MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 9, 2005

Chris Denker

Melissa Dennett

Sara Hunter

COACH DENKER: I thought it was a very well played game. I thought both teams played well. Hats off to BYU, made really big plays at the right time. I thought the three at the end of the half by Anderson and the three at the end of the game obviously was big, also. They just made some sort of game-winning types of plays. You know, they get a steal and convert it or force a turnover coming out of a timeout, little things like that that kind of break your back, a couple of O-board putbacks. The free throw disparity really hurt us because I felt like they were able to get some easy baskets in the lane. The point disparity was pretty large. It was like 42-20 as I glanced at the stats. I'm really proud of our kids. I thought they played really hard, very competitive. Got after it in all phases defensively, but I thought these two were big for us. I thought Lindsay Thomas had a big game, as well, played with a lot of passion. I thought our coaches did a great job having them prepared and the scatter report and everything. We got beat by a team that made some big plays on us.

SARA HUNTER: Well, coming in I was lower seed, we really have nothing to lose, so we just wanted to get after it and jump on them right away. We fought hard through the whole game, just couldn't finish like coach said. We didn't make the big plays when we needed to.

MELISSA DENNETT: I agree, it's been a long time since we played that hard and aggressive. You know, I don't really know what it was. Towards the end of the season I think we've really come together our last couple of games, and I think that really helped. I don't know, I think we were just all on the same page. We all wanted to come out and do our best and do everything we could, and so I think that's why we were so aggressive and just ready and well-prepared.

SARA HUNTER: Well, just even in warm-ups I was feeling good. I really like playing here at the Pepsi Center. I've done it a couple times before. I think it was after the first couple I was really feeling it. My feet were getting set quick and people were getting me open really well, making good passes. As much as I'd like to take all the credit for it, my teammates did just about as much.

MELISSA DENNETT: It was very physical. BYU is always a physical team. We knew they were going to be pushing us around when we came in here. I don't know really if it had -- I don't know.

MELISSA DENNETT: I don't know, we had a bunch of ups and downs this season. I hope it's more consistent next year. I hope the way we played now, it'll flow into next year. That's what I'm hoping for because we played really well this end of the season. Hopefully it will carry over. That's what I'm expecting, play more consistent and be able to count on each other.

COACH DENKER: We have had some preliminary talks, and from what I understand, you know, we're a team that they're interested in. I think as always with the NIT there's a lot of what ifs, sort of waiting to see what's happening with the other tournaments. You know how that goes. I definitely think that we would show well in the NIT. I think as Diesel just said, we've been playing pretty good basketball to be specific for maybe seven halves. You go back to the second half of the Utah game where we scored 50 points and then New Mexico we played pretty well, although we lost, and we played very well against Air Force the other day and today was a good game and a hard-fought game. It hasn't always translated into wins unfortunately for us, but we played some pretty doggone good opponents there, too. I think that just shows that we would perform well and we're really starting to play good basketball. Just talking in the locker room there, I know that they're excited to continue to play. I think we would do well if we got a chance to get in the NIT. Obviously we've always hosted well, draw a lot of fans, so that would be beneficial to the NIT, as well, I would think.

COACH DENKER: Good memory. No, you're absolutely right. You know, the question was asked earlier about -- posed to Diesel about the physicality in the lane and the free throws and whatnot. They always play physical, BYU, and we knew that was going to be the case. They'll kind of shuttle in posts there and try to keep banging. Obviously we have two really good post players that we're going to try to get some shots for, so they're going to just try and shuffle people in and out and try and bang on you. Unfortunately we didn't get some calls that we would have liked to have gotten, but I thought it was a pretty well officiated game. One major difference for them is that they would really initiate contact with the dribble in terms of when they're driving the ball. Sullivan, she creates a lot of contact on her own, so that physicality really kind of took its toll, I think. You look at the interior scoring, again, 42-20 and the free throw disparity, situations like that, I think that their physicality kind of got to us eventually.

COACH DENKER: It wasn't so much that we were just going to her on that because -- what we did is we ran a little ball screen play and we knew they were going to try to step out and show hard or perhaps even double her, and when they had done that earlier in the game, it opened up Diesel on the roll. We were really looking for that. But then what they were doing to get specific, LT's man was specific to Diesel so we knew if we switched to LT we'd have a jumper. When we did that she didn't have a shot so it came down to playing some motion and trying to get a shot. They just kind of scrambled out of it and played pretty good defense on that possession.

COACH DENKER: A little bit of both. You've got to do a better job at the point of attack. We always kind of tell our kids, and I've heard it said several times by coaches, the better you can just do one-on-one and not help and rotate, the better your team defense is going to be. We always tell the kids, try and shut your man down. It's a team defensive system; you've got to have some help. BYU has got five kids on the court that can all shoot the basketball, and I don't mean a layup, they're knocking down permanent jumpers, you've got Cheesman, Kozlowski, they can all make 17-footers, maybe the occasional three. You can go right down the roster. That's what makes them dangerous and that's what makes Sullivan so good. She's a threat to drive it, sneaky-quick, but uses her strength to kind of shove off a little bit and then rise up to shoot. Ambrosia, she obviously had a good ballgame and they can do a lot of things with her. Late there they tried to post her. They run off and double hit a three, pretty versatile kid. She's a pretty tough guard. I'd also add that I thought Sara's game was one of the better individual games, regardless of class, that I've seen -- she just had that look in her eye, and I was really proud of her for that. I thought LT and Diesel played their tails off, but for a freshman kid to play like that, that's pretty special.