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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2008Shamela HamptonSequoia HolmesRegina MillerLAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE MODERATOR: Coach if you want to begin with some opening remarks on the game please. COACH MILLER: I thought that we had opportunities in the first half to try to build off the lead. And we got some stops. Basically, they had 13 turnovers early in the first half and we just didn't convert enough of those stops. I felt like we needed to change the momentum of the game by building a little bit of a lead. We got stops from our defense. And we were able to I think get it to four points. But other than that, you know, then we let them right back in. I think you got to get it up to 10 or 12 and force teams to play from behind. Then for the most part I thought there was one run during the game, and Hunter, their best three-point shooter, one of the best three-point shooters in the league, hit two big threes midway through the second half. Then we obviously missed a couple checkouts, gave them some second-chance opportunities. And they converted those. And that was the only run of that basketball game. I certainly wanted it to be UNLV instead of CSU. They made the run and took the momentum from there and down the stretch. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, coach. Q. Sequoia, their coach said that she changed her defense on what she did against you previously, going from a box to this time going to the diamond in the second half and did some other things with it. Did it throw your game off when they changed defenses on you? SEQUOIA HOLMES: Not particularly. I think what was key is just that I just have to make plays. As a player, when I do get my opportunities to make open shots, I got to hit those shots and just look for my teammates to contribute what they can. And when I do get opportunities, to make plays. Q. Shamela, it seemed like they got a lot more physical as the game went on and kind of matched your guys' physical play. Did this seem more physical than the other games against them? SHAMELA HAMPTON: I felt that they were a little bit more physical. But as them being physical against us, I don't think that should have took us out of our game. Think we should have just focused more and play hard and let the refs call the foul on them, and just mentally stay in the game and do your job. And my job was to post hard and, as Coach Miller told me, that's what she wanted me to do. And eventually I got the calls. Q. You guys were on a losing streak coming in. When they started making their run, the team started pressing even more. And just how difficult is it just to end the season this way? SHAMELA HAMPTON: I think it's difficult to end the season this way, especially for Sequoia because she is a senior. You know, next year I have another opportunity to win the Mountain West conference. And I just -- I'm really upset that the season has to end this way. But, you know, it was on us. We made the season, and, you know, our conference game to end this way. SEQUOIA HOLMES: Yeah, it's difficult ending the season this way. Especially knowing that everything this season that happened to us as a team was mostly -- everything was in our control. The close games that we were in, even from our pre-season schedule where we could have had -- had them down and either we didn't execute to keep them down or we had made runs toward the end, and we didn't at the last second execute a play or get a defensive stop. Everything that we've accomplished or didn't accomplish this year was in our control for the most part. And we could have made our season better just as a team. I just think that that's the most disappointing part about it, is that not many other teams made us what we are; it was basically on us. Q. Sequoia, I wanted to ask you just when you're facing a team that's winless in conference play, they've lost 20 in a row, even if you try really hard not to focus on that, does that somehow enter into your thinking that this is a team that maybe you don't have to take as seriously as if you were playing a Utah or BYU? SEQUOIA HOLMES: I think not for UNLV, not at all. Because we know that we as a team underachieved this year. And we don't have time to think, Well, this team might not show up. We need to think UNLV needs to show up every single game, every single play of that game. Doesn't matter what somebody else's record is because we know that our record isn't where we want it to be either. So we can't really -- we respect all. Q. Did you feel like your team was focused and everything more this way, the way they should have been going in? SEQUOIA HOLMES: I felt like we were pretty focused. I mean, we had a goal in mind. Just when we got to the point where we needed to stay in our run, we didn't really execute. And that's what hurt us pretty much all year. Q. Sequoia and Shamela, that run they made toward the end, you guys had the one-point lead, I think 44-43, whatever. Then Hunter hits those two threes and just seemed like everything kind of caved in. Is that what kind of turned the game in your guys' minds? SEQUOIA HOLMES: In my mind, being that the game is over now and I can say that we didn't really sustain their run, yes. But in the game, that wasn't our focus. Our focus was to stop their