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

March 17, 2023

Megan Duffy

Chloe Marotta

Jordan King

Colonial Life Arena

Marquette Golden Eagles

Media Conference

South Florida 67, Marquette 65.

MEGAN DUFFY: Well, for the first game on Friday it was obviously absolutely exciting. Give South Florida a lot of credit. I thought they made a great run in that fourth quarter to cut our lead, and just made a few more plays down the stretch. I can't tell you how proud I am of my team, what they gave this afternoon, their fight, their heart out there, and just came up a few possessions short.

Q. Chloe, your family drove 13 hours here today. What does that mean to you?

CHLOE MAROTTA: My family is always going to show up, so it's nice. Obviously tough little trip to get to this part of the country, so happy that they were able to make it.

Q. Your career now at Marquette is over; just overall thoughts on your time as a Golden Eagle, the five years.

CHLOE MAROTTA: Yeah, I mean, I don't think I could really say it all right now. I think there's way too much to even put into words, but obviously I'm so thankful for this experience, for Coach Duffy, for all my teammates. It's been an amazing five years, and I obviously wouldn't ask for anything else.

Q. Early on in the first quarter, you guys jumped out, I think it was a quick eight points for Emily La Chappell. Jordan looking at your other two guards, how do you think they played today the first time on the big stage?

JORDAN KING: Yeah, I think this was obviously an amazing experience for the. We talked all week about this is your first time going. Like go out there, play your hardest, do what you've done all season. And it was really great to see them step up at different points of the night. We all had the confidence that they were going to be able to make big plays, and they did.

Q. For both Jordan and Chloe, the game ended, you guys were some of the first people to go over to Kenzie. What did you guys tell her?

CHLOE MAROTTA: Yeah, I think as a freshman it's a hard position, but I think the confidence that she has to know that we went to a freshman at the end of the game, right, to hit that shot, and we trust her with everything we have in us. We've done that a million times in practice and everything.

I'm so proud of her. I told her she got us to overtime. She hit those two free throws, she knocked them down, she was confident, and lucky for Kenzie she's going to have many more years to hit that shot down. Tomorrow, the next shot, that one is going down, so I trust her in everything she does.

JORDAN KING: Similar to what Chloe said, we wouldn't have been in overtime if she wouldn't have knocked those two free throws. I think it's huge for her to be able to be in that moment. Like Chloe said, understanding that her whole team, her coaching staff, everyone on Marquette has that confidence in her to knock down that shot. She's a great shooter, she's hit it multiple times, so just a bad roll on the rim there.

Q. You guys forced 15 turnovers today. How did you feel about your defensive effort and pressuring them?

JORDAN KING: Yeah, I think honestly our defense is what got us to this point here. You've seen it throughout the season. And I think that today, the way that we showed up and we were able to defend their top scorers at times, blow up their actions, I think that was really huge for us and what was able to keep us in the game at times when we weren't able to knock down the open shot.

Just really proud of our effort. There's a million different screens that we had to run through, and you've got a big 6'4" player in the post. Just really proud of the effort that our defense had today.

CHLOE MAROTTA: Yeah, I think Coach mentioned that they only had four assists, so that's obviously a great stat for us. So defensively we were really locked in on that, and similar to what Jordan said, we were outside hip, all the screens and duck-ins and stuff, and yep.

Q. In the fourth quarter overtime was getting down to and it's absolute chaos, how do you manage to keep your composure?

JORDAN KING: I think understanding that we've been in that position before obviously through our years of playing. But even games this season we've been in that position with this team multiple times, it's just continuing to keep your composure. And something I always tell the team is we got to this moment because of our execution. I think that was the biggest thing of just being able to continue to execute down the stretch, whether that was defense, offense, and having confidence in one another.

CHLOE MAROTTA: A lot of the players look to us, too, for that composure, so we have to make sure we understand that, and because of our experience we've got to set the tone in that way.

When it's coming down the stretch, who's talking in the huddle is probably the upperclassmen, and they're going to have to tell people to take a deep breath, settle down, we got this, be confident in everything you do, so we had to do that today.

Q. What was your message to the team as soon as you walked back into the locker room today?

MEGAN DUFFY: Yeah, it's the hardest day of the year. Just kind of what Chloe and Jordan both said. I just told them I wasn't going to have a magical speech at the end, just mostly how proud I was of them, their fight, their heart.

I thought we played some great basketball at times today. Even when we got down, what we did to send it into overtime and foul and get a couple jump balls and our pressure, I thought it was really good.

I don't think you can ask for anything more than Jordan had the ball down the stretch, and I totally trust her to make that decision, she made a great pass over to Kenzie.

But I thought we blew up a lot of their stuff today, and they were forced to kind of go to some counters and just made a few mistakes in that fourth quarter, but very, very proud of what we did today.

Q. It seemed like you held Elena and their big center down much of the game. What did you see in that fourth quarter? Was it just a case of two really good players showing that they are really good players and making plays?

MEGAN DUFFY: Yeah, I thought Dulcy, we did a really good job of getting her a couple fouls and got her out of the game a little bit more. And we had bodies around her and then just had a bad stretch where we didn't have enough bodies around her and she got going a more confident.

Then we started bringing rotation towards her a little bit more. And some of it was just 6'5" on our 6'1" that kind of got worn down a little bit. We got a couple fouls, and then I thought Rose Nkumu did an amazing John on Tsineke for most of the game. And she hit two big baskets downhill going to her left hand, kind of falling away.

And then she set an up screen, diagonal screen for Dulcy to get toward the block. Rose is caught in the 6'5" mess and then was a little bit late in getting out. And Tsineke who didn't shoot it great all game, hits it and steps up. That's why she's a phenomenal player.

So little things like that, a half a second too late on a couple things cost us.

Q. We've talked about it all season long, Chloe had 25 points, seven rebounds for the day. How much did she mean for the team today emotionally and for Marquette as a whole?

MEGAN DUFFY: Yeah, I was just in the locker room. COVID for a couple years was just so hard in a lot of ways. But the blessing was Chloe Marotta got to come back for a fifth year and an extra year. She's been a role player for like four years. And so the fact that she said, I want to be part of that go-to player package with Jordan. And what she did to change her game and her mentality and her maturity, to show up every day, I just am so happy for -- she's everything good in college athletics, in women's basketball. She loves Marquette, she loves her teammates, she loves her coaching staff, and we would be nowhere without her this season.

Q. This season in particular has had some really big highs and some lows. What do you make of the campaign from November to today overall?

MEGAN DUFFY: Yeah, it's hard to reflect, but it's been -- the positive person in me, it's been an awesome year because we're in the dance, and we earned every piece of it. We had some lows. We had some injuries. It's told throughout the whole country, people have stuff all through the year. And we just kept fighting and battling, all the way from our first game from the Bahamas, a couple tough losses, historic win against UConn in February.

The positive Pollyanna in me will say there's been some amazing moments. That's why it's so hard when you watch our women in that locker room just devastated and upset.

But I just can't say enough about my team and the effort they put out against a really good South Florida team.