MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 9, 2005

Randee Henry

Regina Miller

Brittney Thomas

COACH MILLER: Sure. It was a battle. It always seems to a battle every time we play against Wyoming, really any team in the league. Again, it gets back to anyone can win this tournament who's able to execute. I thought that we started the game fairly strong, and then we were able to go on a run. I thought it was from the intensity of our defense, and that triggered a lot of our fast break opportunities, and then the half court offense, I thought, we executed fairly well, and then they went to a zone, and we became passive. You just don't want to play passive against a standard 2-3 zone. For the remainder of the half, they really changed the tempo of the game. We started to play more half court. We're a full-court team. Again, a lot of that is created from our defense. Their zones slowed the tempo down, we didn't execute against it. We needed to get the ball in certain areas, and not until after the half were we able to make those adjustments. We anticipated them playing zone all of the second half, and they did, and I thought we did a better job of getting the ball to the middle, trying to hit the corner some and I thought Brittney Thomas hit a couple of big shots down the stretch.

BRITTNEY THOMAS: Early in the game I was a little off. Mentally I wasn't all the way 100 percent there, and hitting 3s, hitting shots, is what I bring to the team, and I just relaxed and put it down just like it was another shot in practice and it came out good.

RANDEE HENRY: I think pretty much everything is just on us. We know what we're capable of as a team, what we're good at, what are our strengths. So just pretty much coming into this tournament, we couldn't sit back on what happened in the past. You know, this is a whole new start. It's pretty much everybody starting over with new records, so we just wanted to come in and focus on the games that we had at task and take them one at a time and not relinquish things from the past.

BRITTNEY THOMAS: I'll start. It's going to be a game. We took them on at home, beat them by 3, went there, lost by 3. It's going to come down to who executes, and we're planning on it being us overall. It's going to be a fight, though.

RANDEE HENRY: It's definitely going to be a game. It's about playing smart and doing what we do best because we know it's going to be a game that we have to compete and every single position is going to count.

RANDEE HENRY: I think initially that they pushed so far up on Sheena, they were really worried about her penetrating their zone because she does it so well. So we really had I to sit back and find the open areas, and it's disgusting, and time-outs because they were leaving the middle wide open because they were pushing out so far trying to trap, and we really made the adjustment at halftime, but it was just initially our coaches informed us where the open spots really were in the first half and we were able to get some towards the end of the half, and that's where we were able to make that adjustment at halftime.

COACH MILLER: Well, our focus on Ashley has been all year when she gives the ball up, really make her work to get it back. She's the type of player who's going to play 40 minutes, has played 40 minutes all season, so she's well-conditioned. I think as Ashley goes, Wyoming goes. I think she's a great player. She's someone that we focus on defensively. We didn't really want to double on her because there are other three-point shooters on the team. Hanna does a nice job for Wyoming as well as Hicks can shoot the three with their foot set, and we know Taylor is a penetrator. I thought at times we got too close to her with the dribble and allowed her to penetrate past. We knew a lot of their scheme was dribble, kick it to the three point with their feet set, and Ashley heard us. At that point in time in the game we thought that we had worn her down a little bit, and we are a fairly good-conditioned team, and your shot is a little different when you're tired, and if you don't -- usually shots that rim -- go in and out and stay down, you're not using your legs, and she was a little tired at that point, so advantage UNLV. It worked out for us.

COACH MILLER: Tremendous strides. I have a great deal of respect. I think when we prepared for Wyoming, we think of playing against Utah in some ways because they run similar offense, a lot of motion cutting, a lot of moving without the ball, a lot of almost screens, something that we've done has been to trap some of those and taking people out of their flow offensively. I think Joe has done a tremendous job moving the program forward. I felt like since he's taken over, players play to their strengths. They're running their offense with a purpose in mind and they know who the scorers are, who's going to get screens and who's going to get rebounds, and I'm not sure if that was the case prior to, so you can tell the big difference is going to be competitive day in and day out. I would think in the league we're probably the team that's most similar, especially when they go with a small lineup.

COACH MILLER: I have this philosophy that you have to finish free throws -- finish lay-ups and make all free throws. That's something that we talk about in practice. We shoot a lot of free throws. We don't run when you miss free throws. I think sometimes coaches have a tendency to do that and I think it reinforces the negative. We just shoot more. We had a game against BYU a couple games ago and we couldn't make a free throw, 6 for 15, lost by 3. The game before we were 14 for 15, shot 93 percent. Again, I think a lot of it is confidence. I think you can win and lose a lot of ball games by making and/or missing free throws. It hurt us against BYU, it helped us today.

COACH MILLER: Yeah, most of our games have been close. I mean, New Mexico is playing well, they've played consistent, they've been fairly healthy all year and they're playing with a lot of confidence. I'm not going to give you the magic plan, but in some way we have to disrupt their flow. I think a key player for them who has played well has been Marsh. She's been a little bit of an X factor, even as a freshman. She posts deep. She has the ability to shoot that little turnaround jumper and she's a tremendous offensive rebounder and she rebounds the ball defensively for them. She's probably to me their most aggressive player. If they come out and play a little zone, I would anticipate they're going to play a zone, we'll have to attack it and attack it with confidence. I think overall New Mexico is a finesse type of team with the exception of Marsh, and we have to play to their strengths, and I think the team that does that the best in their style of play is going to win this game. It will be a battle. I anticipate that it will be a battle.

COACH MILLER: It's a tough play to play, in the pit. I've always used the analogy that they're red, we're red, their offense. Just block out what they might say against you. We shouldn't hear that anyway. But when you look in the stands there's a lot of red, so we think of them as rebels instead of Lobos. I think if you focus in on what's happening on the court, you know, you are not distracted as to what's going on off the court and around you. It's a great atmosphere to play in. If you're a player or competitive in any way, and I know that New Mexico has a lot of fans here for this tournament, you thrive off of that. You know, you thrive off the fact that, hey, we've built this, people are here to watch us play, now let's go out and perform. I think if you're a competitor you thrive off of that. You do not let it distract you.