NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - PRINCETON VS UTAH

March 19, 2023

Lynne Roberts

Kennady McQueen

Alissa Pili

Jon M. Huntsman Center

Utah Utes

Media Conference

Utah 63, Princeton 56

LYNNE ROBERTS: Thank you all for being here and being here all season. Crazy it's our last game at home. 15-0 at home and it's in large part to you covering our sport and covering our team and getting the crowds here. It matters, and I really appreciate it.

I want to congratulate Princeton. I'm very impressed with them. That was hard. They are tough and you can see why they are such a good program. It's not just a good team this year. They are just a great program, well-coached, disciplined, physical, fearless. We just couldn't pull away.

But man, I'm proud of our team, and we set out to do this a year ago. We lost in this game at University of Texas and the goal was to be able to host so that we could have that home-court advantage and they made a difference. They were loud today and it really does make an impact.

What a great time to be at the University of Utah. Look at how well the sports teams are doing across the board. I'm just so honored to be part of it: Football back-to-back Pac-12 Champions; gymnastics just won the Pac-12 championship; skiing won the national championship four times in a row. That's a credit -- I'm lucky to work here.

And the administration we have from President Randall, Mark Harlan, Charmelle Green, the way you all support our programs, is why we are all having the success; and the staffs. I'm so humbled and honored to be a Ute, and so incredibly proud of our team and what we are done this year, and we are not done.

So yeah, I'm feeling pretty good. A little -- still a little damp from the water dousing I got but I'll take it.

Q. Kennady, I'm curious, you guys only made 1-of-15 three-pointers, that's lowest of the season, pretty uncharacteristic of you guys. How much of that was maybe some missed opportunities versus what Princeton does on defense which they also have a good three-point shooting defense?

KENNADY McQUEEN: Yeah, they are a great defensive testimony and we knew that going in. I think they scouted really well and knew we all could shoot the ball, and they tried everything they could to make the shots for difficult or just taking it away.

But yeah, I think it was also a combination of that and an off-night. But yeah, Princeton is an amazing defensive team, and we knew that going into the game.

Q. You led the team in scoring, you and Jenna were the dynamic duo inside. Curious how you adjusted to Princeton doubling you like basically on the catch throughout the game.

ALISSA PILI: I just trust my teammates and if they are keying in on me, I trust that I could kick it out to them and they will make the right play and the right read. Coming into these games, coaches told me they are going to key in, and so just let the game come to you. I think that's what I've been doing these past couple games. Just kicking it out to my teammate and seeing what's open, and it opens up for everybody else and for me as well as the game goes on.

Q. You ended up on the ground quite a few times and they were swarming you, and at the end it looked like you had a little bit of a stare-down with one of their players. How difficult was it with the physicality that they were trying to bring to you?

ALISSA PILI: It was expected. So I think just the main thing I tried to do was just keep my cool and if calls weren't going my way or just things like that, I just stay composed and just kept my head down and kept working.

Q. Looking at the turnovers tonight, you guys uncharacteristically had 20 turnovers. What did you do to try and adjust to that defensive pressure that Princeton was just bringing at you, especially in that fourth quarter?

KENNADY McQUEEN: Yeah, I think, once again, we knew Princeton was a great defensive team, and they were going to cause some of those. But some of them were just uncharacteristic sometimes, and just some in our control that, talking at halftime we wanted to make an adjustment to do that and focus on that.

I think as the game went on we definitely cleaned it up and got better. But yeah, credit to Princeton, they are a great defensive team, and you can tell that's a focus for them. So yeah, they made every posession harder for us.

Q. Coach was how hard of a game that was. What did it feel like mentally and physically down the stretch when you were trying to put Princeton away?

ALISSA PILI: I think we have been in a lot of positions like that, close games toward the end, and those games, we have won a lot of those games. I think we just stay composed and stay together and just stay tough throughout it all. We usually end up on the winning end.

KENNADY McQUEEN: Yeah, just add to that, exactly what she said. And then I think the crowd, just as soon as you think you are getting tired, and then you hear the crowd roar and it gives you a huge boost of momentum. So credit to our sixth man, as well. They did a great job tonight.

Q. What does it mean to be in that Sweet 16 round and have that opportunity?

ALISSA PILI: It means everything. It's a lot of hard work paid off. But like Coach said, we are not done yet and we can make a run even deeper in the tournament.

So yeah, it means a lot just knowing that our hard work throughout the season is just paying off and we are being recognized as one of the best teams in the country now that we have made it this far. Yeah, we just got to keep improving.

KENNADY McQUEEN: Yeah, exactly what she said, and I think all of us came and committed to Utah with that goal in mind starting in the summer in that circle in our gym. Everyone knows that story. So just to see that goal pay off, we'll celebrate tonight, and we'll be ready to get pack to work tomorrow.

Q. Have you ever had three points taken away from your scoring column, and what effect emotionally did that have opponent you guys when you came out and found out that you were not ahead by nine but by six?

KENNADY McQUEEN: Yeah, I don't know if that's ever happened to me before, not that I can remember. I don't think we were fazed by it. Coach Rob came in and told us at halftime that the three got taken away.

And no plans changed. That three points didn't make or break the game. We were all right. Yeah, just stayed steady and came out fired up the same way we would have started if the three did count.

Q. Have you talked to your mom in the lead-up about what it means for Utah to be in the Sweet 16 and for you to be the one to bring this program to it and to be a part of it, and if not, what are the emotions for you being from Utah?

KENNADY McQUEEN: Yeah, I definitely had conversations leading up to her -- about this, and where the program was and where it is now and just how exciting a time that is and for me to be a part of it.

She's a diehard Utah fan, a huge Utah fan. So it's nothing but happiness, one, for me; and then just Utah as a whole it's super cool to see the change, and she acknowledges that.

