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

March 16, 2023

Katie Gearlds

Cassidy Hardin

Lasha Petree

Purdue Boilermakers

Media Conference

St. John's - 66, Purdue - 64

THE MODERATOR: Cassidy, thank you for joining us.

Q. Cassidy, I know you're going to say it was worth it to delay med school, but sitting here now having played one NCAA Tournament game to hopefully get this program going back to the direction where it's here annually, why was it worth it to do that?

CASSIDY HARDIN: I love Purdue. So I don't regret coming back for a second. This is where I wanted to be. This was my goal. I believed in coach. I believed in my teammates.

Yeah, it ended quicker than I wanted it to, but I'm just so thankful to be a part of the future of this team and the direction it's headed in.

Q. Cassidy, what made it worth it to do that, and what have you seen with this program that means something?

CASSIDY HARDIN: I definitely didn't feel like we were finished last year, and I knew I wanted to take that extra year, and I wanted to continue on with Coach and see what she could do here in another year. Obviously we added some new pieces that, when I made my decision, that I didn't know we would have.

Through the summer, through the preseason workouts, the early mornings, all that stuff, you could just see how special this team was. This is my favorite team that I've been a part of since I've been here, and I've been here for five years. So I've got a lot of teammates in my past.

But you could just see that, from the start, before we even played any games, that this team was going to be special. People probably didn't believe in us at the beginning of the year, but we believed in ourselves, and the culture that we built this year is unlike any other I've been a part of.

It 100 percent is worth it to help Coach Gearlds build this program back to where it should be and to play with these girls one more time and wear Purdue across my chest.

Q. Coach, this felt like a snapshot of your season with the fight all the way to the end from this group. Tell me how the effort that was there all year and how the final seconds really epitomized what this group had from the start.

KATIE GEARLDS: Never doubted that for a second. It didn't go our way for a little bit. You talk about a team that's, what, 6 1/2 threes a game and they make 8 in the first half.

We didn't do a good enough job of getting after their shooters. Drake hits three in a row there.

I think there was a moment in the third quarter with about three minutes to go, and we all kind of grabbed each other, and I told our group in the timeout, like we weren't supposed to be here. Let's just relax and play ball. We're playing with house money out here.

There's nobody outside of our locker room that thought Purdue was going to make the NCAA Tournament. If you are, you're lying to yourself. If you said you did, you're lying to yourself because there's not one single person walking this earth that believed Purdue was going to be in the NCAA Tournament outside of our locker room.

We never, never quit in fighting that goal, chasing it down. We go on the road to Penn State early in January and get our butts whupped, like just terrible. It could have gone one of two ways, but just like you said, a group of fighters that believed in each other and believed in what we were trying to get them to do, and they never quit.

I'll be honest, I wasn't surprised this is a tie game. I don't care how many we get down. I wasn't surprised in the fourth quarter in the last minute it was a tie game and we had a chance.

That's all these guys -- there's no magic formula. I'm not doing anything special. I didn't change anything. It's all these guys out there just hoping.

Q. Lasha, why did you -- you could have gone to a lot of places. What was it about this program, this coach? Why did you come here?

LASHA PETREE: I think first thing is I wanted to stay Big Ten when I left Rutgers. Second thing is I played against Purdue and I liked their style of play, and it fit with my style of play. Katie told me that I was going to be able to score if I could work with the ball, and I liked that the first thing.

And then I also recognized that they had five returning starters. She did a lot with her first year as a head coach, and I liked that she was a second year coach. I thought that they could get back to the tournament, and I wanted to be a part of it.

Q. Lasha and/or Cass, could be both. Looking at the defensive energy today from the opening play all the way through the fourth, talk about the team bind that has to be in there to be taking charges and racking up the offensive fouls, and generally what you wanted to see out of the defensive unit today.

LASHA PETREE: You're asking me?

KATIE GEARLDS: You're the one that takes charges, kid.

LASHA PETREE: Yeah, it's not me.

CASSIDY HARDIN: I know defensively we're always going to go out there. Like you said, we're going to fight. We're going to be tough. We're going to take charges. We're going to be aggressive. We're going to get the box outs.

I mean, what I remember is all the things that we didn't do. I mean, just like certain coverages where maybe we left a shooter open or we got lost or a rebound didn't fall our way or we missed a box out.

