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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 10, 2007

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Brigham Young University head coach Jeff Judkins and student-athletes Mallary Gillespie and Lauren Riley.
Coach, if you want to just begin with some general comments on the game, please.
COACH JUDKINS: I got to give a lot of credit to New Mexico. They played a real physical game tonight. They made the plays down the stretch when they had to. I think Marsh hit some big baskets when they needed it. We had some opportunities and just didn't quite seem to get it done.
I'm really proud of my team. We've had a hard week, a week that has been challenging. We got down early in this game and we fought back like I knew this team would. We just couldn't make the plays that we had to make. Where we have in the past, we just couldn't do it.
But I'm really proud of them, the hard work they've gone through.
You know, I told them in the locker room, I've been here I think four out of the six years. I've won one and lost three, but maybe I'm getting experienced, hopefully it will turn around.
We're excited about the rest of the season and what we need to do. My job will be to get these young ladies' heads up and realize they've had a great season, a great conference. We're just building from our program. So I'm really happy for them.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Can you talk about the disappointment of this one? We saw some tears on the bench. How are you going to turn that around into motivation going into the NCAAs?
MALLARY GILLESPIE: Turning that around, we didn't play the best game. We came out in the first half really flat, started slow. We just didn't have the best game. So if we can turn that into the NCAAs coming up next weekend, play better, we'll go farther. Like we didn't play our best game, so next week we're going to have to play better.
You know, we can. We just started out flat, kind of shot ourselves in the foot. But we got it in this next week.
LAUREN RILEY: For me, I guess just any time you lose, it just gives you motivation to get back going, get better, work harder and come back with a win next time. That's our next goal.

Q. Why did the tide turn so much when Dani fouled out?
MALLARY GILLESPIE: Having your best player foul out gives the other team a lot of momentum. That's basically what it did. It got her her fifth foul. Marsh was going to the line, got the free-throws. We got a technical right there. Gave them two more free-throws. Just a lot of things didn't go our way right there, so they were able to build off that.
LAUREN RILEY: She said it (smiling).

Q. Can you talk about the first half shooting? Was that a case of nerves or was it their defense?
MALLARY GILLESPIE: Yeah, no, a little bit of both. Came out, you know -- I don't know, I came out flat, I came out slow. It hurt the team. It hurt my shooting, it hurt the team.
I tried to pick it back up that second half and get 'em in there. I should have been there first half doing that, so...

Q. Lauren, it seemed like when Katie Montgomery was driving down low, seemed like there was some sort of miscommunication when she was going to the hoop. Talk about that.
LAUREN RILEY: Yeah, that was probably all my fault. I mean, I should have -- I should have stuck with it, but I guess from the previous two baskets with Marsh, I was just thinking in my head, Stay on Marsh.
That was one of those stupid mental mistakes during, you know, crunch time.
THE MODERATOR: Ladies, you can go. Thank you.
Questions for Coach Judkins.

Q. You said it's been a tough week. How so?
COACH JUDKINS: Well, you know, we had an emotional game right before the tournament against Utah. We beat them. We go to TCU, travel. We'd been on the road forever, then come back, then go back on the road. Kubik hurts her ankle. I have another girl that hurts her ankle. I've got kids that are just mentally tired right now.
Tell you the truth, I am, too. It's been a long season. I've watched so much game film in the last three days, I'm sick of watching film. I think that happens to you at this time of the year. It just gets that way.
You know, we just have to do a better job as a team because next year we're going to be in this spot again hopefully, be able to learn from that.
I had three seniors been through a lot with me. To see them leaving, this is their last tournament, was hard. It's been one of those times. I don't know what we can do better as a team when this situation happens. I know yesterday I was the happiest man in the world sitting up here. Now I'm the saddest man. That's what happens in sport. That's what makes it so challenging.

Q. You know you're in the NCAA tournament, obviously. This game, this loss, how important is it in terms of next week, getting a seed in the tournament?
COACH JUDKINS: I don't think the players ever see that. I think the coaches and the media and the administration see the seeding part. I think there's three girls on my team that have been to the NCAA tournament, then the girls of course last year.
They haven't really been there enough to know the seeding, how important it is to really go somewhere in the tournament.
Hopefully some of these young kids will understand that and realize when you get to this stage of the season, you've had a great season, just to move it up a little more, just step up one more. Kind of like climbing a mountain: you're almost to the top, you can get there, you can see the whole valley, or you can just stay one more step. That's what I got to get my team to try to understand.

