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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2007Jessica MorrowKim MulkeyOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA MODERATOR: We'd like to have you assess tonight's game but we understand Jessica had a career high of 25 points. Congratulations to you, and your thoughts about tonight's game and upcoming season. COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: It was a very entertaining basketball game. We just fell short. I congratulate Oklahoma. I'm proud of Jessica. I thought Jessica played very well for us. And take a deep breath and head to the NCAA. Q. Coach, talk a little bit about you had a road game tonight. COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: What now? Q. You guys had a road game essentially tonight. Talk a little bit about that atmosphere in there. COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: It was a great atmosphere. I thought good for women's basketball. Good for the Big 12. And we fought hard. Q. Kim, can you talk about, every time you got close, they put together some kind of a run. And also the two three-pointers you fouled out on that resulted in the free throws. COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: I think you answered it for me. They made plays when it was tight and I think one coach in this league said it best: After a loss, it's hard to defend the foul line. Q. Kim, six games in a row now against these guys. I know you said last year that Courtney Paris is not one player. There's a bunch of players out there. Just why did they have a hex on y'all tonight? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: I don't know that they have a hex on us, Brian. We have got a national championship and they don't. So where is the hex? They have a very good team. They have many more Big 12 championships than we do. But I think it's just a great atmosphere when two competitive coaches and two competitive teams get together and, you know, I don't know that hex is the word. Q. Coach, you guys really struggled the first five minutes, all of you in the second half. What was it about tonight that was able to come out on fire in the second half? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Maybe we're growing up a little bit. Maybe we're going to try to figure this thing out and when you look at our lineup, we don't have six seniors, and we're trying to compete with kids that have been in this environment that have been in this situation, that have won a lot of ball games for their team. And we're growing and we're learning. And we fought hard. Q. Coach, the fact that you came back in that second half that Josh was talking about and took the lead and took it to OU for a while, does it give you encouragement heading into NCAA? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Sure. No loss is fun. You must understand there are a lot of teams that are playing their last games of the season this week and last week, and we've got another opportunity. And we're going to look forward to the NCAA tournament and sit down on Monday for the selection show and keep our fingers crossed that we get seated in an area where our fans can come. Q. Jessica, talk about tonight. You were feeling it, they couldn't defend you. Talk a little bit about that. JESSICA MORROW: Well, I just did everything I could to keep my team in the ball game and when other people weren't really able to score, that's why I tried to take advantage of the situation and score also. But my team, we fought as hard as we could. There wasn't nothing else we could do about that. Q. Kim, have you ever seen Bernice have that many travels in a game? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: I don't know. Probably not. You know, Bernie struggled tonight. Yet at the same time, it's one game. She played well certainly in more games than she's not played well. And she'll learn from it, grow from it and hopefully she's got it out of her system. Q. Coach, I noticed on the side you were giving your team the come on down, because several times you looked like you knew they could, you could beat them to the hole. Also what did you say to Bernice when you go back home to get her together for this next level you're going to? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Seniors have a sense of urgency. I don't know that I really need to say a whole lot to her. She understands how she played tonight, and if she were to play halfway decent, it may have been a little bit different outcome. I don't know that. But she doesn't want to let her team down. She doesn't want to let herself down, but, guys, in this business those nights happen. And we're not going to dwell on it. And we're going to move on and probably won't say anything to her. When I was telling her to come on, I just felt there were many opportunities when we would get long rebounds, we could run and try to score and get something in transition, and that's what I was doing. Q. Kim, you were real high on Jessica at the beginning of the season and thought she was going to have kind of a breakout year. Could you talk about what she was able to do? Is this what you saw in the pre-season and what she was capable of doing? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: I saw this in recruiting Jessica. I think Jessica is a player, a six-foot body on the perimeter that can shoot the shot, can take one or two dribbles to the basket, and I just thought that without her efforts tonight, it wouldn't have even been close. And she just battled and battled and just tried to help us win a ball game. And hopefully Jessica will continue to play like this and grow. Sometimes I have to remind myself she's just a sophomore. She's just a sophomore. Q. Were the technicals more frustration than anything else? What did they tell you on that? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: I can't even talk about it. You all know the rules. Q. Kim, I know you're thinking about this game, maybe you aren't, but care to size up the championship game? Iowa State maybe a surprise in there, beating A&M tonight, and Oklahoma, how do you see that matchup? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Well, Bill Fennelly is one of my all-time favorite coaches. I think he's one of the coaches when you look at the game can take talent and exceed beyond what you think they're capable of doing. And he's got seniors as well that are playing with a sense of urgency. And it should be two contrasting styles but yet similar styles. Both teams will play zone. Three-point shooters. So it's going to be a good ball game. Q. Kim, Courtney said she'd never been defended like that. Actually facing her and turned around to her, was that just something y'all came up with this week, where you actually had the players like in her face and -- COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Is that a compliment coming from you? Q. Yes, and it was a compliment from Courtney as well. COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Well, tried something different. Nothing different than we used in previous games worked so just tried something different. They still won. She still had a double-double. Q. Coach, on media day you mentioned earlier that this league was totally different than past years. When you talked about them, it was very competitive and lead champions would have at least two losses and that pretty much what it boiled down to. Why do you see the conference having -- how do you see the conference being this year? COACH KIM MULKEY-ROBERTSON: If they would listen to me, they'd give us seven because I know Jody Conradt is in there. I think she earned it from what she did in the previous years, but they don't listen to coaches. Kind of like referees. They won't listen to coaches either. I don't know. I'd love to see seven. I think legitimately we had six. I wish we could get seven. Q. Jessica, when y'all were able to come back like that and take the lead, did you have a good feel then or did you feel like maybe that you all had expended so much energy that it was going to be tough to sustain that? JESSICA MORROW: We actually thought we had a good chance. We were all pumped up and we fought back hard to get the lead. And it wasn't -- everyone had a feeling that we were going to win and it didn't turn out the way we wanted it to. End of FastScripts |
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