KATIE GEARLDS: Every missed defensive assignment was my fault. These kids battled their butts off.

Q. Cassidy, I know you're going to leave tonight with a full heart, but have you thought about what your life's going to look like next, like as you move toward medical school? What are these next few months like for you? Katie, after she answers, I just want to know what's next for you and looking at the program for next year.

CASSIDY HARDIN: I mean, I'm really excited to go to medical school (laughter).

I want to say like I'm ready to take that next step and move on and do what I love, but I wasn't ready today. It's going to be really weird. Basketball has consumed my life since I was 4 or 5 or whenever you can first start playing. To not go to practice every day or have game day shootaround and not be around my teammates every day, that's going to be really different. It's going to be something I'm going to have to get used to.

These are some of my best friends, so I'm sure I'm still going to stay in touch and hang out with them and stuff. It's just basketball has taken up so much of my time, and I've worked everything around my school, the classes I'm taking. I figured out how to organize my schedule so I can manage everything and do it well.

Now to take such a big chunk of my time out, I don't think I'll know what to do with myself.

KATIE GEARLDS: I'm going to follow up real quick. Both of these young women up here are going to be super, super successful in life.

Cass Hardin's going to be putting one of us to sleep one day before surgery, and there's nobody else I would trust more with a needle before I went under the knife. Like who defers med school to come back and play a fifth year, right? We knew each other kind of growing up, but I always watched Cass from afar, being from Indiana. And you talk about a young lady that just bleeds black and gold.

I don't know, it was the middle of the year, I go to her, and I'm like, hey -- last year, right? I'm like, dude, you want to come back? You want a fifth year? And she's like, well, I didn't know if you wanted me to come back. I'm like nobody else is taking charges.

Yeah, like super, super successful in life. Like her, I'm going to miss coming down to Mackey or Cardinal and not seeing No. 5. I can't imagine what that looks like.

And Lasha, like her playing days aren't over. She's got another opportunity, and we're going to make sure she's taken care of, and she's still hoping she's got a lot of game left in her. But I love my old ladies up here.

Q. Katie, I have a two-part question. The first one is just did you get an explanation on the off-setting foul between Lasha and the technical? And then what did you see on the final play?

KATIE GEARLDS: Can I get fined? Yeah, the explanation was on the celebration she made contact with the kid. Lasha's 5'11". Just kind of swung her arm, and the kid behind her is 5'5" and happened to hit her, I guess. I don't know, I haven't seen it.

You know, that call, the officials always go like they're bobbling the ball. But give Jayla Everett some credit because she made a tough, tough shot. The kid doesn't like to go right. The kid likes to go left, and she makes a floater going right. So give them all the credit there.

Q. When you said nobody can beat this team (indiscernible). I know you didn't want to be out in the first round. You want to get to March and win in March. But when you do that, I think you're going to look at this group as the one that kind of jump started this program back to doing that. So what was it about this group that will be a special group forever?

KATIE GEARLDS: Fighters. Fighters, believers. You're exactly right. That's exactly what I told them on the court, like I don't care if -- I mean, I hope we hang banners in Mackey. I hope we win Big Ten Championships. I hope we win a lot of them. I hope we go to Final Fours while I'm leading this program.

But this is the group that I'm going to remember forever. Like Lasha, Kaitlyn, our new, our group, they accept them. Obviously we have Addy and Ainhoa as freshman. But you look at our roster, you look at Cass and Madison and J.T., Jayla, Ava, Rickie, Abbey, I wasn't supposed to be their coach 18 months ago, and from day one, they believed in me, and that's why we're here.

They believed in me. They believed in each other, and they're fighters. And forever this group -- I don't care what happens. This group will always be my favorite Purdue team.

Q. Katie, for you, what was it like coaching your first NCAA Tournament game and just being in that moment as a coach on the sideline?

KATIE GEARLDS: It's just a basketball game. I didn't feel anything different. We're just out there hooping, and I'm on the sideline trying to figure out how to help our group.

Obviously you dream of playing in March Madness and getting to the NCAA Tournament, and now as a coach, it's the same thing. Dreams never change. You just want a chance to play and coach in March. Just another day at the office.