MOUNTAIN WEST WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 10, 2024

Stacie Terry-Hutson

Abby Prohaska

Kim Villalobos

Meghan Fiso

Thomas & Mack Center

San Diego State Aztecs

Postgame Press Conference

San Diego State 72, San Jose State 51

THE MODERATOR: We're ready to begin with San Diego State. Student-athletes Meghan Fiso, Kim Villalobos, and Abby Prohaska.

Coach Stacie Terry-Hutson, we'll start with you, Coach.

STACIE TERRY-HUTSON: I was really proud of our defensive effort tonight. These last two games the regular season finale against Wyoming and tonight I thought they were locked into the game plan defensively, and that's really what we need in March, so really proud of that.

And the way that we shared the ball, I think we ended up with 19 assists. Is that right? 19 assists, which is always good for us when we're sharing.

So just the preparation I thought was great. I want to talk a little bit about our bench because I think that was a big difference in today's game and going to be a necessity for us moving forward.

Their great play today started in practice this week, and we were so excited for that, and it was really exciting to see that. I put a lot of emphasis on what we call the game changers, the eight that come off the bench, and they really did a great job today.

Just excited for the opportunity to keep playing. It's March. A lot of teams are at home. We're going to get excited for a little bit, but we have to go home and prepare for New Mexico.

THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student-athletes.

Q. What do you guys like most about the way you're able to spread the ball and facilitate an offense through many different avenues?

ABBY PROHASKA: I think that's our bread and butter. We always say it in the locker room before we go out that our priority should be sharing the ball. We play better when every single person on the court touches it.

Like we just talked about, 19 assists. That's what we talked about going in, making sure everybody had a hand in what we were doing, and I think we stuck to the game plan.

KIM VILLALOBOS: Yeah, just to piggyback off of that, it's really fun when everybody is scoring and everybody is having a good time sharing the ball. We all have success if we all play well.

Yeah, it's just a really good feeling. It's fun.

MEGHAN FISO: I think it just makes it more fun. I think the whole point is just to have fun out there. We're sharing the ball. We are getting people who don't usually play as much buckets, and that's what's important for us is sharing the ball and making sure everybody can make a contribution somewhere.

Q. Amhyia Moreland kind of gave you problems in the last two matchups. What did you try to do defensively to limit her, and what did you think you did well on the defensive end tonight?

KIM VILLALOBOS: We understood that she's a good player. She'll get hers, but try to limit how many touches she gets, the post, AD, whoever is guarding her, just to keep her under -- we have a number to keep her under, so just little things like that.

Q. What was the number?

KIM VILLALOBOS: What was the number; 12?

STACIE TERRY-HUTSON: She's averaging 18 against us, so the number was 12. We did a good job.

Adryana Quezada and Khylee Pepe did a great job pushing her off the block and trying to make her catch it a little further from the rim. Sometimes that's not always easy to do, but I thought they did a good job understanding that.

San Jose is a team that we better watch out for as they grow up. They're very young. They have great young guards and a post presence inside. So we knew that we needed to do take away the three and defend in the low block.

We did a decent job on the three until the end, but pushing her off the block was the priority.

Q. When you get out to a quick 8-0 lead and then towards the end of the first quarter, you take a couple of charges in a row, just what does that do for your confidence as you're trying to grow into a game like this?

MEGHAN FISO: I think that we're learning that defense is what fuels us.

STACIE TERRY-HUTSON: Say it again.

MEGHAN FISO: I think we're learning that defense is what fuels us (laughing). Getting those two charges, like I knew that my team was going to be super excited for me, excited that we can have another opportunity on the offensive end.

Q. Then having a lead as big as it was at halftime, how do you balance that confidence with knowing that you have to go out and finish that thing in the second half?

ABBY PROHASKA: I mean, it's postseason. Anything can happen. We watched games before our game even started and saw some upsets.

You just have to know that you have to stay locked in for 40 minutes. It doesn't matter what the score is. Every single time you come out after halftime, it's 0-0, no matter what. If you are up 20 or down 20.

It's a dog eat dog world when you're in postseason, so you have to come out and be ready to execute and finish and do the game plan.

KIM VILLALOBOS: Yeah, stay poised. Everyone was on the same page with that telling each other stay poised, stay poised. We have a lot of games left to play. You know, that's our mindset here.

MEGHAN FISO: I think something that we emphasized in the locker room with just the team is there are no do-overs in March. It's really one and done, so we were really emphasizing, like they said, like executing and discipline. Those are the things that are the most important for us right now.

THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student-athletes at this time. Thank you, ladies.

Questions for Coach.

Q. Coaches talk pretty often about how hard it is to beat a team three times in the same season. How do you approach that from a coaching standpoint, and how do you think you guys kind of approached that, I guess?

STACIE TERRY-HUTSON: People say that, but it's a new season. Postseason is the third part of the season, so we just wanted to break it down and give them individual goals of what we were trying to do.

We talked about the post play, defending their post play, and limiting the threes. But, again, I just think San Jose is the best underrated team in our league. I mean, she's lost some close games. She's had so many injuries. They have great players on their team. They're young, and when they grow up, they're going to be really good.

We did not want to overlook them, and we talked about being the underdog. That's been us for a while, and they had nothing to lose. I knew they were going to come out and throw some punches.

I thought we withheld or withstood some of those and was able to get the lead and play from that. That's a lot of maturity that we are still learning, and it was just -- it was fun to see them have some success with what we had set out to do.

They teased me because they always say I say there's separation in the preparation, and I thought we had a great week of preparation.

Q. They're a team that averages 20 turnovers a game. How do you game plan for that to exploit it and take advantage of it?

STACIE TERRY-HUTSON: We want to put pressure on them so we can create some of those opportunities offensively, but we also don't want to give up easy baskets. We gave up a couple because we were being a little too aggressive, but that's some of the learning that this group has as we move forward.

We wanted to force them in some situations to make some tough decision, and I thought we did a good job of that. What we did a great job of today was capitalizing on those turnovers and getting out and running. I thought we did a good job in transition. We want to score before the defense gets set. That's going to be key tomorrow as well.

Q. And looking forward, New Mexico is similar to you guys in that the offense flows, it comes from different points of attack. Just how exciting is that for you as a coach to game plan for that given the fact that you split the series this year?

STACIE TERRY-HUTSON: It's two good teams. I like Coach Bradbury a lot. I like what he is doing. I thought he had a great season. They have two really good dynamic guards that can get downhill whenever they want to.

So we're going to have our work set out for us to stay in front of them. They have shooters on the perimeter as well. We're going to have to really lock in defensively, and then we have to see that ball go in the basket. We have to get out and run and take care of the ball.