BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 3, 2023

Doug Bruno

Aneesah Morrow

Mohegan Sun Arena

DePaul Blue Demons

Postgame Media Conference

DePaul - 67, Providence - 54

COACH BRUNO: Coach Crowley and Providence has had a really strong year this year, even though you might not know by looking at the record. Providence went and beat Creighton at Creighton. They played St. John's and Marquette, push games at home. And a week ago they went to Nova and played Nova in an even game in the second half.

We know and we played them twice this year and just to look at the scores might think that -- we were up 24 in Chicago on December 28th and they came back and tied the game.

So they have been a really tough ball club here in the Big East this year. And, so, to beat them today, we're happy for our basketball team.

And now regarding our basketball team, I think you got to see one of the signature players in the country play a signature half of basketball, for sure, not that she didn't play a great game, but Aneesah here was really, really special in the first half.

And when someone's playing like she played in the first half -- she just had a really, really great first half -- my only challenge was to just keep throwing her the ball, get her the ball and let her do what she does. And, again, she really had a special half here.

And the second half, I think we had to be more comprehensive as a team. We had to go find other places to score in the second half. I think some of the other players did a pretty good job of stepping up and figuring that out the second half because they were throwing a lot more people at Aneesah here in the second half.

Again, it's a really good win at this time of the year. You survive and advance -- it's not a cliché; it's a statement of truth to what we do at this time of year.

We're thrilled to be still playing in the quarters tomorrow against a really tough Villanova team. We really do appreciate how good Jim Crowley and his Providence team, how hard they made it on us. And I want to congratulate the great job that Aneesah did. She was excellent today.

Q. Can you describe what it's like when you're in that offensive rhythm like you were in the first half, just the way you're seeing it and how that all comes together; what's it like when you're in that zone?

ANEESAH MORROW: I could kind of feel it before the game starts, like I was shooting very well in warm-ups and I knew that I was going to have a great -- I was going to shoot great tonight. But the second half, it just shows that we as a team have to play together. And that's what we did tonight.

Q. Obviously you've been doing performances like this all season. Now you shift your momentum, you have to play Villanova tomorrow. You and Maddy have gone at it throughout the season, obviously, and two offseasons, how do you get that done tomorrow?

ANEESAH MORROW: Just come in calm, never get complacent-- Maddy is a great player and she makes tough shots. You have to sit down and defend Villanova tomorrow. And that's what's going to keep us in the game that's what could cause us to win.

Q. 99 percent of the players in this conference think that 24.11 rebound performance for a game is pretty good. You had that in the first half. What was clicking for you offensively in that first 20 minutes?

ANEESAH MORROW: I was just in the flow. Coach Bruno never limited me to anything on the court. He always tells me to go out and play. I was just in the flow. And I always go into the game challenging myself to get a double-double.

In our last game I had 22 rebounds. I know I fell short of that but that was my goal. And if you could get 22 rebounds you could get 20 points easily. So I knew that coming up here and playing defensively is more important than the offense.

Q. Obviously you had a good first half, but more so a sloppier second half. How do you fix that going into Villanova on short turnaround?

COACH BRUNO: At this time of the year, you're always trying to fix yourself. But you just have to -- I thought we fixed ourselves on the fly. I thought -- you watched the game and there were some possessions of dysfunction offensively, but then there was some really pretty good possessions of offense on the second half also.

So I just think it's always a work in progress. And at this point in time of the year, you really just have to focus on what we have to do to beat one team tomorrow. And I think the players inside have themselves figured out what this quick but not in a hurry thing was. We were just too hurried. We were just too scrambling and hurrying.

Once we took our time a little bit we still, I thought we had some really nice possessions of dissection basketball, too. I really look at the second half as a really good half of having to get everybody together after -- when Aneesah is going you've got to get her -- the player the ball. Just get her the ball and get her the ball in the right spots and then she's going to go make the plays.

But then that wasn't happening in the second half. Now you have to do something else. I think we have enough "else" that we can do. And I thought we got a lot of really, had some really good, nice possessions once we just settled down.

Q. As you mentioned, after the first half that Aneesah had, they obviously threw more bodies at her. So when that was happening, who were you impressed by that stepped up to make up for the lack of scoring on her end in the final 20?

COACH BRUNO: I think everybody did. Darrione hit a couple of signature Darrione shots. And then we started running some -- we opened up the floor and started running some things that were going to get us some cuts to the basket and some passes to the cuts to the basket as opposed to driving the ball to the basket. And I thought we actually did execute a few.

Once we just settled down -- when we were in a hurry, the offensive possession was really sloppy. But when we just settled down, looked for our break when it was there, didn't force things when the break wasn't there, just took our time, I thought we really did get quite a few nice open shots at the rim out of our offense. I thought we did get some good work in our offense in the second half.

Q. It's really hard for a team to beat another team three times in one season. Villanova has that challenge tomorrow night against your squad. You guys have been close this year. But what do you think is the biggest key to make that difference get over the hump?

COACH BRUNO: Villanova and Coach Dillon, they've done just a great job this year. And Maddy Siegrist is the Player of the Year in this league for a reason. She's just a really, really special basketball player. And you don't really understand -- you do but you don't -- you have to be on the floor coaching against her and to see her right in front of you to understand how long she is, how versatile she is, how many different ways she can score the basketball.

But Lucy Olsen is a really special point guard also, Maddie Burke is a really good 3-point shooting player. Runyan comes off the bench. They have four players Orihel, No. 4 Orihel, she does a great job, Mullen does a great job in her role.

They just really do a great job of everybody playing their role. They've got the great go-to player that they can go get a bucket in any kind of way. That's really what makes them really challenging. In game two, it was a really interesting game because we got down -- I think we were down 20 in that game and came back and put the game to a 61-60 game inside of a couple of minutes to play, and we had the basketball, and we kind of let it get away from us at the end of that game. This is why this is a great league. You have the teams at the top are really good.

You've got Nova at the top. Creighton is really good. But everybody in this league is really good. I'm excited to still be playing. I'm excited for our players to still be playing, and we love playing ranked teams. It's just nice to be able to have a couple of ranked teams in the Big East at this time of the year. We're excited about playing another ranked basketball team.