NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - CLEVELAND STATE VS VILLANOVA

March 18, 2023

Chris Kielsmeier

Brittni Moore

Destiny Leo

Finneran Pavilion

Cleveland State Vikings

Media Conference

Villanova 76, Cleveland State 59

CHRIS KIELSMEIER: First off, thank you to the NCAA and everything that a lot of people put into making a great student athlete experience, and we certainly didn't play the way we wanted to play today but the experience was phenomenal. Villanova is really, really good, very well-coached, very experienced. You can tell they are on a mission.

My biggest fear about today was getting our players to settle in and really play the way we are capable of playing prior to being do you know too much where we had to turn it ugly and kind of chase from behind. We were able to show a lot of fight and toughness in the second half.

Very proud of who our players are and showing their character and their fight. But we are a lot better basketball team than what we showed today. You have to give Villanova credit for that. We didn't handle the moment as well as what I had hoped. We'll learn from this as a program and certainly grow and bet better from it. Brittany more and Destiny Leo.

Q. A lot of work to beat Green Bay and make it to the NCAA Tournament. What do you know now that you didn't know at the start of this game heading into next year the next time you go back to the NCAAs?

DESTINY LEO: I think I would say something, I would like to now know for next year is just the different type of game it is against a bigger opponent than we usually play in the Horizon League. It's a quicker game. There's taller athletes. It's just a little bit different than games we usually play.

BRITTNI MOORE: Well, for me, this is my final year, so there won't be a next time for me. But if I could come back and do it again, I think for me, I would just like to see the ball go in a little more.

Q. They seemed really to put a lot of attention on you with Maddy Did their defense surprise you, especially Maddy's defense?

BRITTNI MOORE: No. Not really. Honestly I was kind of honored to have Maddy guard me. I was like, I feel really important. It didn't bother me. For me it was just putting the ball in the hole, really. It was just one of those days.

Q. Did anything Maddy do surprise you or can you get a better understanding of what makes her so tough?

DESTINY LEO: We knew she was a great player before the game but tonight we got to see her firsthand. I think she does a really good job of just finishing up high. She's automatic from that low post area.

Q. You guys made the first shot and I think both teams struggled in that first quarter before they got going. What happened there that set the tone for the game?

DESTINY LEO: I think after we hit that first shot, I think that we really weren't settled in that much. I think towards the second half, we kind of settled in a little bit and started playing our game a little bit more. But I think that if we would have came into the game doing more of what we usually do, maybe we would have had a different outcome.

Q. At halftime down, what are you saying to yourselves, down 21 points knowing that you're playing in their place?

DESTINY LEO: Just keep fighting.

Q. Same question, seeing Maddy in person, as opposed to on film, what's different in person?

BRITTNI MOORE: I don't think anything's really different except just actually seeing it in person. Like Destiny said, she has a very high release. I actually admire that. That's really cool. If I could do that, I would do that. But just seeing her in action, I think that was really the biggest thing.

Q. It's a Maddy question. Can you say, how much zone do you typically may during the year, and what kind of wrinkles did you try to throw?

CHRIS KIELSMEIER: Well, we are almost a zone-exclusive team, and we've really felt like if we could speed them up and kind of force them out of the top of the key area and try to extend the ball backwards instead of downhill, we'd be able to defend them. Then they don't see a lot of zone, and so you know, it was really hard to kind of get a high probability of what we were going to see today outside common sense.

Maddy was going to get a lot of shots and score a lot regardless of how well we defend her if we let her catch the ball a lot. We need to do a better job of keeping her out of space. She was able to get the ball in the mid post, high post area a lot more than what we wanted but we also wanted to make sure that we did a good job with 3, 23, 32 and 4, and our focus was more so about those kids than Maddy.

We knew Maddy was going to get 20; I hoped she didn't get 35. But you can't stop her. Anybody that thinks they can is wasting too much time trying to throw too much at her because she's that good. So we wanted to focus on the others.

If you look at 4 got three 3s, and 32 got three 3s, and she doesn't shoot it all that well, and she did tonight. They those 3-balls that we made mistakes on. The those 3-balls that 4 hit in the corner early in the game were big mistakes by our defense that we don't normally make. And that kind of really got us down, and we got a little bit frustrated and we didn't handle the execution of our game plan the way we needed to.

