NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - MARQUETTE VS SOUTH FLORIDA

March 16, 2023

Megan Duffy

Chloe Marotta

Jordan King

Colonial Life Arena

Marquette Golden Eagles

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: This is the Marquette Golden Eagles. Marquette is the No. 9 Golden Eagles, 21-10 overall, 13-7 in the BIG EAST, earning at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament. Marquette is coached by Megan Duffy in her fourth season at Marquette, and we are joined by Coach Duffy and student athletes Jordan King and Chloe Marotta.

Coach, if you would please make an opening statement and we'll open up for questions.

COACH MEGAN DUFFY: Sure. Thank you. We are thrilled to be here in Colombia. Just the excitement of being back in the NCAA Tournament for our program is tremendous. Really looking forward to getting back on the court after a little bit of a layoff. To play South Florida, it's going to be a great matchup. Thrilled to be next to these two, Chloe Marotta and Jordan ing, who have led us through this season with so many quality wins and looking forward to watching them on the court tomorrow.

Q. Two weeks a layoff before your last game. What were you able to do from in this time from a player pack and prepare for postseason hopes. What was the last 12 days for you like?

CHLOE MAROTTA: A lot of prep. I think it's great when we can prep a team for a couple weeks or a week and a half and so I think that was great. Coming off the BIG EAST Tournament, we got back to ourselves what we needed to work on.

And then we look at South Florida and how we can improve and play against them and the toughness that's it's going to need.

JORDAN KING: Chloe talked about it, getting back to ourselves, too. There was a lot of time that we could focus on ourselves, what our mission, what our drive was going to be coming into this tournament. I thought that was huge for us to just get our mindset right back into it and understanding how exciting this time is, and get ready to go.

Q. For both of you, how much of the driving force of this season was getting Marquette back to the NCAA Tournament?

JORDAN KING: Yeah, I think it's a great opportunity and something really exciting to be a part of, obviously having the experience for myself wanting to get back to this moment is a huge thing. Chloe is in her last season, and that's one her biggest goals, too, to experience this another time.

I think it was something we even talked about as we were able to go through the season. We talked about just picking up some really good wins and continuing to fight through the BIG EAST tournament to get here.

CHLOE MAROTTA: I'm really excited for this team. As a fifth year, I've had the chance to go to the Tournament a couple times. But a lot of these people on team have not had the chance to, and this is an awesome experience.

Everyone talks about it throughout the season, but we have got to play how we always play. Throughout the whole year, we have just been focused on winning games, winning games, winning games, and that's what led us here.

Now that we are here we are obviously really excited and a lot of the freshmen, some of the transfers, just very excited to have their first experience here and hopefully we can lead them in that way.

Q. The matchups with South Florida, Chloe, with Dulcy down low double-doubles are the norm for her. Talk about your matchup. And then Jordan, if you want mind talking about the perimeter players Tsineke and Puisis, and how you feel you matchup on the outside.

CHLOE MAROTTA: Obviously Dulcy is a very good player. We've scouted her a lot and she's aggressive down low. She's ducking in hard. She can finish when she gets really down deep in deep steals and duck-ins. So it's important for us posts to play tough.

Throughout the scout we have been able to compare some of the players to the BIG EAST players we've seen this year and it's nothing that we haven't seen before. So I think that's something we gain our confidence off of. But it's going to take a lot of hard grinding every single moment of the game, and IQ and when to be smart and when to sit behind, when to get in front, a lot of things we've been talking about.

But definitely a tough matchup and I'm excited to see how it ends up.

JORDAN KING: With their perimeter players, I think obviously they bring a little bit of versatility. Obviously being able to guard that, I think is going to be the biggest thing; and at different times, is it where you can get high hands on a shooter that she's got a deep range or have to guard a little bit more of the craftiness downhill.

I think that like Chloe said, just every moment has kind of prepared us, led us to here, and we've guarded very similar players before and just you know locking into what makes them different and what makes them good will be the biggest thing.

