MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 11, 2005

Daniel Cheesman

Jeff Judkins

Kristen Kozlowski

COACH JUDKINS: You didn't butcher their names. Good job. I am real proud of my team. We have had a great year. These young ladies have worked very hard. I think sometimes in life you want things too bad and you just work too hard and try too hard. I just appreciate the wonderful effort these young ladies did for me this year. I can only think of one bad practice in the whole year. I know we're excited. Hopefully we'll be able to go somewhere. We hope the NCAA will feel sad because they stiffed this conference last year with one. If not, we'll go to the NIT and play hard and do it. I appreciate my seniors. Danielle and Kali and Julie have been with me for four years. Christian came after one year at Boise. I appreciate their leadership and the wonderful job they did for me in these years. It will be tough to see them go. They built a wonderful foundation for this program. You have to give Utah credit. They have smart players. Those kids play a lot of basketball internationally. They have wonderful opportunities. You can see that on the court. I know we're excited about the rest of the season and our future at BYU.

DANIELLE CHEESMAN: The thing that I noticed when we're on defense, the Utah Utes, they do a good job in taking what we give them. You know, if they have a bad match-up, they go to that person. They have done that in all their games. They read the defense really well. That is one thing that hurt us a little.

KRISTEN KOZLOWSKI: I think in each game they were able to hit shots. In each defensive position we give them open shots. That is just how we played it. They were able to hit them. They did a good job with that, finding the open shot.

KRISTEN KOZLOWSKI: I think we got in the second half a lot more movement. We did a good job of finding our big man inside and looking at decking a little bit more.

COACH JUDKINS: I think New Mexico matches up with Utah very well. In fact, it is a funny situation in this league. I talked with some of the coaches at New Mexico, and they would rather play Utah in the semifinals. We would rather play Vegas. Part of it is we match up better with Vegas, they match up better with Utah. Somebody can guard Kim Smith and not give her any easy baskets. And they have a very good inside game with Marsh. To me, that is Utah's weakness defensively is their defensive post presses. And so what they do is they just slap everybody in the paint against us, you can't do that against New Mexico because Letz and Montgomery and Arndt can all hit shots. They can't do that. The second half of your question was why did you hit the ball inside better? Part of it is, I had my line-up where I had my best shooters in there. They had to guard Ambrosia and they had to guard Kali and they had to guard Sullivan. That opens it up. It is sad because Johnsen is the best defender in this league. And she brings so much to this team. And so it's hard not to have her on the forward. It will be a great meeting between her and me at the end of the year. Her goal will be to shoot five thousand shots every day. Then hopefully she will come in here and be able to hit those shots. It should be a great game. I would give the edge to New Mexico and the reason for that is they have beaten them twice. They have a good mental part of it. Secondly, I think we beat Utah. I think we were physical with them, we beat them up. It should be a great game. I think both teams do deserve to go to the NCAA tournament. I hope we don't get stiffed like last year.

COACH JUDKINS: It looks on paper that we are. If we start boxing I would put my money on my team. I think sometimes mentally you think you can't do certain things. I remember the days when I was coaching at Utah we couldn't beat Kentucky. I don't care what we did, it's just they had our number. And I think Utah this year with the players that they have and their situation, I think they know that they can beat us and I think sometimes we look at it maybe we just try a little bit too hard, kind of what I said earlier. That is where I will take this tape and I'm going to take my younger kids that come back next year and try to tell them, you have got to be smart. Utah is not going to beat themselves. You have got to take it and you have got to execute to really beat them. And that is one of the times that we have beat them in the tournament or whatever I have coached against Coach Elliott, so many of the teams played well. Erika Ford, Jennifer Lightner, Melanie Pearson, she's going to give you shots. She's got the depth. And that is how she plays defense. We just have to take advantage of that better than we did today.

COACH JUDKINS: Mostly fouls. She got two fouls. I wanted to try to save her. This is Julie's hardest part of her career. She got a foul -- or she got a cheap foul, that she thought, and the next play down when I pull her out, she gets another foul and so now she's got three fouls. Now I try to get her out quick enough and that really put her in a bad situation. Then she gets her fourth on the moving screen which she shouldn't have done anyway. Then she gets her fifth. For some reason, I think she wants it so bad she just can't let the game come to her sometimes.

COACH JUDKINS: First of all, Kim Smith was on a roll the first half. I think some of the shots she hit, they were -- I mean, a hand in the face and she made it, a couple of the other ones they had. It was just a good job of them spreading it out. They had a difficult time attacking our triangle too. They hit some shots and that's what we gave up. When we cut it down to I think eight or seven, you know, they had a hard time hitting it. Carlsen hit some big shots tonight. You've got to give her a lot of credit to come off the bench not to play that many minutes. Kim Smith is a good player. She knows how to do things to get her team open. Sitterud is a very confident lady. She's either going to shoot you in the game or shoot you out of the game. When you have got Camie Allen hitting three pointers and number twelve hitting three pointers, her first three-pointer of the year. I am surprised Hanchett didn't bank one in for a 3-pointer. You watch tomorrow, they won't be able to hit nothing probably. They are a good team. They will be smart enough. They will get the ball inside. They are very well coached. They really execute well. One turnover in the first half. We didn't put a lot of pressure on, they just let it come very, you know, very easy for their team.

COACH JUDKINS: I think we have as good as players in this league. Johnsen is a sophomore. Brosia is a Junior. I probably lost my second best player to a injury this year. I have got two young freshmen just learning this game. I think it will be good in Riley and Mary Martha. I mean, I am excited about the future. I've got another girl that is red-shirting, sitting out, six-foot-three, a physical type of player. Then we had a great recruiting class. So I signed a very good point guard and a very athletic girl who can defend and get it to the basket. We are excited about our future. I can't wait until those two graduate at Utah. It will be a nice feeling some day. But I think we will be more competitive. I think there are some players that have talent that can really blossom for us.

COACH JUDKINS: No. They are very good. They are just so seasoned. I mean, they played some games internationally. They are way ahead of the United States. Way ahead of us. I mean, just look at us right now. No matter what, I can't send Ambrosia to play international ball. She could not make the United States national team because there are so many players here. Canadians can do that. Those guys can play all these different teams. That is something hopefully the United States will see that and do better. What is wrong with having five, six teams for these ladies to have opportunities?