NCAA WOMEN'S FINAL FOUR

April 4, 2004

Pam Borton

Janel McCarville

Lindsay Whalen

LINDSAY WHALEN: Well, I definitely think so. We made, like Coach said, a great run. We did something, a few things that have never been done at Minnesota. Obviously we would have liked to have taken it further, but, yeah, you have to appreciate what we did and appreciate the people that you're able to accomplish these things with. So, yeah, you have to appreciate it and you have to be proud of that.

JANEL McCARVILLE: Yeah, she pretty well summed it up. Obviously we're going to be little upset today. Tomorrow, a week after, but as soon as we realize what we have done it will feel pretty good inside.

LINDSAY WHALEN: Yes and no. It's a close game, it's the Final Four, you're going to get bumped. Obviously we would liked to have had a foul called. But that's the way it is. Obviously UConn thought it was a no-call. So looking back on it I probably should have gone up on the left side instead of trying to draw the contact first and just made the lay-up. But when you're driving through the lane, that's just what my thought process was. So it was no call, it's, it doesn't really affect the whole outcome of the game.

JANEL McCARVILLE: It's just kind of been the mentality of this team all tournament long. We just really didn't want the season to be over. You could see how we played and in the four previous games, leading up to this. They're a good team and we're a good team. We both deserve to be here. We weren't going to go down easy. They had the big reputation and everything, but we wanted to give everything we had and we wanted to leave it on the floor.

LINDSAY WHALEN: I agree. I think that we knew it was going to be a game of runs, and we knew it was going to be who could withstand the runs and who could make the last run and they made a few, we made a few. We cut it to 2 a few times, 3 a few times, and we just battled back the whole game pretty much and you have to give UConn credit, when they came down and they were up 2 and they got an offensive rebound and they got a score and that's what championship teams do. And you have to give them credit for that.

JANEL McCARVILLE: Yeah. I mean they took away everything we wanted to do. Everything. That's our first option. And obviously if you do that, you're going to get a team out of sync and out of rhythm. And it took us a while to respond, but after we got the jitters out and played the first 10, 5 minutes of the game, we were able to get back in it.

LINDSAY WHALEN: I think she gets in the lane, she passes well, when they do the back no play she demands a double-team and so that just creates shots for other people. And yeah, they kind of just all rotate around her and let the offense run through her and if she's not going to score, she's going to find someone else that can.

LINDSAY WHALEN: Summarize? It's been a great run. It's been -- I've truly enjoyed everything that we have had here at Minnesota and everything we have done, especially this year. But, yeah, taking it from the bottom of the Big-10 to a Final Four, and I think that me along with Leslie and Kadidja, the seniors on the team as well as Janel and everyone on this team, but I think for us seniors, we can definitely take pride in the fact that we hopefully left our mark here and have established Minnesota as a winning tradition and a great women's basketball program.

PAM BORTON: I think so. I think you're right. We cut it a couple times to 2 and then 3. I felt like it was key around that four-minute media time-out that I think we came down and missed a wide open three and we missed a lay-up. And it was just if we can just hit one of those shots, it would have tied the game. I think at that point we had spent so much energy coming back that we needed that media time-out pretty desperately because our kids were pretty tired on the last couple possessions when they went on a 5-0 run then. And I had to use a time-out. But I felt if we could have hit one of those shots, I think we hopefully would have sustained what happened the last four minutes.

PAM BORTON: I think we have seen lot of different types of defenses this year. They had the luxury of throwing three people at her throughout the course of the game instead of just one player guarding her for 40 minutes. She played 40 minutes, Janel did, came off for about 30 seconds and I think they just kept a fresh body on her and that just allowed them to be pretty physical with her, try to shove her off the block and every time she got the ball really create a lot of contact from the waist on down and we knew they would do that. But I thought between the three of them rotating in and out I thought that was pretty effective.

PAM BORTON: Well, I think the pros, I mean it's just going to give them very valuable experience for the future. And I remember last year Shannon Bolden played five minutes in our

Sweet 16 game and we can't even take her off the floor now. But I think it's very valuable experience for them to know what it takes to get here, just to get into the game does wonders for them and even for next year. The bad thing about it was I thought we made a few young mistakes at the end of the game where a missed lay-up and an untimely 3 that was taken, but that's going to happen when you've got young kids in the game in the Final Four.

PAM BORTON: Janel needed to come out. She was over the limit as far as how much she could have played. But she had asked to come out, she just needed a 30 second break. And that was the point we had taken her out and they got an offensive rebound. But I thought you can't measure the game on one play. We were giving up offensive boards the whole game. I felt that that was the difference. That they were a lot more physical and aggressive on the boards than we were. That was one of our goals, we wanted to dominate the boards going into the game and they dominated the boards and that's why they won.

PAM BORTON: Well, I think her contributions are, have been unbelievable. She kind of summed it up as far as where the program was when she first came here and where the program is right now. But she has put the program on the map. She's been the ringleader in keeping the team together with all the changes of the coaching staffs and she has helped make it a place for other kids to want tomorrow could school in the future. And she has established us as one of the elite in the country now.

PAM BORTON: Well, obviously you got a different team every year, but I think just with the experience of everybody that's coming back next year of what it takes to get here, I think that will help. Also, I hopefully it will help with recruiting and us getting better players, being one of the Final Four teams that are here, and obviously you got to have great players to get to this point. But each team, each year is different.