AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 10, 2024

Terry Nooner

Salese Blow

Dickies Arena

Wichita State Shockers

Postgame Press Conference

South Florida - 69, Wichita State - 62

THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started with an opening statement from Coach and then take questions for the student-athletes.

TERRY NOONER: I thought it was a heck of a game. I'm just so proud of my team, just with the amount of fight that they showed, the amount of improvement I think we've made from the last time that we played against South Florida. Again, they have been one of the most dominant teams in our league for years and Jose, like I said yesterday, he's one of the best coaches in our league, so kudos to them.

Just proud of my team and the fight that we showed to make it a game and we just needed a couple balls to bounce our way and I think it would have been a different result. But proud overall. I'm proud of our improvement as a group. I think we just came a little away from the summertime when we first really started working together to where we are now. We think that the sky's the limit for our program.

THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. Talk about that adjustment. You step in and the league is changing, and then you got to go on the road, not just go on the road to play South Florida, but you go on the road to Texas for two teams that are trying to run and adjust.

TERRY NOONER: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been an adjustment. It's always going to be an adjustment when you go from an assistant coach to the head coaching seat. It's been a whirlwind, I think for us, but I think I have a great staff, I have a great group of young ladies who work very hard every single day, they have great attitudes every day, they want to learn, they want to be better, so that's made it all a joy. It's something that I always dreamed I wanted to do, it was something that I dreamed of, and I set real high goals for myself and I wanted to be a head coach some day at Wichita state, so I'm happy I'm here.

It was good to get a chance to go through the league and see all the great coaches that we go against. A lot of 'em are real close friends of mine already. So I love and I welcome the competition and I hope that we're a lot better next year.

Q. Congrats on making it to round 2. Any thoughts on making it to the second round, first-year head coach, all that?

TERRY NOONER: Oh, no, it feels good. I feel like we were kind of built towards playing our best basketball in March, and I think you always want to make sure that you're peaking at the end of the season, which I think we were. Like I said, I thought we played a great basketball game today. It went down to the wire and if we could have made a couple more shots, a couple more free throws, I think the result would have been different.

But just happy for these young ladies, for people like Salese. As a freshman, she was able to get this kind of experience on this kind of stage. I think she carried us for big parts of the game, so for her to get this kind of experience in post-season play is huge for our program.

Q. Going off of that, Salese, what was the thoughts, emotions going through for the players in the last like five minutes of the game?

SALESE BLOW: Well, I think everybody just wanted to win. Everybody was like, we got to beat 'em, because they did us bad the first time they played us, so the thought that was running through everybody's head was revenge and also moving forward because we felt like we could win the entire tournament. Despite whoever had beat us before, whoever we had beat, we felt like we could make a huge run in the tournament, so everybody was thinking it's revenge time, it's time to go.

But just for myself, I played terribly yesterday, but we were still able to get the win, so I just wanted to come back today and play my best.

Q. Talk about, most freshmen, they come in, it takes almost a whole season before they adjust, it's not high school anymore, and she's become the leader that you expected when you started recruiting her.

TERRY NOONER: I think a big part of it is -- I mean, Salese is one of our best conditioned players. She came in as one of our best conditioned players, even as a freshman. She's one of our hardest working players. She always taking time to work on her game, whether it's -- I've come in on Sunday nights just to go drive by the office and do work, and she's in the gym by herself putting herself through workouts, or every day after practice, she's going to work out with Coach Brooke and one of our managers.

So she puts in the work for her to be that type of player that she was today, so just happy for her that when you put in that kind of work, you're able to see the results. But she's been great for us. She started starting for us in conference play, and like you said, normally you would think freshmen would take a dip. She's actually played better in conference play than she did in non-conference play.

So the sky's the limit for Salese Blow and it's really because of the amount of work that she puts in on her game every single day.