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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 15, 2008

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

THE MODERATOR: The all-tournament team is Sara Hunter, Colorado State; Dionne Marsh, New Mexico; Brandi Kimble, New Mexico; Allison Duffy, San Diego State; Jene Morris, San Diego State; and tournament MVP, Dionne Marsh.
Coach, if you want to begin with some comments on the game.
COACH FLANAGAN: First of all, congratulations to San Diego State. They played a heck of a game. I'm not sure anybody knew who was going to win that game with about two minutes left to go or three minutes left to go. It was a highly competitive game.
From our standpoint, it took us a while to get accustomed to the speed of the game. They're very quick at every position. I thought the first half it took us a while to get effective at all on our offense. We started moving a little bit more, setting some more screens, trying to get the ball inside. I thought getting the ball inside was the key.
And then Brandi slashing and Dionne posting was about the best that we could do.
Coming right down to that last shot, they fouled Amy, first of all, with eight seconds or nine seconds left to go. And Amy's a very, very accurate free throw shooter when the pressure's on her. She hit both of those. It made it a three-point difference.
Then at the end we were switching all screens. We were fortunate that that ball didn't go in because they shot it up there. Didn't look like it was even close. It rimmed around there.
Again, congratulations to San Diego State. But I thought our two seniors were just outstanding playing another great tournament for us.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach.
Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Was part of the strategy to go in and put them in foul trouble? How much damage do you think you did to San Diego State?
DIONNE MARSH: Well, they're a very physical team. When you play in the post position, it's going to be physical anyway. You know, it has somewhat to do with kind of somewhat experience and hustle. When you're a little bit older, you know a little bit more things to do, you know, to maneuver, get around players, make sure you're getting into position.
So the girls from San Diego State, they played very well. They're going to be very good coming up in the next two years. But we were just the more aggressive team towards the end and we kept our poise and we did well.

Q. Third tournament MVP. Talk about that. What about the tournament gets you going?
DIONNE MARSH: That was like totally unexpected. Brandi did like exceptionally well today. Especially there towards the end, I was having a little bit of trouble offensively.
But it's a great honor. I mean, I'm sure nobody would not want it. But the team did well. As a team, we played our best basketball, I think, as of yet. And hopefully we can continue that going into the tournament.

Q. You talked yesterday about how the team seemed to grow as the season went along. Can you talk about how they showed that poise at the end of the game.
DIONNE MARSH: Yeah, like I said, San Diego State plays well. They're going to keep fighting. They're going to keep hustling. We had a lot of practice with that all year, trying to gain poise throughout games because we've lost a few games by five points or less.
The fact that you keep playing those types of games gives you more and more experience. The more we play, the more the girls should be used to these type of situations. And everybody was just ready.

Q. Playing in the Mountain West Conference tournament year after year, having the success, how much does it help you?
BRANDI KIMBLE: We're very fortunate, you know, to have the chance to go there. It means a lot to us, especially me and Dionne being seniors. We're looking forward to it.

Q. Just talk quick about what, if anything, you two seniors told the rest of the team coming into this?
BRANDI KIMBLE: Actually, me and Dionne kind of talked to each other since we're seniors. We just said, We have to step it up. We're the leaders of the team. That's what we did. I think the other girls, they fed off our energy after that.

Q. Talk about the start of the second half. You go down six, they come out get a couple, down eight immediately. How important was it for you to get it going at that point?
BRANDI KIMBLE: You know, it was huge. But basketball is a game of runs. I think we handled their pressure really well. We just took one shot at a time.
THE MODERATOR: Ladies, congratulations. Thank you.
Questions for Coach Flanagan.

Q. I know you enjoy every championship, but talk about this year's team. How is this championship special?
COACH FLANAGAN: It meant a great deal, first of all. This is a team that had some failures. The top three teams in the league, we lost both times to them. All of those games were close. A lot of the times we had leads going into the last four minutes of the game.
So we had some disappointments throughout the year. For them to come back at this point in the year and play so well and play so confidently, that's a tribute to the effort they gave in practice and the determination they had when they came to this tournament to be successful.