Q. I guess tomorrow, I think other than these first four games, you guys are the first game of the main draw of the tournament. It's pretty early, 11:30. What does that mean, a 4:00 A.M. wake-up call, 5:00 A.M. shootaround? How will you adjust to that start?

JORDAN KING: Yeah, I mean, I think that we have had -- we've practiced at that time for a lot of the season and we've had a couple of earlier games within the BIG EAST schedule.

So you know we kind of had experience being up but I think just for that first game on that day, it's going to be really exciting. You get to set the tone of what March is going to be, and for us to be that first game, I think it's going to be really exciting for us.

CHLOE MAROTTA: Yeah, I think it would be difficult to watch a bunch of games during the day and be like, man we want to get out there and we want to be there. It's definitely not going to be hard to wake up tomorrow morning. I think we're all, it's a little bit like Christmas morning. We like to keep it very routine here at Marquette.

We will go through our things and get ready for the game but we have definitely excited for it.

Q. Do you have a player or position on your team that you feel could be the X-factor in this kind of matchup, yourselves aside? Is there a certain teammate that you think that could be a key to finding success tomorrow?

CHLOE MAROTTA: Yeah, obviously Liza Karlen has been playing extremely well for us. She obviously had a little bit of an your during the season but now shows back to who says and how she plays. I don't even consider her an X-factor. I consider her a very big player for the team. I think she has great mid-range game, but especially defensively is how she's going to especially had us a ton tomorrow.

Obviously you talk about Dulcy in that matchup and just be able to switch different players on different people, whether that's length, size, toughness, and so she's going be to big for us.

I also think some of the freshmen that I mentioned that are very excited for this tournament, they have a chance to really be an X-factor out there. Emily La Chapell has given us some really great minutes this year, and Mackenzie Hare coming off the bench is also someone to watch as well.

JORDAN KING: Yeah, I was going to talk about Emily La Chapell. Like Chloe said, just, a freshman and in this opportunity for the first time. I think she's going to bring a lot of fight and excitement about this opportunity. I think especially, too, you know with her IQ and her defensive ability, I think that there's going to be times where she's really going to be able to help one of the guard or help one of the bigs at any moment.

Like I said with her size, being able to grab a scrap rebound, or when there's a lot of attention on Chloe or even Lisa, her being able to step up and open -- knock down that open shoot, too, I think will give her the opportunity to have some great moments tomorrow.

Q. I was going to ask about the adjustments. The game time here is, what, 10:30 campus time in the morning? Teams are creatures of habit. How are you guys adjusting to the early tip?

COACH MEGAN DUFFY: I think teams are creatures of habit but we've also over these last couple of years have been very keen to adapt to whatever is in front of us, whether it's the COVID season. We are the type of program that from a positivity; that you send us to the West Coast, the East Coast, across the pond like we don't care. We are excited to play whatever time that is.

I think there's always things that you have to adjust, like Jordan said, we practice around that ten o'clock time on certain days of the week with their academic schedule. So our shoot around will be obviously more today, and then you know final prep.

But I'm with them, the excitement of games on TV now with the man's tournament and the First Four. It's a coaches nightmare to have to wait until eight or nine o'clock at night and play. So the fact that we get to get up and do this and perform will be awesome.

Q. From the staff perspective, what's the last 12 days been like for you guys being able to look inward and once you got your matchup?

COACH MEGAN DUFFY: Our conference in the BIG EAST has been the best it been in a long time. We got five teams into the tournament. The conference tournament was incredible, just the atmosphere. Every team had the mentality that they could win it and we did, obviously, UCONN won that.

But I just think the prep going into that was so important, and we had a really good game against St. John's, and didn't play our best against UCONN. Similar to South Florida, they got upset in a different way.

Once we got out of that, we had to find that perfect balance of getting a little bit of rest. It's a long season, long grind and get them away from things a little bit, catch back up with school.