run and try to, you know, maintain and execute our offense, like stop them from scoring, and not let her get easy shots off, and let them get their momentum and their confidence going. That was our focus at that time. But, yes, since we didn't sustain a run, that was pretty much what it looked like and seemed like. SHAMELA HAMPTON: In my mind, I didn't think the game was over. Coach Miller told us, you know, at that time-out we need to D up on Hunter and don't let her get any more shots off. And the coach -- you know, the team was hyped up and said, We can't let her get any more shots. I think in everybody's mind at that point we knew the game was over and we were just trying to focus on things so we could execute and end up winning the game. Q. Do you think Coach Miller should come back next season? SHAMELA HAMPTON: I think Coach Miller -- -- I think she should because she's great coach. I mean, you know, we've been through a lot this year. One thing I can say about Coach Miller is she always had faith in us no matter what. She never gave up on us. She never quit on us. So next year I think she should come back. Just the fact it's my senior year and I want to have a good coach like her to graduate over. SEQUOIA HOLMES: I definitely think coach should come back I definitely think coach should come back because I spent four years here with her. And a lot of the times everybody else doesn't see what goes on inside the lines. Coach Miller is somebody who really cares about each student-athlete, not just as an athlete but as a person. And I really grown playing in this program and understand her tutelage. I just think that she has shown that basketball relates to life, and personally life is more important than basketball. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, ladies. Q. Did you notice when they made the defensive change? I mean, Jen said she changed defenses to the diamond about the 16-minute media time-out. Did you notice that? Or was that something you guys could see or was it something that wasn't so obvious at the time? COACH MILLER: Well, for a team like CSU that places a lot of emphasis on running and practicing their offense regardless of what defense they decided to play shouldn't disrupt what we wanted to do offensively. I think when you play junk defense, you know, obviously the middle of the floor was wide open. We didn't need to run much offense. We needed to attack from top end, diagonal, and what we talked to our post play, or even Sequoia, anyone in that particular area, just to step to the middle of the floor and shoot a soft touch in front of the rim. We didn't need to run much offense. We just needed to attack the basket. And we really struggled trying to make that adjustment. It was a little bit -- you know, the diamond looks like an odd front, this, that and so on. Obviously matching Sequoia, we know she is going to draw attention regardless of if she has two people on her. She's played with two or three people on her all year. It was nice to see her actually have more assists and turnovers today, because that mean she's was looking for her teammates. So even if she dribble-penetrated against it, teammates moved to the open area and stepped up and hit open shots. We missed too many open shots. They hit open shots. Players that are penetrators for CSU hit open shots today. You know, and we had some wide-open ones at key times and we didn't knock it down. And I told the team that it certainly would open up Shamela a little more in the paint if we would knock down some of those wide-open shots. That's pretty much how the game's played. Either you are going to execute better than your opponent. I don't feel like their defense really distracted us. We made the adjustment; we just didn't make the adjustment on the court, which was unfortunate because we wanted to be very fundamental in our attack with our point guard. And we were not. And we threw it away by trying to make the air pass instead of the bounce pass into that area. Again, that's part of executing your fundamental skills. So, you know, the bottom line again for us is that you are going to score from defense. And we got enough stops, and we didn't convert our stops into points. You know, you can only set that defense on a dead ball. You know, if you are running an up-tempo team, you don't allow teams to set their junk defense or their zone defense because you are in attack mode. I don't know if you noticed late in the game that we finally fed Shamela to score in the first post, and that was there whole game. But that's just that connection in seeing each other. You got to take advantage of the gaps and the holes in the defense. Q. Regina, considering the whole season and how it ended, a 20-point loss, 19-point loss to a team that hadn't won two games all season? COACH MILLER: I don't think of it that way. Yeah, it was a 19-point loss, but obviously it was closer than that. Q. I am saying, is this almost like the most disappointing? You lose and you are done for the season, but is this the low point for you with all that's what happened? COACH MILLER: No. It's been -- as the players said, it's been challenging most of the season. One thing that has been difficult, because I don't think we really built anything this year of consistency, and you can tell how that game played out, you know, where we have an