BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 8, 2025

Billi Chambers

Mohegan Sun Arena

Xavier Musketeers

Postgame Media Conference

Seton Hall 48, Xavier 40

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Xavier head coach Billi Chambers. We'll take your opening statement, Coach.

BILLI CHAMBERS: Obviously really disappointing way to close out. We thought we started the game with pretty good bounce and thought we had an opportunity to do something really special here today.

Really disappointed for our seniors to be finishing out their careers. I'm really disappointed for our young women because I thought they approached this week with a really fresh mindset of 0-0 coming in, have the opportunity to, again, take a big step forward and really truly cement the foundation for what Xavier women's basketball will be going forward.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach.

Q. Your girls competed extremely hard over the course of two games. It didn't seem like they were down at all. Did you feel any kind of -- it was a tough game and they sort of kind of ran out of gas down the end or is it just credit to Seton Hall?

BILLI CHAMBERS: Seton Hall is a very good team. They're an NCAA Tournament team. They've got great experience. They've got some players who have been in this position before and some players who really step up and play really well for them.

In terms of kind of getting more down, I mean, we could see as coaches just a little bit step slow in some of the gaps that we wanted to shoot to get ourselves some steals and more opportunities offensively. But worn down mentally, no. I think they were excited. I think they wanted an opportunity to take the game. I think we lost our composure.

28 turnovers to lose a game by eight is a pretty rough stat to look at. I think we just got ourselves super rattled and had a hard time putting the ball in the basket.

Like you said, fought until the end. Gave it everything they had, but we needed to be a lot more composed in this moment to be able to take that one.

Q. You took Seton Hall on your final season game to the brink. You won last night. You were close tonight. Is your program on the rise now? Have you seen the light now a little bit?

BILLI CHAMBERS: I think so. I think this is a group that works really hard. I think that this is a group that wanted more wins this season, wanted so much more out of the group that we had together and what we felt we were truly capable of.

I think that they're ready to go to postseason to work hard, to put a few more things together to really allow us to pick up some of those wins.

Again, we talked about composure today. We talked about turnovers. They plagued us all season, and we didn't do a great job of taking care of the ball, and we didn't give ourselves an opportunity to put more points on the board.

Being more disciplined down the stretch defensively and offensively. So do I believe our program is on the rise? Absolutely. Do we have a lot of work to do? Absolutely. Nobody is shying away from that work. We're ready to get to it.