BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 9, 2005

Erin Grant

Alesha Robertson

Marsha Sharp

MARSHA SHARP: Well, it was a great game. I think probably what you would expect out of four and five in the Big-12 conference. A lot of players on the floor that wanted to win today obviously. It's fitting probably that it came down to a last shot because it was that competitive all the way through. They would make a play, we'd make one offensively or defensively, one or the other, to give ourselves a chance to win. They're so well-coached that you know it's going to be a chess match the entire game. We made a couple of big plays at the end to win. I'm really proud how we came out and played the second half in particular. I thought we were maybe a little tentative the first half, and maybe we were the more aggressive team in the second half. It gave us a chance to get some looks at the basket without having to look over their defense quite as much as we did the first half. I thought it was a key. Certainly we had players that made big plays. There's going to be some folks that are probably going to be honored because of baskets they made, and even though Erin made some baskets, it's not obviously the thing she does the most. She's such a warrior. She goes and makes plays on both ends of the floor. She led our basketball team in a great way today. Alesha stepped up and made two big free-throws at the end. I know that that's something that should happen, and she was really ready to do that, and we're really proud of how they played.

ALESHA ROBERTSON: Well, in that last timeout that Coach Sharp had called, she did see that earlier. She was saving it. It was definitely open.

ERIN GRANT: Yes, we did watch the game yesterday. We were fully aware that they can make things happen at the end of the ballgame. So we just didn't want to let them have a 3-point shot off especially. They did get a good look over LaToya and Chelsey, but we came out on top.

ERIN GRANT: Well, there's a few things we didn't do well in the first half as far as offensive rebounds that we let them have. We let them have a lot of put-backs. We just tried to limit that in the second half and really attack them, push the tempo. Those are the things we talked about at halftime. I think it really helped us.

ALESHA ROBERTSON: Well, Iowa State is a good 3-point shooting team. We just had to play real good defense, produce on the opposite side.

ERIN GRANT: Yes, Judith hit the 3-pointer from the top of the key. It was really big for us. Really, really big. She isn't scared of anything. She loves this type of atmosphere. That's why she can step up and hit that shot in that type of situation. We're happy to have her on our team and be able to step up like that.

ERIN GRANT: The feeling for us was they had a lot of fans out there, it was somewhat like playing on their home court a little bit because they had so many fans. But we brought some as well and they led us to a victory.

ALESHA ROBERTSON: I think the atmosphere was great. I like to go to places and have a lot of people cheering for the opposite team, coming out with the win was my favorite part.

ERIN GRANT: I'm happy to play Baylor again. We played them about a week ago. We want to fix some things we did last game and take another shot at them to get to the championship game of this conference tournament.

ALESHA ROBERTSON: I'm definitely excited to play them again and I'm very, very glad we get a chance to do it. We'll see what happens.

MARSHA SHARP: Obviously I'm old so I've coached a lot of players. I don't know if I've ever coached one that is as much a warrior as she is. She will go do whatever she thinks she can do to make her team win, and that's in a lot of different ways. I think she had a couple big steals. She has the mentality of bringing it at you. I inherited a great player. She one four straight championships in Texas and led her team. It's never been done before, when she was a high school player. She learned how to win. She came out of a great high school program and she's done great things for us at Tech. She has a perfect mentality for a point guard because she almost refuses to lose and tries to do anything she can to lead her team in a positive way.

MARSHA SHARP: I thought there were two things that were going to be real important for us on that end of the floor, maybe four, because Robinette can hurt you so much in a one-on-one situation. We didn't do the second one very well. The first half we gave up 10 offensive boards. In the second half, I think we cut that down and gave up five or six. It probably honestly became the difference in the game. But I think particularly when you're playing them in an atmosphere where they have their fans with them, they love the 3-point shot. They gain a lot of energy and the crowd gains a lot of energy off that. You have to take that away from them consistently if you want a chance to win. Or the other thing you have to do is if you let them hit one, you almost have to come down and answer immediately to try to take the crowd back out of it. I thought at least we did that. When we gave up one, we came down, made sure we got a good shot off. We had a good plan to try to limit the amount of momentum they got a off of the 3-point shot.

