Lex, that's a great way to start a team.

And there will be some work to do, obviously, but it's hard to see them compete to that level. Everyone is going to lose their last game in this tournament except for one, and we all know that, but when it happens, it's sudden.

My grandson, Will, is 7 years old, and he loves our team. He walked into the coach's locker room sobbing. I've spent a lot of time trying to console him. If you don't care, it's okay, but I told him, I said, you know, Will, don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened, and we're going to smile big when we get home.

Appreciate all your time. Especially our folks from home covering us all year. You did a great job. Thank you, all.