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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONALS SEMIFINALS & FINALS: SPOKANEMarch 29, 2008Melanie BalcombJennifer RisperChristina WirthSPOKANE, WASHINGTON THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from coach and then go to questions for the student-athletes. COACH BALCOMB: I'm just really proud of this team. I think their improvement over the season has been amazing. I just, I feel bad for them not playing to the level they have been playing for the last two months. We didn't give it our best effort. Maryland's a great team. We got so good defensively and just didn't come out with that intensity and dictate and got down against too good of a team to really come back. But we fought back and I'm really proud of the way we handled ourselves in the second half. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. How did Maryland compare to Tennessee or LSU? JENNIFER RISPER: I guess to Tennessee they would compare, they're really good in transition, a really good offensive team. I thought they did a good job with their switching man. And then LSU just with their switching man and just being aggressive, being physical down low, that's how they would compare to those teams. Q. Do you think they can compete with them? JENNIFER RISPER: Yes, definitely. I definitely believe that they can compete with Tennessee. Q. Can you just talk about offensively it was a struggle to get some things going it looked like and especially from long distance for yourself. Were they doing something special with you? CHRISTINA WIRTH: Like Jennifer said, they were switching every time on pretty much all their screens, so I didn't get very many open looks. The ones I did have I just didn't knock down, and that happens. I think that all year we prided ourself on our defense, and that's how we win games. Every team's going to have a night where they struggle shooting the ball and you can't rely on that. And tonight we just didn't get it done on the defensive end. Q. For both of you, talk about the year in general, what you felt like you accomplished and what you're looking forward to in the future. JENNIFER RISPER: Kind of like what Coach said. We have come a long way. Just in the beginning of our season with one of our first losses to Indiana State if you look back and you see where we came defensively, offensively, we just formed together as a team on and off the court. We worked a lot harder as the season went on. Even last year just making it this far to the Sweet 16 that's just an amazing accomplishment in itself. So I guess I just would say that we came a long way from the beginning of the season, and we have definitely added. We know where we want to be next year. CHRISTINA WIRTH: We did great. We have come a long way. We have had a lot of adversity, and I think that it's made us stronger as a team. I think a lot of times when they face adversity they start to sort of go their separate ways, and that definitely wasn't the case with us, and I'm proud of our team. I think that our young players stepped up. And something that we talked about in the locker room was next year we're not going to be a young team, we're going to have a lot of players with a lot of experience, and we're just going to remember this feeling and build on it next year. THE MODERATOR: All right we'll excuse them to the locker room and take questions for Coach. Q. I asked the players about Tennessee, because the Maryland side of things they feel like they have been kind of left out of the discussion about who was going to get to the final. Do you think this is a potential finals team? COACH BALCOMB: Yeah, I guess so. I haven't watched any of the other teams. I have been preparing for Maryland. Q. You played Tennessee three times this year. Are they comparable to Tennessee? COACH BALCOMB: Yeah. I don't know. Q. Can you just talk about their offensive efficiency. It seemed like they got it inside with Crystal and then enough outside game Toliver, just the aspects you have to deal with when you're guarding them. COACH BALCOMB: Toliver handles the ball extremely well. She just has a really good sense of the game. I think it was really tough for our guards with our matchup with the different defenses, switching man, everything, we had so many different people on her, but she is really, she really reads the game very, very well and is extremely confident, and she can change speeds and take you off the dribble, penetrate and dunk to those posts. I think also getting 42 points inside in the paint was really something that hurt us. We gave Langhorne, a really, really deep position inside and again, that not dictating, but it's really hard to stop because of that balance where they have a great guard, all their other guards can shoot it and spread the floor and then you got Langhorne inside. That's a tremendous post player to have down there. So they have all the pieces to the puzzle offensively, and I think that's why they're so dominating on the offensive side. Q. Can you talk about what you saw the second half that you liked. What did you try to do at half time, and what kind of response did you get from your team? COACH BALCOMB: I just think our effort was a lot better on both ends of the floor. Especially crashing the offensive boards, finding other ways to score, instead of just shooting the 3. Down the stretch we had to shoot the 3 and couldn't make them, but attacking the basket, getting to the free throw line more, crashing the offensive boards. And even defensively I thought we did a better job. We went back to a lot of our matchups, and we did a better job keeping them in front. They still really hurt us on offensive rebounding and checking out. Q. Your thoughts on the season, where you came from and where you finished and what you're looking forward to? COACH BALCOMB: I'm really I think the best word is just very, very proud of a team that I think has, like said earlier, they have come farther than any team I've ever coached. And we were not a very good team early in the season. And since December they just really bought on to our vision as a staff and as leaders. They really stepped up. The two ladies next to me as juniors stepped up as leaders, and then the team stepped up with them, and they have worked extremely hard. They paid the price to get here. They gave us everything they had, and they bought on to a lot of changes in roles. And accepted those roles, and I just loved seeing the freshmen grow, the team grow closer as a team, and people being willing to get out of their comfort zone so that they were able to grow. And that's hard for 18 to 22 year olds to do. And I just, when I see players do that, I just enjoy coaching them. And I told them in the locker room, I had more fun than I've had in a long time coaching a team because in the last month they just, they were so easy to coach because you could coach and teach you didn't have to motivate. They already were extremely self motivated, they owned it, they took ownership of the team, they led each other and they worked their tails off. And so they were exactly where we wanted them to be. We didn't have the size and strength to matchup with Tennessee and Maryland, but we didn't lose to anybody that wasn't bigger and stronger and more athletic in the last three months. And in fact we beat a lot of teams that were bigger, stronger and more athletic. And that's what we mean by over achieving. Q. How much do you chalk up to their defense or just an off shooting night for you guy guys on the offense? COACH BALCOMB: I think they did a good job defensively. I always give credit to people that can make us take tough shots and they got us out of their flow by switching on a lot of screens. We did have looks and against a team and I said this every time we played great teams at the next level, that are Elite 8 and Final Four teams, you have to make shots. And we had shots, but I do think that they did a good job being extremely physical, but we had to make shots and didn't knock down shots that we usually make. And we're not a great offensive rebounding team, so we're a team that really has to not only do you have to play great defense, but against these teams, but you got to make shots. THE MODERATOR: All right. With that, coach, the interview's completed. Thank you very much. COACH BALCOMB: Thank you very much. End of FastScripts |
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