But you know, lots of teams this year against them haven't, so let's give Villanova a lot of credit because really, really good, and I knew, and I witnessed it, they are just a really focused team. They are going to be a tough out in this tournament because they got so much experience and toughness that just wins this time of year. I could see it on tape. I got it from everybody that I talk to about them, and they are a special team. They have got a special thing going here.

Q. So much attention is paid to Maddy and rightfully so, for her prowess. Does their defense get overlooked a little bit?

CHRIS KIELSMEIER: Well, you know, they are good defensively because they are long and they are athletic, and they have got a shot-blocker inside and they have a lot of size and length in the perimeter that we don't normally see quite that much, and I think that really affected us mentally. Because we were able to attack them and got downhill and do what we do. We shoot a lot of free throws. We've shot more free throws than almost any team in the country. We shot 22 tonight but most of them came late when our kids were more relaxed and ready to attack.

The game down to, we made too many mistakes early and got out of sync, and I just couldn't get them to settle down and play in the moment, and that's what really good teams do. That's also what the moment can do to you.

Q. In terms of Destiny and the season she had and the time tonight, to go 25 points in a game like this and do it efficiently, she was already a hair away from 50, 40, 90 for you this year, but to do to it in a big game, what have we learned about what next level there is for her to reach next season?

CHRIS KIELSMEIER: I mean, maybe the national scene learned it. I didn't learn anything. She's been doing this for three years. She most of the time is at her best on the biggest stage.

So Destiny was Destiny tonight. I think that there's probably a lot more people that now really know how good she is; that she's not just -- she's a great player and she gets so much attention in our league that some nights, it's hard for her to get the shots that we are trying to get for her, and she's okay with that; and how many great players are okay with that.

You know, if she's got to play facilitator that night and make everybody around her better, she does it with the biggest smile on her face, and a lot of kids don't operate that way. She's a really special person, heck of a basketball player, but her basketball IQ is off the chart. She wants to play professionally. She wants to coach some day, and I just -- I'm glad that I have a part of the journey with her because she's the future of the game, not just as a player but as a coach. We need good, young coaches in this game and she's got it and she's all-in with it.

Q. When you were preparing to face Villanova this week, did anything stick out about them that you saw here today, and secondly, what advice would you give to the other teams about getting ready to play Villanova?

CHRIS KIELSMEIER: Stay at the hotel. (Laughter) you've got to handle the moment in college athletics. And we played probably the best game of the year against Green Bay in Indy, and so relaxed, so confident, so sure of ourselves and we weren't that team today.

So why? If we all had the answer to that, you know, whoever had the answer to it would make a lot of money because everybody would be buying it. They are just really good. It just goes back to the same thing I've been saying. They are so experienced. They are just not going to make many mistakes.

I'm proud about how they turned them over because they don't turn the ball over at all, and we turned them over 16 times and scored 19 points off that and got to the free throw line 22 times. That's what we do. And had if you told me we had those stats at the beginning of the day, I'd think, well, we probably won or at least the game was really, really close.

But we just made too many mistakes in that first half where they got too many shots the way they are comfortable getting shots, and we didn't force them out of that; mistakes by us. But also, execution by them. Let's give them a lot of credit.

Q. They beat you on the board 30-12. Just their size?

CHRIS KIELSMEIER: I think that was the moment, again. We are a plus-7 rebounding team. Villanova is a plus one. We know that they were better rebounding than a plus one on the year but we felt like that was something we really wanted to try to exploit on them. Our front line didn't get on enough balls early in the game.

Again, I just feel -- you just don't want regret in this business. I know we're a better basketball team than what we showed today. I'm disappointed that we didn't represent the Horizon League better because we have a powerful league and a lot of really, really good teams and I felt like we were really battle tested to come into an environment and show the best of us. But unfortunately we just didn't have it today and that's the way it goes. You have to learn and grow from it, and figure out how to be better the next time the moment comes.

Q. Could you sense early that it wasn't clicking or was there a point when you --

CHRIS KIELSMEIER: Well, they got a few open shots early in the game that we don't normally give to them, and they missed them. So I was like, okay, this is -- this is giving us time here to get it figured out.

Then once they started to hit them, because we were continuing to make mistakes, it just kind of funneled on us, and I kept reminding them in the huddle that we just -- we have got to go now. We can't wait. We just couldn't turn it on when we needed to. I think, you know, you're down and you're coming out of the half and your whole focus is okay, let's just fight. That's the only thing we're thinking about is let's fight. And then you don't think about the outcome, you don't think about everything that you want; and you forget about how to do your job right if you're thinking about the outcome, and that's what we did in the first half.