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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 5, 2009

Lisa Stone

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

Wisconsin Â– 60
Northwestern - 51

THE MODERATOR: We'll open up general comments from coach Stone.
COACH STONE: Very proud of our basketball team. Our post defense was solid, our ball pressure was good. We addressed rebounding at halftime. Told Tara Steinbauer to get on the offensive boards, on the weak-side boards, and she did. Nearly a double-double. Rae Lin D'Alie played nearly the whole game. Alyssa Karel does what Alyssa does. The help of our bench, Caitlin Gibson gave us quality minutes. Jade Davis off the bench, her shots were timely. I thought we did a decent job of valuing the basketball.
I'm proud we weren't playing another 40 minutes against a very good team. Hopefully the fact we played this first day is to our advantage. We'll get rested up for our game with Michigan State tomorrow.
THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Speak a little bit about the performance of your team today.
TARA STEINBAUER: All week we've been practicing on keeping the ball from getting inside. It's been one of the things we really stressed. I think our guards did a wonderful job on the wings with ball pressure, which was huge for us, so it was more difficult for them to get the ball inside. All in all, I think it came down to hustle and to playing as hard as we could, and we did that.

Q. Northwestern brought the score down to three, is that when you guys felt like something needed to happen?
TARA STEINBAUER: Absolutely. That's the moment of the game where we all have to come together. We knew that it was our turn to go on a run. I think we all came together. That's exactly what we did. Coach, in the timeout, she's been saying the same thing all year, our identity is in our defense, we have to maintain it. I think we did a really good job of that all game.

Q. Northwestern really narrowed the gap in the second half, did they play differently?
ALYSSA KAREL: Yeah, you know, in the second half they were really trying to stretch out our defense. I think that's where a lot of their points came in, where we would double in the post, they would kick it out to their open player.
After a few times out, coaches told us we have to have the best ball pressure we've had all year. I think that's where we kind of turned it around.

Q. You guys played well defensively today, can you talk about that?
RAE LIN D'ALIE: I mean, that's our go-to. Our defense is our go-to. We were happy but we weren't satisfied. They came out. They stretched us out in the second half. They got great skip passes. Brittany Orban knocked down some threes. They really stretched us out.
As far as the first half, I think that is what we're about. That's our go-to, is our defense. It wasn't as surprising as it should have been.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about the play of Northwestern?
RAE LIN D'ALIE: Oh, yeah, definitely. They're a great team. They just go hard all 40 minutes. You can't relax on that team. The moment you do, that's when they start to catch you. They're smart. Their coach has done an amazing job with them. They're much different than when he came in here as a freshman. Definitely all the credit in the world to them. You're not going to beat them if you don't play hard. That's the bottom line.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies, you're dismissed to the locker room. We'll go back to questions for Coach Stone.

Q. Coach, can you talk a little bit about the play of Northwestern today?
COACH STONE: Starting with Jade Davis, we're a defensive team. When you have an offensive threat, like Jade, she's a freshman in her first Big-10 tournament, Game 1, comes in very relaxed. Her first shot was quick. We don't really take quick shots. Those are ones, yeah, if it goes in, work the ball if it doesn't. She was in rhythm. Felt very confident. We come in an hour before the game not having shot in here at all. She found the bottom of the net right away.
They cut it to three. Jade went on her run. Her three-point shots, got right inside the defense for the two-point shot, that was timely, huge for us. Defensively I think she got mad at herself when Kristin Cartwright beat her off the dribble. Near the end, they were pressuring us, she was very confident with the basketball. She's proven she can make some timely free throws. I think our last opponent where she had to make some free throws was Michigan State.
Caitlin Gibson as a senior has been here. Time is diminished a little bit this year. But she's always ready. This was a great game for Caitlin. It's a game that suited her skill set both offensively and defensively. I kept wondering when we would go back with Lin. We had momentum with Caitlin. To save Lin Zastrow's legs under that four-minute media was huge for us. Made a nice high-low pass into Tara. Had a nice up-and-under move. Defensively she's a tough matchup. I can't say enough about those two.

Q. Can you talk about the difference between the first and second half today?
COACH STONE: I thought we came out right away in the first half with that. We talked about the first four minutes. We also talked about the second half determines whether you win or lose the game, it's that second half. They came out and got comfortable. They spread us out very well. Starting knocking down three-point shots, which means Amy Jaeschke is not scoring, but the other people are.
Again, that's a great credit to Joe and what he's done. They're not one did dimensional. Brittany Orban is a great freshman. She's a very good player. They've got a nice nucleus of players, a different look, a confident look for the future.

Q. Northwestern played really competitively all year, what does that mean for the Big Ten?
COACH STONE: It's great. The bottom of the league's getting better. That's huge for our conference. That's huge for the implications of post-season and the strength of our conference. I think everybody in the league did an outstanding job in their non-conference schedule, in terms of strength of schedule RPI. We're banging heads against each other 18 times. You come to the Big-10 tournament. I think you're seeing, in my hope, many teams in the NCAA tournament this year and in the future because of what you're talking about.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you. See you tomorrow.
COACH STONE: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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