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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2007Jody ConradtCarla CortijoTiffany JacksonOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA MODERATOR: We're now joined by the University of Texas coach and player. Tiffany will be here in a couple of minutes. Carla is here and she'll take questions and Tiffany should be joining us momentarily. Coach, your comments about tonight's game. COACH CONRADT: To indicate how hard our team played. Tiffany cramped up on the way on the walk here. So as soon as they stretch her out she'll be here. It was hard-fought. I think you saw two teams who really respect each other, really go at it. They play a little prettier than we do and they started out like lights out. I was hopeful they wouldn't continue to hit the 3s the way they did. We tried to tell our team to just try to weather that storm. And I thought we did. But we had spells throughout the game where we really got pretty frustrated on offensive end. We got shots blocked because we went right into the big people and invited them to block it, and when we did have some opened looks, we were looking around to see who was going to block it. And we missed some really good opportunity to score some baskets in transition, and we had some good looks and we didn't knock those down. It's hard to believe you take 72 shots to your opponent's 54 and you still are struggling to stay in it offensively. But I look at the stat sheet. I see that we fought hard rebounding-wise and they're a tough team to rebound against. We took care of the basketball. They have turnovers, but it all got down to one thing counts and that's when you put the ball in the hole. And we had a lot of difficulty doing that. It's no secret that that's been an issue with this team, particularly as the season progressed. We're not the best shooting team. And people have the ability to collapse on us and if we can't loosen them up then it's usually a long night. But, again, Oklahoma is really good. They're hard to defend. I thought we did a decent job with that part of the game. But on the other end our inability to score, our inability to finish would have made it awfully hard for us to win this ball game. Q. (Off microphone) COACH CONRADT: I don't have any idea about that. With this team I don't think we have focused on that because I think that this team knows that they have to play possession after possession. You would hope so. Are we one of the best 64 teams in the country? I believe so. I believe that our conference is very tough. I think we have beat up on each other. I heard someone mention today this is the only conference where there was a real conference race. Everybody else had teams at the top and teams at the bottom and they never met on our level at the conference, it's been a battle for everybody. And, again, I have no idea. We're hopeful. But on the other hand I think our team did everything that they could do to try to play themselves into the tournament. Q. Coach, when they're hitting three-pointers like that how much more difficult does it make it guarding Courtney? COACH CONRADT: They're really good. Any team that has inside/outside game the way they do, they're going to be successful. And, again, I thought we worked about as hard as we could work. We boarded with them. We forced turnovers, but they're hard to guard. And our team laid it all on the line. I don't have any problems with the effort we gave tonight. They're a lot prettier than we are the way they play. But that doesn't get your points. What matters is whether you knock down shots. They did, we didn't. We had a lot of opportunities where we could have folded but we didn't. We're going to take pride in that. We're going to congratulate Oklahoma because they're a very good team. They were predicted before the conference ever started that they were going to win the conference. And I don't think it was easy for them or for anyone else, but they persevered, and I want to say that this was a great venue. I mean that was an electric environment. Oklahoma City has done a wonderful job with this tournament. And I enjoyed being in an environment where people are passionate about women's basketball. And they've been very hospitable and done a great job. Our hostess, as I mentioned last night, really good. They went into the witness protection program now. But they did a great job. They thanked me for not naming them last night when I talked about them finding us a place to practice. Q. Could you talk about the blocked shots Oklahoma had and how it played in to you guys couldn't score in the second half for a while. TIFFANY JACKSON: That was huge. That's one of the strengths of having Courtney in the middle along with Amanda Thompson. They had us off on a lot of our shots. It played a big part in them winning this game. Q. Tiffany, how badly do you want to continue your career here at UT? TIFFANY JACKSON: A lot. I don't even know I didn't even know words to say to explain how bad I want to continue to play. I want to keep playing. Q. Tiffany, Oklahoma's first four points came on five three-pointers how much did that just snowball the momentum and all of a sudden they blow the roof off with their shooting? TIFFANY JACKSON: That was huge whenever anyone gets a 3 in transition or a 3 that's a big momentum changer. They had a great crowd behind them. And that got into our heads a little bit. We just tried to continue to play. Q. Coach, you had nights where you shot bad, but when you mentioned about the rebounding and the turnovers and the steals and you get down to the end, some nights you pull those games out. And tonight that just wasn't that way? COACH CONRADT: You're exactly right. We've seen a lot of zones and people are going to zone us. I mean it's no secret we are what we are. We're really good defensive team. We're really hard-working team and when we can get in open court, we generally finish. Although we had difficulty with that tonight. But there's a temptation. When you're seeing people not guard you there in the zone, you want to competitively you just want to make the shot. And we needed to stay disciplined and for the most part we did. They challenge you to shoot from the perimeter, and we just don't have a shooting team from the perimeter right now. Ernie Williams is probably one of our best perimeter shooters and she didn't have a great night. You know it's hard. She's from Oklahoma I know she put pressure on herself to come here and have a great outing. And that didn't happen for her. But she's as hardworking as anybody we have on our team. Carla willed some shots in tonight. That's not what Carla does best. But I think you see competitors try to step up and it's no secret we were going to have trouble with zone, because Tiffany's going to have trouble inside if they double and triple team her and we did get going inside out a little bit, Carla knocked down some shots. But we don't have the kind of shooters that we need to face the zone night in night out. Q. Jody, with the youth you have on your team and the way they worked hard this year, would you entertain a WINT bid in case you all don't get one on Monday? COACH CONRADT: You know, I really don't think that that's where this team would go. You know, you set your goals on going to the NCAA and that's still in the back of our minds. Hopefully something will happen and we'll get there. But in my mind it's awfully difficult when you're disappointed in one way to turn around and get ready to play again. We've asked this team to do a lot. We don't have depth. Carla has played, I don't know, how many minutes, and you know when Tiffany starts cramping upcoming to the media room, then you know that your team has probably given you just about everything they can. If we can get a little time off and make a run in NCAA be at home, obviously we'd be very excited about that. Q. For Carla and Tiffany, do you feel like you've earned that spot in the NCAA? CARLA CORTIJO: Yes, we've been working real hard this whole season, and I think -- yes, I think we saved that spot right there on the NCAA. Anything can happen right now, and we probably would be there. COACH CONRADT: I think if you asked if we were competitive against anybody we had played against other than Tennessee and Duke early in the season, I think we've been in games, I think we've been competitive. And I think we can play. We've got some really good wins but we had some losses that were disappointing as well. Tiffany, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to take your question. TIFFANY JACKSON: I agree. (Laughter) MODERATOR: Coach, best of luck in the post-season. End of FastScripts |
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