MARSHA SHARP: Big. And I thought we had a couple of pretty good defensive stands in there and made a couple of plays finally on our end. I thought that was really big. Two parts of it. That was big and the two shots that Chesley Dabbs made coming out of the second half out of halftime I thought were huge for us, a three and a two.

MARSHA SHARP: Way nervous. I try not to throw up on the bench, but it entered my mind a couple of times.

MARSHA SHARP: We changed defensive players a lot against her. We had three players that defended her most of the game. I'll tell you something that we're beginning to find that we really like honestly is we think that Darrice Griffin is becoming a great defensive player. She has enough speed she can keep people getting it to the rim. She's big enough, they have a hard time shooting it over. We really used her on two people, and she played a majority of the second half. Robinette, she guarded for a long time and she also guarded O'Neil when O'Neil was attacking the rim. I think she made a difference, just a little bit longer arm, bigger, to try to play over. It was a big part of us, what I said a while ago, the three parts that Robinette didn't score the second half.

MARSHA SHARP: Well, we felt they were taking Dabbs there. Dabbs got in a little bit of foul trouble. We needed her on the floor. We don't want to play too long on the other end without her because she just makes such good decisions, not only the points that Chesley scores, but the other she sets up for other players. We switched them and let Darrice guard her. Again, I thought that their whole strategy was to get us to the rim and get us in foul trouble. Darrice is bigger there. She was having to shoot over about 10 or 12 inches more arm than she was with Dabbs, whenever she took it to the rim. I think it probably helped us three or four trips in a row that really made a difference for us.

MARSHA SHARP: You know, I think right now some people, just because she hasn't played quite as many minutes in Big-12 play, they don't know exactly what they want to do with her. They know exactly what they want to do with Robertson or Dabbs, but they're not sure if they want to come guard her or leave her out there and let her shoot it. I think we saw that the other night at Baylor. We saw it again today. She has an opportunity to probably shoot it a few more times than Alesha does because of the way people defend her, and she's a good shooter. It worked tonight. It gave us a spark, against Baylor the other night, too. She'll be a big part of us in post-season play. I've made the comment a lot this year that we should be better in March than January because of the freshmen. And I think Darrice and Judith both gave us a look at that today. They're beginning to make plays more consistently, understand what we need in big situations than they did two months ago.

MARSHA SHARP: Well, you know, they're a great team. I happen to think they're one of the top two or three teams in the nation. I think because of their depth, the different ways they can hurt you, they're that good. But I tell you, this time of year it's great to be able to do that. Fortunately or unfortunately, we're going to get to do it twice within a week or eight days. I think it's good for us to get ready for next week no matter the outcome of the game. Certainly you probably help yourself with the win, at least your confidence probably because of how much respect we have for them. They're going to make you guard a lot of different things. You have to play a really, really great basketball game to have a chance to beat 'em. But I do think we're excited about the chance. We want to stay another day. We wanted to get to that round of the tournament. We want to have a chance to play and take another shot. We're going to get to do that. We have a good game plan. The good part for me is we're only seven days away from playing them last, so everything's pretty fresh on my mind about what we need to do with them, and I think our players, too. We'll take our best shot and see what happens.

MARSHA SHARP: I hope so. I hope it will be. I think it is. The thing that you got to think about them, though, is they're a big-time team. I don't think they're worried about how many times they beat anybody. They're going to play with a lot of energy. That's what Kim brings every time. They're going to be set on go. They probably didn't play as many hard minutes today as we did. We've got some things do deal with there. This time of year you're fired up to get to play another day and get to stay and take another shot. We'll be excited to do that tomorrow night.

COACH SHARP: For Big-12 women's basketball, this is kind of cool. 15 years ago there would be like three of you sitting down here on the front row. Thank you for doing that.