Q. You had some turnover problems, 17, but none in the last three and a half minutes. Is that being tournament-tested or getting accustomed to the pace of the game?
COACH FLANAGAN: First of all, the speed of the game was not to our liking. They were faster at every position, so that didn't bode well for us.
Against them, 17 turnovers is not bad, really. I know it sounds bad. But UConn had 26 turnovers against them. UConn might be the best team in the country.
With the way they pressure the ball, what they do at every position, deny, it's very difficult to not turn the ball over. But as you said, we didn't turn it over in the last three and a half minutes and that's probably one of the reasons why we won the game.
I was trying to find a combination of players that would take care of the ball. Obviously you could see that I was subbing. I wasn't subbing Brandi out. I wasn't subbing Dionne out. I wasn't subbing Amy out. But the other players I was rotating pretty quickly. Trying to get them to be calm when they caught the ball to make good decisions on their passing because I knew if we got it into Dionne, she could score.
I knew with Brandi, Brandi could score on her player, also. So those were two players we had to get the ball to. I guess we did it just enough.

Q. Did you consider that last possession trying to foul them?
COACH FLANAGAN: I considered it for about one second. What I don't like about that is if you foul them, they go to the line, they shoot one free throw, okay? They hit that one. They hit the second free throw. They could tip it back out and actually win the game. That's the only way they could win the game.
To me, I know there's a controversy about it, it would depend on who handled the ball. If they threw it into the worst free throw shooter on their team, I might foul her. But other than that, I don't trust us to block out well enough to be able to get that rebound after a missed shot.

Q. The first couple times you played them, the zone was very effective. In that first half, seemed like they shot the lights out. What did you talk about at halftime on how to slow them down?
COACH FLANAGAN: Well, what I felt at halftime was that we had to match their effort, their hustle, their speed. It took us a half to get accustomed to the speed of the game. And once we got accustomed to it, we were a lot more effective as a team.
But I'll tell you what, I mean, they earned those shots. We played zone halfway decent, but they just knocked them in. I've never seen them shoot that well. I thought the zone would be much more effective against them. They actually got us out of the zone in a big hurry just because they could shoot the three so well. Normally they miss some of those shots, but they didn't today.

Q. Dionne wins MVP. Can you talk about Brandi's performance?
COACH FLANAGAN: I don't know how you make a decision between those two players. There's not two trophies, so you can't give them each a trophy. I don't know who was more effective.
I'll tell you this, Dionne has had great tournaments here, just tremendous tournaments here. Three out of four years being MVP, that's just unheard of.
But Brandi has always guarded the toughest offensive player on the other team. She played their toughest player and did an excellent job on defense there.
I couldn't make a choice if I was the one to make the choice. Since I didn't have that decision to make, I'm not going to make any comment about the decision.
I thought both of them deserved that trophy.

Q. Obviously automatic bids to the NCAA. With 1 through 3 seeds out in the tournament early, who do you see or who do you think deserves as spot in that tournament?
COACH FLANAGAN: Now I'm going to make some enemies if you make me say something like that (laughter).
I don't think there's any doubt that Utah deserves to go. Are you from Cheyenne?

Q. Yes.
COACH FLANAGAN: Wyoming deserves to go. I thought TCU had a good year, too.
We've done it before. We've had four teams go from our conference. It would be nice to have four teams go again. But we'll see what happens.
I do think we certainly will have three, and it would be nice if we had four. Sure has been a tough conference, I thought.

Q. As little as Porche has played, did you have to swallow hard before you put her in or did you feel like she had what you needed at that time?
COACH FLANAGAN: Well, I was in Vegas and I figured I'd take a gamble. When I put her in, I said, I'm shooting craps right now.
She's very athletic, long. She's gonna be a good player. She just hasn't learned some of the fundamentals she needs to learn. But I thought she could rebound and I thought she could defend efficiently enough that we could get some quality minutes out of her.
I thought we were getting a little fatigued at that position and a little bit standing around at that position. I wasn't going to play her too long. But she hit a shot. I actually told her, I said, You know you hit a shot during the game. I don't think she was sure she did score. She was probably a little bit in awe of the situation.
But every time I've put her in, she's played with a lot of poise. I see her being a good player in the future. Maybe she wasn't ready for that situation. But maybe because I put her in, she will be in the future.
THE MODERATOR: Congratulations, coach. Good luck next week.
COACH FLANAGAN: Thank you.

End of FastScriptsâ€¦

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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 15, 2008

Don Flanagan

Brandi Kimble

Dionne Marsh