opportunity to make a run from our defense or from our stops, and we didn't take advantage of that. And then, you know, it's a close game. We allowed them to go on the run by hitting a couple of shots. And then, you know, we missed, I thought, some key checkouts and gave second shots and we got beat on a couple backdoor cuts. And when teams push on us or when they're challenged, you know the old saying is that: When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Instead of digging in, I thought we gave in. And that's kind of been indicative of how things have happened to us, you know, this particular season. And as the players said, a lot of that we've been in control of. So when teams start to push on you, you got to push back with your game. And that's with the execution. So I thought that was a key time for us. And so the inconsistency in the game is kind of how our season has gone. Q. This you feel is a low point then? COACH MILLER: Well, it can't be. We came into this game obviously very optimistic. I think we just didn't build. You know, early on we had some disappointing, some tough losses, games that we probably could have won, should have won if we hit a free throw, make a lay-up, get a defensive stop, as they said, you know, build the confidence. And I don't think we built confidence in what we were trying to get done, our game plan, and committed to that and sticking with it when it gets tough. And that happen to us early. You know the mental psyche of young kids. You know, either they get over the top. You know, we played a very challenging schedule. I mean, if you look at our schedule, every team we played in the non-conference were either -- I think we had seven or eight teams that made it to post-season last year, or more than that, the NCAA tournament. So we played teams that were either going to win their league in a league that might not have been ranked as high as ours or we played teams, you know, the Big 12, GW was a great win. Thought we would build off that. We had a great win, but we also had a lot of disappointing losses. We played teams out of the PAC-10. So, you know, then our conference is ranked sixth in the nation. I mean every game's going to be a tough game. For some reason it seems as though UNLV seems to attract, you know, the intensity of other programs a bit more. It doesn't matter what type of team we have. On any given year people want to come in and beat UNLV. I think it's what's been done prior to this team, this particular year. So we can't look at it that way. We have to look at it that we didn't learn a lot from a lot of mistakes. We have to grow from those mistakes. Q. Regina, there's obviously going to be some conjecture about your job status. What's your take on that? And can you make a case for why you should still be the coach here? COACH MILLER: I don't feel like I really need to make a case. I certainly don't feel that way. You know, we obviously had a tough season. I've been here at UNLV for ten years. And, you know, we have a team of eight newcomers. And, you know, we had I felt like a good core of returners. If you look at Shamela Hampton, had two knee surgeries in the off-season, and she played this whole year. I think she might have played 40 minutes today. But she's probably just back. She is still a little tentative. I don't know if you watched the way she moves on the court. She played most of the season as a shell of herself. I think obviously Sequoia Holmes wanted to do really well. But one thing I challenged Sequoia with is that Michael Jordan never won anything until he made others better around him. And he scored a lot of points, but they didn't win any championships until everyone else was in the flow of things. And I thought she had some of those capabilities. And I thought she probably tried to her capabilities to get that done. It's a learning process. You know, next year as a fifth-year senior, which she's not going to be here, maybe she would be better. Who knows. You know, maybe down the road in her professional career she'll be better at that. Sometimes it takes longer than others. Brittany Halberg, you know, we anticipated that she would provide us some consistency. And she's a great player, running the offense. That doesn't mean that you are a tremendous point guard by making others better either and the decisions you make with the basketball. So those are some of the key players that we relied on coming in. Other than that, the majority of our team are all new. It's like having eight freshmen in a system. So learning that, and with the schedule we played, you know, we had a tough season. I said we didn't build anything, we didn't build that confidence. Perhaps maybe we should have gone out and played every team that was, you know, between 250 to 300 RPI in the non-conference, get all these wins, but I don't think it would have necessarily prepared us for this league. So, you know, I feel, you know, as the coach here at UNLV we had a tough year. I've been here ten years. This is our first tough year. You know, all I can do is stay focused on helping this program reach its goals, and that's my focus. I enjoy coaching at UNLV, and I plan to be the coach here in years to come. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, coach. Appreciate it. End of FastScripts |
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