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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 7, 2008

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

THE MODERATOR: For Minnesota we've got Head Coach Pam Borton, Kay Sylva and Zoe Harper. We'll start with an opening statement, then we'll take questions for the student athletes.
COACH PAM BORTON: You gotta give Michigan State a lot of credit for their defensive effort tonight making the plays down the stretch when they needed to make them. I was very, very pleased with what our three kids off the bench did for our team tonight. And they really stepped up. And we talked about how our bench was going to be the difference-makers in tournament time here and also post season. But we got 21 points from our bench with. Kay, Zoe and Korinne did an outstanding job. We just didn't get the job done with our five starters, especially down the stretch.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student athletes.

Q. Pam, what happened in the first half? Was it their defense, your poor offense, what do you make of the first half struggles?
COACH PAM BORTON: Didn't help us with Leslie picking up two fouls. She sat out a lot the first half. She helps us keep our poise out there. But I thought their pressure, really affected us, sped us up and forced us to take some bad shots. But the ball also wasn't going in the basket. I thought the kids did a good job holding the fort down on the defensive end and doing a great job rebounding and keeping ourselves in the game. It was a miracle that we were even tied at halftime with the offensive production that we hadn't had in the first half.

Q. Kay, can you talk about that first half and how that first basket that you hit that kind of broke the slump there, did you feel like once you got through the first half that things would be different?
KAY SYLVA: Well, coming into this game, coach said our bench would be our strength; people just needed to step up. And I knew coming into this game I needed to step up, hit some shots and stuff. And when we were in a draw, I knew me being in, they were going to leave me open, or if I have a chance I'm just going to take it. And that's what I was trying to do, help my team out in any kind of way possible.

Q. Follow-up to that. Once you guys survived that first half, did you guys feel like this was your game from that point on?
KAY SYLVA: Well, we came into the locker room, coach told us what kind of first half we had. And we were amazed that we were tied at halftime. We wanted to come out of the chute in the second half blazing. But we couldn't execute on the offensive end. I thought our defense was really good but just couldn't put the basket in the hole.

Q. Zoe, can you talk about the sequence there at the end; was it a matter of you guys not making plays and them making plays; did you feel like you guys were in control, you were up I think six late?
ZOE HARPER: I think they scored off like three baskets in a row and we just didn't have anyone at the end that wanted to step up and finish off the game. And I think at the end, Alisa got that rebound or whatever, tap, and we just couldn't grab the ball. We just needed to get a stop. We still had a chance to win it and we just let it slip away.

Q. Question for both of you. What's the mind-set going forward? I know that after that Wisconsin game when you had the end of the game poorly there, you bounced back from that, now you have the NCAA tournament coming up -- most likely but you never know -- what's the mind-set of the team right now?
ZOE HARPER: We have a week of practice before Selection Monday. And I think we'll go out there work hard and we just need to get better. And as Pam says just get better and that's what practice is all about. And you know Minnesota prides itself on not losing twice. I don't think it's happened very much during the season. So we're going to go out there and we're just going to work hard and get better.
KAY SYLVA: I agree with Zoe. We're going to get better this week. Focus now on the NCAA tournament and wait for selection day.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach.

Q. I wanted to ask you about DeHaan. When she plays with that kind of focus and just brushes off that bad first half, sits 17 minutes, comes back and responds like she did, what is she capable of doing in this league nationwide? Seems like she's completely different when she does play with that kind of confidence?
COACH PAM BORTON: Well, she's a great player, and I think she's proved for two years she's one of the best post players in the country. And great players make plays down the stretch. And she did. I mean she put them down by two points at the end and made plays, but she's a great player. And she's only getting better.

Q. When you look at this game, will you look at the first half more or just not being able to finish it off at the end? What was the biggest thing for your team?
COACH PAM BORTON: We'll look at our execution in the first half. I thought our defense was great. I thought our rebounding was great. We have to look at what happened with our offensive execution, and see what they did to us and what we need to do better and fix it this coming next week or two.

Q. With such a young team, is it a case where -- how much do you talk to them and try not to let this carry over into the NCAA tournament? Because I think two years ago you lost in the first round and in the Big Ten tournament and then lost your first NCAA tournament as well.
COACH PAM BORTON: I think that's two completely different years. And I think we've got a group of kids this year that are very focused and hard working and we've got great chemistry on our team. We've got a group of kids that want to play together as long as we can. So I'm not concerned about that. But when you get the tournament it's all about match-ups, and who you match up with and what bracket you're in and so forth. Our kids will bounce back and we'll get better and we'll be better because of this.

Q. In that stretch, right at the start of the game, were you getting shots that you wanted, or were you forced out of, into taking shots that you weren't real happy with?
COACH PAM BORTON: I think it was a little bit of both. And I thought that Ashley did a really good job in the first half just attacking the rim. DeHaan picked up a couple of fouls right away because we did a great job attacking the rim. I can't remember when the next time we attacked the rim in the post. I think we stopped doing that when Ashley was on the bench.
I think they did a good job on Emy. She didn't have a lot of open looks. Switched on a lot of screens and so forth. And I think Emy was probably trying a little too hard and so forth. But I think it was a mixture of both where we had some turnovers there all in a row and we weren't getting shots we wanted, and we were missing some shots that we were also taking.

Q. You talked about Emily Fox already; she was a big factor against Michigan State. Can you talk about the job that Brittney Thomas did against her?
COACH PAM BORTON: I think it was the whole team did a great job, not just Thomas. They switched on ball screens so there was never an opening for her to get a shot off coming off a ball screen. Off of penetration, there was two and three people there. I don't think it was just Thomas. She did a great job and kept Emy in front of her and contested all of her shots. I think it was a great team effort on her.

Q. When you look at a team like Michigan State, how hard are they to match up with in a situation like this when they have the caged animal syndrome knowing their tournament life is on the line?
COACH PAM BORTON: We knew that going in. I told our players they're playing with a purpose here and they need to get a couple of wins to get themselves in the tournament and so forth. And we beat them twice handily the first two times. It's tough to beat a team three times, but we felt we were in a good situation. But a team you've got seniors out there thinking we don't want this to be our last game and they're playing with their pants on fire that it's a different situation, especially coming down the stretch.

Q. Coach, looked like your game plan early on at least was to go after DeHaan. You got her where you wanted: On the bench. How crucial was it for them that you guys didn't come through and didn't force them to take her off the bench and allow them to basically protect her up to the second half there?
COACH PAM BORTON: Well, we didn't pull away. The score was close the whole first half. And you know if we would have built a lead they probably would have had to put her back in the game. And I don't think we did that. We were having a tough time scoring. The other kids did a great job defensively on us and they didn't need to put her back in the game.
But Leslie had two fouls in the first half and Ashley in the first half. And I think Brittany had two fouls. That prevented us from playing some players also.

Q. You talked a little bit about DeHaan. Talk about when she came back in the game and specifically the last seven minutes and not picking up a foul and how that affected her. Looked like she was able to attack both the shots a little bit better and also attack the boards.
COACH PAM BORTON: You know, when your best player on the team comes back in and she's six-nine, you know they're going to go to her inside, try to get easy baskets. She's playing a lot smarter defensively, kept her arms straight up. And she got pretty deep in the lane a few times and made plays.
And our whole game plan was to make her catch the ball further away from the basket where she's not as comfortable and not let her drop step in the lane. She drop stepped in the lane every time she wanted to.
She's a great player and one of the best players in the conference and she made two or three huge plays down the stretch in the last three and a half minutes of the game.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach.

End of FastScripts

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