BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 7, 2024

Katie Gearlds

Jeanae Terry

Sophie Swanson

Target Center

Purdue Boilermakers

Postgame Press Conference

Nebraska - 64, Purdue - 56

THE MODERATOR: For the Purdue press conference, we will start with questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Jeanae, what has this school meant to you? Obviously you come over from Illinois, and you start all 60 games you played here. What does being a Boilermaker meant to you?

JEANAE TERRY: It means everything. Just the family atmosphere I've received since being here for my three years is a lifelong relationship that I have forever. I'm so happy to be able to put this uniform on for these supporters and for these fans that come out and watch us every night. I love being a Boilermaker.

Q. Sophie, obviously, 7-of-9 from three. Just what was working for you today?

SOPHIE SWANSON: Just my teammates getting me open, me just doing my job and knocking those shots down and doing anything I can to help the team out.

THE MODERATOR: Jeanae and Sophie, you can head back to the locker room.

Q. What did you feel like your team did well early in this one, and what allowed Nebraska to kind of break away with it in the fourth quarter?

KATIE GEARLDS: I thought we did a really good job of keeping off the offensive glass. Really for the whole game. The one offensive rebound I know they got in the first half was a kickout three to Jaz Shelley. We lost Jaz a little bit in the first half, but if you tell me we're walking into halftime 25-25. We probably should have finished the second quarter a little bit better. Had a couple of careless turnovers. I've got to do a better job of helping our young kids in those kinds of situations.

Then just down the stretch, just kind of ran out of gas. I thought we got some really, really good looks. Madison and Abbey, they got some good looks from three, and then just down the stretch, the open looks that Nebraska got, they made and we did not.

Q. I know I just talked to Jeanae about what it meant, but also Abbey, this is it for her. What have those two specifically meant to you as a coach?

KATIE GEARLDS: Yeah, special. When they came over, I was still -- I was the assistant coach, waiting to be the head coach when they transferred from Cal Poly in Illinois. Then right before the season, Coach retires, and we've got 40 days, and all of a sudden I'm their head coach.

Those two just bought into me. I helped to recruit them to Purdue, but I wasn't supposed to be their head coach, and they believed in me from day one. For me, Abbey and Jeanae always have a really special place in my heart.

Then you can go down the line to Madison and Caitlyn as seniors for our ball club. They believed in me. They never turned their backs on me.

It's going to be weird when we do practice and those guys aren't out there, but Abbey and Jeanae might have gone to other schools before here, but they are definitely Boilermakers.

Q. Kind of on the other side of that, you had a pretty strong showing from your freshmen, Stevenson, Swanson today, and Jones. What does that mean for the future of your program?

KATIE GEARLDS: Those kids, they're not able to do what they do if they don't have the leadership that Jeanae and Abbey and Madison and Caitlyn provided, but for us moving forward, this was really our first recruiting class that we kind of put together with me as the head coach.

Obviously we've got a lot of things that we've got to continue to grow and get better, but I'll tell you what, those kids got a lot of great experience in some really tight situations that we're going to dive into this summer. Hopefully we can just continue to get better and better and chase getting Purdue back onto the top.