MOUNTAIN WEST WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 6, 2023

Amanda Levens

Megan Ormiston

Lexie Givens

Thomas & Mack Center

Nevada Wolf Pack

Postgame Press Conference

UNLV 84, Nevada 47

THE MODERATOR: Representing Nevada, student-athletes Lexie Givens and Megan Ormiston. Again, coach will make an opening remark, and then questions for the student-athletes.

AMANDA LEVENS: Just, first off, congratulations to UNLV. I thought they played extremely well today. I thought they played like they were the best team in our conference, and, unfortunately, I don't think we played very well today. A little bit maybe of the overtime hangover, fatigue. I'm not sure. I didn't feel like we were very sharp or just very good today.

THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Meg, I'll start with you. Just what coach was saying, why do you feel like it was maybe difficult for you guys to kind of get a rhythm going after you had so much momentum coming off of yesterday's game?

MEGAN ORMISTON: To be honest, I'm not really sure. We didn't execute our game plan the way that Amanda had drawn it up for us.

At the end of the day, UNLV played really well and we didn't, and we are facing the outcome of that so...

Q. I guess for Lexie, I mean, what do you think as well?

LEXI GIVENS: It's really hard to say. I didn't think we were very focused on what we needed to do and our principles that we needed to follow to win, so...

Q. For both of you, just in the second quarter there it seemed like the turnovers kind of took over there. How difficult was it to try and just come back and overcome that?

MEGAN ORMISTON: Obviously, really difficult because we didn't overcome it. Like I said, there's not much to really say. We didn't do what we were supposed to do and here we are.

Q. Just for the both of you, how can you recap the season as a whole, and there were some bright spots in what you were able to do?

LEXI GIVENS: Quoting Amanda, this season we made great memories as a team. Like, as we grow up and get older we'll be at each other's weddings and things like that, so just never letting go of that it and just...

MEGAN ORMISTON: Yeah, I agree. For me it's the end of a good career. I'll keep it at that.

THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the ladies and stay with coach and continue with the press conference.

Do we have questions for Coach?

Q. On a day the Young gets 8, although you had to double her and try to take it away, and they win like that, can you say what it speaks to their depth when she can kind of just be quiet and they can do what they did?

AMANDA LEVENS: She shot the three unbelievably well from lots of different people. Any time you're hitting shots like that, it doesn't really matter who you play. You hit 13 threes at that percentage, you're going to have a great chance any night.

Q. Coach, just why was it so tough to overcome those turnovers, do you think, there?

AMANDA LEVENS: They were converting them. I thought defensively we weren't quick to things kind of the way we were yesterday when we made adjustments and things like that. Maybe a couple of people would adjust quickly and other people were just a step slow and a step late.

They made us pay for those. They hit threes when we weren't there. Live ball turnovers obviously hurt us and just giving them possessions back.

I thought that was something yesterday, especially late in the game, we did such a great job of controlling the possessions and controlling the glass, and we didn't today. When we did get stops we didn't get defensive rebounds.

They had a couple put-backs early when we were scoring well, and you've got to come up with stops in those situations and not give them two-footers at the rim.

Like, we just didn't do a good job on the glass early, and I thought that that gave them momentum because they're hustle plays, and their team was feeding off of that.

Q. It seemed like you guys did have some momentum right out of the gates there, and then just kind of spiralled from there. I mean, where do you think, you know, the shift, I guess, was aside from the turnovers?

AMANDA LEVENS: I thought we came out and jumped on them and then they responded and fought back, and then we didn't respond. I was very disappointed in that. It was like at that point you're fighting to continue your season and we needed to respond better, and it's been a challenge of ours this year.

You know, we have some young players and it's great learning opportunities for them. It's like, you know, if you don't respond in the right way, it does spiral really quickly, especially against a good team.

They can score in a hurry if you're not scoring and you're not taking care of the ball. You know, there's lots of lessons there.

For our team, we've had to learn every single lesson the hard way. Maybe multiple times this season.

Q. Is it tougher in any way knowing that you were just up double digits on them in the third quarter last week? Like, being able to do that --

AMANDA LEVENS: I think today was a completely different game, to be honest.

I think at our place we played really well and we had our opportunities there and just didn't get it done. Today I thought they were very comfortable. This is home for them. It's basically a home game, and I thought they played like they were at home. You know, very comfortable and in rhythm, and we just didn't respond when they kind of went on that run in the second quarter.

Q. Just what are your thoughts on the season as a whole?

AMANDA LEVENS: Obviously, this is not what we want. We didn't have a very good season in terms of wins and losses, and that's how our program and our team is evaluated. I challenge our team to decide what they want their legacy to be. You know, do you want to be the reason that Nevada is in the postseason consistently, or do you want to look back and -- you know, there's a lot of positives to being part of a team, but winning is fun, and it's really special, and it's really hard to do.

So getting everybody in our group to really buy into what that means and what that looks like. And it's not just on game day. It's everything that you do, and it's how you do every single thing, and it's got to be championship habits.

So, you know, I thought we had a really good season last year. We lost a lot of our leadership and returning players, and this year we just didn't really have that. You know, Meg didn't play last year and she really tried to bring that senior leadership, but, you know, she was our lone senior, so just we need other people that can grow into those leadership roles and hold each other to those standards every single day in everything that we do.

Q. Just Aly as well and what she -- what did she mean to your program last year and the last several years?

AMANDA LEVENS: Yeah. What I love about her is she's just gotten better every season, and I think that's kind of been the trademark of our program. We may not get the best recruits out of high school, but if they stay in our program they get better every single season.

If you look at her score and her field goal percentage and just the complete player that she's become, you know, Da'Ja Hamilton is another example. You play in our program for four years, you stay the course, and you can be an All-Conference player by you senior year.

I think that is what Aly has done, and so she is just the model of that. She's been through injury and a lot of things like that. That's hard to overcome when you have a pretty serious knee injury.

So, you know, she was huge for us yesterday. That will be an extremely memorable game for her. We don't win yesterday without her, and some other games this season without her. At the guard spot getting the number of double-doubles she's got this year I think is really impressive.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

AMANDA LEVENS: Thank you.