Yeah, emotions right now, just being from Utah and being able to -- this was my dream as a kid, and to see it starting to come true was awesome.

Q. You guys built up a 13-point lead in the beginning of the second quarter. What changed in your perspective that allowed Princeton to cut the lead and what changed from your side?

LYNNE ROBERTS: Well, I think you have to give them credit. They are a good team and they are tough as nails. They are not going to -- I said it in every time-out: They are not going to go away. They are not going to quit.

You have to give them credit in that equation, and then I just thought we got a little sloppy. The turnovers, I about lost my mind. I don't know how many were just not smart decisions.

But again, it's easy from the sidelines to say, don't do that. It's hard in there. Again, they hang their hat on their defense, and they made everything hard.

So in that second quarter, I think they just kind of started maybe playing -- they might have been a little tight to start or we kind of threw the first punch and they bounced back and that's what great teams do.

Q. Building on that and current opening statement, what was going through your head when they cut it to two points? They did that a couple times, and what made it most challenging to finally put them away?

LYNNE ROBERTS: This group, my team has been so consistent. I don't have like a fear or I didn't get tight. It wasn't like this, oh, no, situation. It was more just controlling what we can control. I honestly never thought I had a fear of like, oh my gosh, are we not going to win this. I had that confidence the whole time.

And you know, I think, again, I'm repeating myself, but Princeton's tough. They don't go away and they showed that against N.C. State. They were down with eight minutes to go and came back and won. I think you have to tip your hat to them.

Q. When the game gets tight, how important is it to keep it light? And second question, have you been working on the gritty?

LYNNE ROBERTS: I need to. I did not want to do the gritty there. But I felt 8,000 eyes looking at me; I needed to do it. I'm better than that (laughter). I'm better than that.

Q. We'll see that later?

LYNNE ROBERTS: Yes, well, maybe. We win again, I'll pull out a legit one.

I think that's our team. That's our program in terms of keeping it light. We get to coach and play basketball for a living, and I think everybody does better when they don't feel pressure. Nobody responds well when it's that fear. And so I think I can set the tone with that and keeping things like. I think our group does a good job of knowing when to laugh and when not to, and like with Gianna fouled on that three, they were giving her a hard time in the huddle, and everyone ended up just kind of laughing. I don't know that I was laughing but they were.

That's who they are, and I think it does help us down the stretch.

Q. We've talked a lot this season about your team's offense and how potent you are. But defensively in the fourth quarter, you guys were able to hold Princeton to just three baskets. How much does that underscore the defensive evolution you guys have had this season and being able to survive a rock fight like this?

LYNNE ROBERTS: Yeah, it was a rock fight. That's a good way to describe it.

I think that that was the thing that we talked about in the off-season is we know we can score. But you can't rely on that always, right, and for us, we went 1 for 15 from three. We shot 39 percent from the field. That's, I don't know, a lot below. We shot 6 percent from the three-point line. That's 30 percent lower than our average.

So that's why we've been focusing on the defense so much and they have gotten better. It's nice to know we can get stops when we absolutely had to and we had to in the fourth. They kind of crushed us on the boards in that third quarter, on the o-boards. That was embarrassing at times. But in the fourth quarter, we pulled them down when we needed to.

Q. As formidable as Princeton is, to what extent do you think this game was not Utah basketball?

LYNNE ROBERTS: I don't mean it was not Utah basketball. We tried to share it. There wasn't a lot of selfishness. We just made some uncharacteristic turnovers and just didn't shoot well, and sometimes it is a rock fight. Like sometimes that does happen. But it's nice to still win. That's the sign of a great team.

I think we still played the way we want to play.

Q. Seeing crowd here and all over the country, do you think neutral courts are in the card for the women's tournament going forward?

LYNNE ROBERTS: No one asks me. I don't know. I think it's great for our sport. It builds momentum. It certainly is a home-court advantage. But your season of work earns you the right to do it, and so we earned the right to do it. I don't make up how it works, so we'll take it. It was an advantage today.

Q. It seems like the last three seasons there's been some real pivotal moments, some crossroad moments: The 5-16, the loss in the second round last year. Is there one of those or something this year that you think really changed the trajectory the most and/or was there a moment where you felt like, we're on our way?

LYNNE ROBERTS: This season? That's a hard question. I think I've shared, I think we've had a couple big wins this season that were close: The win against Ole Miss early in the season. We were down with a minute to go, we win. I had a moment of like, okay, we took a punch in the face and responded.

We win a close one to Arizona here; UCLA here; we beat Stanford here. All those were down to the last minute. I think it's just the culmination of those games. I think elite, great teams win those games and we found a way to do it.

I don't know if this was one kind of shining moment, but just the culmination of winning those hard games that maybe in the past we weren't able to get over the hump there.

Q. Going into this game, what was the overall message to the team and as the game started to become a bit of a roller coaster, how did you make those adjustments? What was that conversations like in between those time-outs as things start to become a little rattled for you guys?

LYNNE ROBERTS: Well, I think, you know, what I told the team is that this is the game we've been wanting to play and win, right. We played in it last year, but the process of how we got here, the process of how we compete doesn't change: How we prepare; how we eat, how we do shootaround. Like, nothing changes. So don't change how you approach it. It's got to be the same. Like I didn't need to hype them up. What I need to do is make sure they don't approach it any differently mentally.

Same thing, when the game was tight, I just kept saying, we knew this was going to be hard. It's going to be hard. Like don't freak out. And don't play -- I've said this many times, too. Don't play not to lose; play to win. And that's a 180 difference from each other. Don't play not to lose, play to win. Because when you play to win, you don't play with fear and you don't play tight and you don't second-guess yourself. When you play with fear, you do those things. So just repeating those messages over and over.