We got the opportunity last week to work on ourselves for two or three days of maybe putting something in new, just you know, fixing some of the things that happened from conference play or the BIG EAST Tournament, and then Selection Sunday happens, and it's pre joy and jubilation that we got an opponent and now we are in, and then we shifted very quickly to prep.

Once I saw South Florida, I knew we had a tough task on our hands. They are a very, very good program. I got to play Jose in the past in different spots I've been, and so you just shift your mind of now getting focused on doing everything you can to play your best basketball tomorrow.

Q. Did you have a sense before the season that this -- that you had an NCAA Tournament team there or did it kind of, you know, come together during the season that you guys caught fire?

COACH MEGAN DUFFY: I think it's always a goal for our program here at Marquette to be in the NCAA Tournament. What's interesting about this team this year, I think there were some unknowns. We lost our two top scorers from a year ago in Lauren Van Kleunen and Karissa McLaughlin.

We were picked middle of the league. Everybody was kind of anticipating what were Jordan and Chloe going to be like, and you know, in the latter part of their careers. They both had to take on a new scoring role, kind of being the go-to players, and you throw Liza in that mix as well.

I think we scheduled with the mindset of we want to be in that Tournament, going to the Bahamas and the Battle for Atlantis tournament. We got quality wins. Scheduled Colorado who had a great year, and then we knew our conference was going to continue to be put on the national scene a little bit more.

And then again, it was about development. It was about these women to my right and those ones in the locker room now that just continue to work and get better, not worry about rankings or where we're at.

And again, we were, you know, if you asked me maybe the beginning of January if we were going to make the tournament, I wasn't sure. We got on a great run and have been healthy. That's been the story of our season. It's been up and down for different reasons and factors.

But I feel like we started to play our best basketball once February hit, and you know, we've made a good run so far and are really looking forward to being here tomorrow.

Q. This is about as good of an 8-9 matchup you could hope, and their coach talked about rebounding would be tipping point between the two teams.

COACH MEGAN DUFFY: I think with South Florida, one, they have a big three, between Dulcy and you know Sammie and Tsineke. They are so talented. We tried to reference as many top guards and players in our league as we could of how those three will be on the court.

You mentioned rebounding. The rebounding in South Florida is evident. When we first started watching film, I'm like, wow, they get after it. They are hard-nosed. Didn't matter if was young players or their veterans; and then Jose, he's a tremendous coach. He's always been so consistently good.

So those three factors make him hard to beat. At the same time I like the matchup, because I think we are similar in some ways at both want to rebound the basketball, want to mix it up, want the physicality. We both have some talented players.

And again, I think the matchup is even, but it's who is obviously going to show up when it matters the most and execute. And like you asked before it could be a couple X-factors other than the big threes, right, in this matchup.

But I think it's two great teams. Watching them, they are fun to watch and the challenge of trying to prepare for them is as high as ever. Hopefully they feel the same way about us.

Q. Marquette has such a great basketball history overall. How much of a boost, how much of a push, how much of an encouragement was seeing what the men did this year, too, and the whole pride in both teams can take in what you've accomplished?

COACH MEGAN DUFFY: It's an awesome question. I think the energy on campus at Marquette right now is the best and the highest since I've been around. Shaka, you know, has transformed that men's program, and we're literally right down the hall from each other. Both head coaches, myself and him, we coach with a lot of energy. We are very passionate about what we do, and both our players are like that, too.

Again the trickle-down effect of people wanting to work hard, the energy of our fan base right now, you can't help but make it be more contagious everywhere you go.

And so we are -- unfortunately we are almost playing at the same time tomorrow but it's never been better and healthier with our programs and you know I think we all probably learn a little bit from each other. You know, just the way they have connected and built their program, it might be a little different than us but we are still on that same mission together.

So when you have two of your programs, you know, at a basketball school, you know, fighting to be in that tournament and advance and be on the national scene, it's pretty special.