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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 15, 2008Beth BurnsQuenese DavisAllison DuffyJene MorrisLAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE MODERATOR: Coach, if you want to just begin with some opening remarks about the game. COACH BURNS: We'd like to open with just great congratulations to University of New Mexico and Coach Flanagan for just a fantastic game. I thought their team did a terrific job exploiting everything that we had. They're a great champion and I know that they will represent us well when they get an opportunity, especially to play with their home fans the first two rounds. So that's great for the Mountain West Conference. They're a class act. Today's game, you know, I think the most things I was trying to get across to our team, that we are right there and we kept it close, because our foul situation, any flow that we might have had, made things really challenging. It was really disruptive. I think that Dionne Marsh is a great champion and I think she's been the most valuable player here before. She fouled three of us out. Came close to it. That's a credit to Dionne. I think that Quenese did a fantastic job all week, but especially today. She and Jene, they're running mates. I think coming into the game I knew that both Jene and I felt that Brandi Kimble and Jene are the two best defenders in the league. And I knew it was going to be a battle. But unfortunately Brandi didn't get the chance to guard Jene because Jene spent most of the time on the bench with foul trouble, which is really the first time all year. She's really never, ever been in foul trouble. I know that now that you've seen her for three games, it's remarkable with the kind of pressure she consistently puts on the ball. She's that good. Her feet are that good and she doesn't foul. That was a bit of a loss for us. I think both Paris and Allison struggled today. A lot of big bodies being thrown at 'em. At the end of the day, rebounding does win championships and we struggled I think beginning, middle and end in that area. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Quenese, could you take me through the last shot, whether you thought that was going in. QUENESE DAVIS: I was just trying to get it as close as we can, just cut the lead, get the ball up. Q. Jene, do you see this as an end or just the beginning? JENE MORRIS: I definitely see it as just the beginning. Our team has definitely grown since the beginning of the season. And even though it's a disappointing loss, there's definitely hope for the future. I think we finally found ourselves in this tournament. We gained our confidence, and we finally found our flow. So it's definitely the beginning. Q. You're taking this loss hard, really hard, aren't you? QUENESE DAVIS: Yes. JENE MORRIS: Yes. I'm taking it very hard. I mean, you know, we work so hard, we fought hard the first two games of this conference. I mean, we fought hard today. Just didn't go our way. Like coach says, sometimes you aren't able to cut down the nets. But we were right there. We were right there. Q. Were you playing with heavy hearts after what happened yesterday? ALLISON DUFFY: Well, of course we were. But I just think we kept her in our mind and just kind of wanted to take into consideration all the support she showed our team. It was more like we just wanted to put it out there and play as hard as we could because we knew she wouldn't want us to give up in the end, not to let that get us down, so... I think that pushed us even harder to play hard. Q. Allison, can you talk about how foul trouble changed your game today. ALLISON DUFFY: It affects you a lot. I mean, offensively and defensively. When you're working with so many big bodies on offense, you have to watch out for offensive fouls. Then on defense, I mean, with Marsh, as good a player as she is, you can't, you know, go as hard as you want to guard. So when the ref is telling you to back off, you need to lower your contact, it's kind of hard because it affects your defense. With foul trouble, you have to take it down a notch, so that does hurt. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, ladies. Good job. Questions for Coach Burns. Q. Could you describe how proud you are of this team right now and what they've done the last four days. COACH BURNS: Yeah, it's been a remarkable week. This one is not in the manual, how to put -- I can't even put it into perspective. I think we've grown so much. Before the game, right before we went out, I said to them, I only have two words -- which for all of you that know me, they probably know that I was making that up. I said, I have two words. One of them said, You've already exceeded your two-word limit. And the two words were: thank you. This is why we do what we do. Usually I say they kind of like you when they're around, and 10 years later they remember that they love you. But to watch people grow up in front of your eyes, at the end of the day, you get an opportunity to play in a championship game, on a whole lot of guts. No matter what was thrown our way, it's been remarkable. The most exciting part obviously is maybe this was a little bit of future. We got a little taste, which how fantastic is that for the hunger that will fuel us? Not just the hunger, but the experience. I mean, look at Brandi Kimble, look at Dionne Marsh, look at the experience, because they've done this so many times. Every game we've played in was a game. The experience and the confidence that we take from that, you know, if we're fortunate enough to continue our season, whether it's the WNIT bid, which would be great to add to it, or just to springboard us into next season, would be great. Q. What do you think your chances are NIT-wise? COACH BURNS: You know, we've been locked in this little conference bubble for about four days, so I don't know who's winning and who's losing. I mean, I think it kind of comes down to that. In my case, the wrong people have to win games. You know, you need some NIT people -- like New Mexico just made somebody mad, because I'd like to think that both of us had to win the game to get in the tournament. So we need some more New Mexicos out there to win some conference tournaments to give us an opportunity. I know we've bid to host. But we'll just have to wait and see. Q. Can you talk about that final three, when Quenese threw that up, what was going through your mind? COACH BURNS: We were fortunate we had a little time to get organized 'cause Coco had never -- I bet you knew that was Jene's spot. But we had kind of a little misdirection screen where either Quenese or Coco would set up for a three. And I actually kept both my bigs in with Sandy who can shoot a three-point shot as well, because I thought they were rebounding so well, even if I put a fourth shooter on the floor, if we missed it, I thought I'd need two rebounders to throw it out to three. Players make plays. You saw that yesterday. That's why I put Coco at the point and Q -- I wanted Q to make the decision. Make the decision. You think you've got a look, take it. For 15 years, if she doesn't have it, she knows where to find her sister. All you can ask for is a chance at the end. She had a good look. It almost went down. Q. I know you look at this team right now, you did this in three days with seven or eight players on the bench. You have two sophomores, two freshmen. What do you see your ceiling being? COACH BURNS: One of our signees won a California state championship last night. That's pretty cool. We've signed four more that are coming in. I guess we kind of accelerated the future with the misfortune of Shanna Demus' injury, because that was going to be our biggest loss, from the complexion of this year's team to next year's team. I think Coco Davis had a fantastic tournament. Coming in as a freshman, that is really big because even though the other ones you say, of course they're young, but they've been playing all year long. I'm really excited for Coco, for her confidence level. There's nothing better than to get -- you know, the guy who comes in 257th doesn't usually cry, it's the guy who comes in second. That gives you the hunger and the passion to do what you got to do. They're great kids. They're great competitors. We'll work hard. We'll learn and come back. It's exciting. I'd like to think we've only just begun. But today is the Lobos' day. Q. Was this a worst-case scenario where they beat you up pretty good inside on the boards? They out-rebounded you by like 13. COACH BURNS: It's our biggest area of weakness. Consistently all season long we very rarely have out-rebounded opponents and really focussed just as much as we can to keep them off the glass. It's not surprising. You know, it would have taken really a huge effort on our part. Not that we didn't, but day three, we were asking a lot. They get the ball. You know, we had one, I would tell you, like point-blank missed assignment. Brandi Kimble is the best 5'9", if she's that, on a good hair day, rebounder in the country. She's relentless. And it was just we got physically overmatched a little bit. The want to was there. This is what I said to the team when I said, not everybody can cut down the nets. If we played really poorly, we'd feel bad. We didn't play really poorly. We got in a ton of foul trouble. And they were great. I thought they played very, very well. Q. Early on they went on that 7-0 run to open the game, you called a timeout. Seemed like you fired them up, you went on a run. What did you say to the team? COACH BURNS: Not the best start. Well, we opened the game. Two of our five ran the wrong set. First ever championship game. So play through it. Play through it. Just needed to calm them down. Just needed to remind them where they go. I look like I'm firing them up, but we just yell all the time. We love each other. We just are yelling. It's a positive thing. We're all emotional. But it was more just encouraging. C'mon, let's do what we know how to do. I think that just settled them down to get playing. Q. You upset No. 2 and 3 seed, almost knocked off No. 4. Utah was also upset. Do you think that shows the strength of this Mountain West Conference? If so, how many bids do you think this conference will get for the NCAA tournament? COACH BURNS: Well, part of the reason we think we've been able to sign such good players in these last two classes is, thanks to Don Flanagan, Elaine Elliott, Jeff Mittie, eight tournament bids over the last two years, then two years ago obviously all five winning their first-round game. We're one of the top seven RPI leagues in the country. I thought coming in that Utah and Wyoming were a lock. New Mexico was my dark horse. I said that yesterday. So nobody thinks I'm making that up. I thought TCU, only because they struggled in the non-conference, may have to get to the championship game. I'd be really disappointed and surprised. Wyoming has earned it by what they accomplished last year going through the run in the NIT and the non-conference wins. I mean, Wyoming and Utah to me should be in. Obviously New Mexico's in. The one who has a chance, because of the good Oklahoma State win and how they finished their last 10, TCU is the tournament team now. That's a good basketball team. Wherever they're seeded, they can win a game. But I'm not in those smoke-filled rooms, so I don't know. I would hope three and I think we have a chance at four. THE MODERATOR: Thanks very much, coach. COACH BURNS: Thank you all very much.
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