NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST FOUR - ST. JOHN’S (NY) VS. PURDUE

March 15, 2023

Katie Gearlds

Purdue Boilermakers

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: Katie, thank you for spending some time with us. We'd like to just open up with you and some comments about your team and being here in Columbus, Ohio.

KATIE GEARLDS: Just proud to be here. Proud to lead Purdue back. Excited just to be on a journey with our group. I think we've got one player on our team who's experienced this. The 11 others have not. So just excited to watch them go through it all.

I don't like them to have their phones out, but they can have them out as much as they can and just soak in the moment and live in the moment as best as they can.

THE MODERATOR: I asked your two student-athletes this question. Just the familiarity factor, the fact that you guys have played here in this arena, can that be of any type of benefit for you?

KATIE GEARLDS: I mean, psychologically speaking, we're going to use it the best we can. Really we talk about it, the court out there is the same length as the court in Mackey, as the court in Assembly Hall, as the court in anywhere we've played. The goal is 10 feet high. The free-throw line is 15 feet back.

So I think they'll feel good about it, but just another opportunity for us to play basketball.

Q. First day of practice, you asked players what some of their goals were, and one of those was making the NCAA Tournament. Just how did they respond to kind of the coaching and everything that it took to get here?

KATIE GEARLDS: It's been a fun journey with our group. Obviously all spring and summer we talked a lot about what we wanted the next year to look like. We didn't want to play in the NIT, like we wanted to play in the NCAA March Madness. Changed the pass code on our locker rooms to make sure it said something to do with March because we wanted to give ourselves an opportunity.

First day of practice, they come in, hey, what are your goals? It was to get to the tournament. Basically just told them they gave me permission to coach them harder, and they've accepted that.

They stayed together through some tough times. When it got a little grim maybe, they just buckled down and battled through it together. Just excited to be here with them.

Q. Soldout Mackey against Indiana this year. Fan base is really starting to buy in more. Just what can you say about seeing more fans at your games? Thursday night is probably going to have a good amount of gold and black.

KATIE GEARLDS: First of all, super excited to be here in Columbus. So thanks to the NCAA for putting us with where our men are to play on Friday night here. Hopefully we can paint Columbus gold and black, and hopefully that starts on Thursday.

Obviously I think the fan support across the Big Ten has just been -- across women's basketball in general, but when you look at what the Big Ten has done this year, we played in front of, like you said, two soldout crowds against Indiana. Almost 15,000 at our place, 17,000 at their place, played against Iowa selling out, played against -- 8,600 people here against Ohio State.

I think just what the Big Ten has this year has been really special, and hopefully they've prepared us for this moment.

Q. I would ask if you just wouldn't mind commenting on your seniors. Looking at your roster, you've got some fifth year seniors, redshirt seniors, looks like some true seniors, but the fact that you've got a group of five that have made this NCAA Tournament.

KATIE GEARLDS: So basically, we have some old women on our team, right? No, just some experience, some maturity. It's challenged me because I like to practice hard and long -- no, I'm just kidding. I don't like to do that. We've had to scale back some practices because we do have some older college athletic legs.

They've just been mature, and I think that's part of the reason why we're here. We obviously brought in Lasha and Caitlyn from the transfer portal. Cass takes a fifth year, defers med school to come back and play college basketball and get to the NCAA Tournament. Then we've got some other seniors who are just giving it all they have every single day.

It's a fun journey to be on with them, but I think their maturity has a lot to do with the reason why we have an opportunity to play.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much. All the best tomorrow.