Q. Talk about the play of Shawnee Slade. I know earlier in the year you wanted her to look for her shot. She had 16 points against New Mexico at New Mexico. To come here and play like she did, talk about how impressed you were with her play.
COACH JUDKINS: I think the way you saw Shawnee tonight is the way I see her every day in practice. Shawnee's biggest issue with her game right now is not her athletic ability or being coached or working hard, it's the mental part of the game. She has to mentally get in the game and do what she did tonight: be aggressive offensively.
I think she has flashes of it. You see it. For some reason against New Mexico, I don't know if it's matchups, I don't know if it's because it's always a big game and she enjoys that, she seems to just rise to the occasion.
Hopefully next season she'll have games like this on a regular basis. I think she can do that for our team. But she had a great game tonight. She started off slow. I pulled her out and just went over to her and said, Shawnee, you just got to relax. Go out there, let the game come. She came out in the second half, I thought played really well for us.

Q. On the technical foul, obviously you lose Dani, they get two free-throws. Those were missed. What other impact do you feel that little swing had on the game?
COACH JUDKINS: First of all, that foul went on Kubik, that fouls her out, that was Marsh fouling Kubik. She had four fouls also, might have been a different situation. Referees said one of my players said something to the other official.
I told the ref, You don't know that girl like I know her. She wouldn't say that. He said that she said something not in the best of language. Gave her a technical. She missed both of them, so that happening didn't hurt us as bad. I think losing Kubik hurt us more than the technical.
Sometimes a technical can fire your team up. I kind of thought when that happened maybe it would. But it kind of backfired a little bit.
But you got to give them some credit. They ran their stuff. Marsh, she finished. I hope someday in the women's game they'll get rid of flops, get rid of that, because the NBA doesn't do that, the men don't do that. I'd like to see our game be more like that. But they make great plays.
Montgomery is a very smart player. She knows what she needs to do for the team. The two-man game you were talking about earlier, we defended it pretty well until right at the end. Then we just kind of slipped a little bit. That's what you got to give them a lot of credit for that.

Q. What do you think your seed will be next week?
COACH JUDKINS: I hope not eighth and ninth. If that's the case, I'd like to be 11th. I think 11th is a great seed. We have a chance -- done well when they have that number. Seems like when I look at the tournament, one Mountain West team is always 11th. They probably have us slotted in there.
Hopefully we'll be able to get that. I knew if we won today, we'd have a pretty good opportunity of maybe getting a little higher seed in the tournament.
You got to play somebody. You got to go out and do it. Doesn't really make a difference. We just got to go out and have a great week of practice, be ready to go.

Q. You talked about yesterday the team that executed best would win. Both teams struggled out of the gate. Did they pick up their execution? Is that what happened?
COACH JUDKINS: I think the first half -- first five minutes, both teams struggled. We just -- I don't know, seemed like we were just out in left field the first 15 minutes of the game. We missed a lot of easy shots. We didn't finish when we had it. They came in and Briody hit a couple of baskets, got them going. Then, you know, we had spurts the first half.
The second half I thought we played a lot better. Mallary looked for her shot better. She let it come more. But for some reason Kubik just didn't get the ball where she normally gets it. You got to give New Mexico credit for that. Their post defense was a lot better.
I don't know if we get it into her like we should have early in the game. Kubik for some reason has a better second half than first half. Try to tell her she needs to be aggressive the first half, but she worries about fouls. We shot 20% in the first half, which we usually don't. We're a better shooting team than that.

Q. What was it when Kubik fouled out, did the teammates miss her leadership? Were they rattled by her departure?
COACH JUDKINS: I don't know if they were rattled because Kubik's fouled out of a lot of games this year. I think the way she fouled out, the way the ref called it, the crucial part of the game, just maybe that was upsetting to them.
I don't know. I think it was a lot of combinations of things. Usually this team, when somebody fouls out, your best player, sometimes -- this team the whole season kind of got closer together and just kind of buckled it up. I thought we'd be fine. Riley was playing well today.
I thought, you know, we're all right. I had Riley rested. We came down and just didn't execute, turned it over a couple times when we shouldn't have. Just can't do that against a good team.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks very much, coach. Good luck next week.
COACH JUDKINS: Thank you very much.

End of FastScripts

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