NCAA WOMEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 30, 2001

Niele Ivey

Muffet McGraw

Alicia Ratay

Ruth Riley

COACH MUFFET MCGRAW: Well, I'm extremely pleased with the team right now. I think we showed tremendous character coming back from a 12-point deficit in the second half. We shot the ball extremely well. I think there was maybe a lot of praying going on out there in the stands, but definitely we showed tremendous character and pride in ourselves to come out and take the lead back, and then defensively, I thought we were outstanding the second half. Offensively, when you shoot 8 for 11 from the free throw line, you are going to be tough to beat. I am just so pleased with the character of this team right now.

RUTH RILEY: I think in the second half, we were more aggressive. First half, we got out of our offense. We were running our offense way outside the three-point line and not playing the game we played all year. The second half -- we had confidence in ourselves at halftime. We were not down. We knew we needed to attack and take it out of them. I think Erika really started us off the second half.

RUTH RILEY: We're not usually down 12 at the half, so we had to pick that up a little bit. We were intense and focused, knew what we were doing wrong. We knew we needed to rebound and attack. I think there was a lot said by the seniors knowing that this could have been our last game, but we wanted to make sure that it wasn't.

RUTH RILEY: I think so. He's been poised all year. She's excited to play in front of her family and friends and at home in St. Louis. She was just really happy to be back here and I think she was really focused coming into the game and I think she played -- (inaudible) -- how she played.

RUTH RILEY: Really, I didn't feel like I was playing very well in the first half. I took a couple shots. That was probably my fault not posting up bigger. My teammates always look to give me the ball, but I think I need to be a bigger target for them. Rebounding, Connecticut is a tremendous rebounding team. We knew we needed the blocks. We didn't exactly do it so well the second half either, but I think we talked about that a little bit, too.

ALICIA RATAY: We just had to come together and just play with more intensity.

RUTH RILEY: I think Niele has been through so much injury-wise; we instantly got a little scared, our hearts skipped a beat. But Niele's tough. She wanted to come back. We knew that if she could play through it, she would, and she was able to join us at the end of the half.

ALICIA RATAY: Yeah, definitely a little momentum going into the second half.

NIELE IVEY: I'm doing all right. Just a sprain. I'll be okay. I'm doing pretty good right now.

NIELE IVEY: Yeah.

NIELE IVEY: We were just talking about things we needed to do that we were not doing well. Tried to say -- we knew UCONN was going to make runs at us and make incredible plays, but we are the type of team that is going to accept those and come back with some even better plays. We decided that defensive rebounding and offensive boards were killing us underneath the back. We just decided to come together and do it -- we had 20 more minutes regardless of what the score was. It was 0-0 coming back out there. I think our leadership and chemistry came together again. That's been helping us the whole year. We are not going to fight or give up. It's our only opportunity right now, so we are going to take advantage of every second out there.

NIELE IVEY: I think we had a couple steals, a couple 3s. Alicia I think hit one up top. And we wanted to get the ball to Ruth. She was in foul trouble the first half. Just get her the ball and she is going to carry us. She did a great job the second half and Alicia did a great job. Everybody did their part in the second half, and I think it just came together for us.

COACH MUFFET MCGRAW: She's played extremely well in the NCAA Tournament. Since the BIG EAST tournament she has played extremely well. She would not stop shooting and she is a good shooter, and when a good shooter isn't shooting, they do not quit until -- when she sinks a couple shots. She had kind of an off night. I think the whole team in the second half had an off night, and I thought the zone got a lot more effective in the second half.

COACH MUFFET MCGRAW: I was worried -- I didn't want to go on the floor, because I knew I had to take her out when I went on the floor and I was not ready to do that until -- when she went down, I knew she was hurt. I think she probably was a little scared when she got hurt because she didn't know what it was, and when we found out it was the ankle, we were a little bit relieved it was not her knee.

COACH MUFFET MCGRAW: Well, we were definitely keying on her, thought about possibly a box-in-one. We worked on that for the past couple days on her, but you know, when she started out the game missing a couple shots, we decided to take our chances with the zone. I'm not sure it was all the defense. I'm thought our defense played well, but she got an awful lot of open looks.

COACH MUFFET MCGRAW: I think about 20 seconds left, I thought maybe we would win, and I think I relaxed about that time. But at halftime, we were pretty calm. Just talked about rebounding, was such a key. I think they set a record, 29 offensive rebounds is an amazing statistic. And we did a poor job on the boards. So that's what we spent most of the time talking about, how we could rebound better. And we actually gave up more offensive rebounds in the second half, but I thought we did a good job overall in limiting their 3s.

COACH MUFFET MCGRAW: I think if you've seen us play this year against Connecticut, we have had two great basketball games. This was a finish more like the game at Notre Dame, which we obviously wanted to play. And the game at Connecticut was a great game, also; came down to the last-second shot. I think basketball fans around the country were expecting a great basketball game and I think that's what they got.

COACH MUFFET MCGRAW: Well, I think it's great to have two teams from Indiana in the Final. I think that's probably a first in the NCAA Tournament. We played them earlier in the season, but that was a long time ago. They are an excellent team, Camille Cooper, great post player, but Katie Douglas is the heart and soul of the team -- (inaudible) -- they brought in and responded well with the loss of Valek, and I think Kelly Komara is playing well, also. They have a great basketball team and I think it is going to be a terrific game.