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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2009Carly BensonKevin BorsethJessica MinnfieldINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Indiana – 68 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with a statement from coach and then go to the student-athletes for questions. COACH BORSETH: I'd like to thank the four seniors that are sitting here for all they've done for Michigan basketball. I know they've been four very hard years, trying to get the program turned in the right direction. I know the year didn't turn out probably the way they'd have liked it to, or the season ended probably the way they didn't want it to. They really exerted themselves for the two years I was fortunate enough to coach them and I'd like to thank them for that. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Jessica, what made their press so effective in the second half? JESSICA MINNFIELD: I don't know. They were just pressuring us a lot. We couldn't get in the right spots. Either our passes were too long or they were too short. I felt like we were moving really fast. It just wasn't falling in our hands. Q. What do you think was the main problem today? CARLY BENSON: I think we've taken care of the ball a lot better than we did today. I think we're capable of playing better basketball than we were today. I guess that's a little frustrating to end on that note. Q. Carly, what is it about that outcome that happened so many times this season? You have been in the lead, then sort of fallen off. What is it about that? CARLY BENSON: I think if we knew, we would have fixed it obviously. We don't know. I'm not sure. THE MODERATOR: Okay, ladies, you're dismissed. Thank you. We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. What were some of the things that you did or talked about in the second half to try to counter the press? COACH BORSETH: That's kind of what our really demise has been. Every time someone's pressured us during the year, we've struggled. That's really what it's been, the problem that we've had, right from the get-go. When people put pressure on us, a lot of times we aren't physically strong enough to be able to handle that. It really surfaced today. We had to beat someone off the dribble. That was really the bottom line. You had to beat someone off the dribble on that trap, and we weren't able to do that. Try to substitute and put ball-handlers in. Unfortunately we don't have a lot of them. Jess is our primary ball-handler. Really presses are not very complicated to beat. If you can take one person off the dribble, they're not very complicated. We couldn't get by the first wave at all. That was frustrating. Q. Can you talk about the importance of momentum swings, specifically in this game. COACH BORSETH: It all had to do with that press. That was the whole giddy-up. Thought we had a good game plan coming in. They went to a man. We got them out of their zone. When they did, our offense went from being around the basket to being close to halfcourt. Our emphasis at halftime was, push back, lower your center of gravity, get more toward the lane. Instead of complaining about them shoving you for rebounds, get back. They're being physical. You got to be a little more physical with them. I thought when we started the second half, we did a pretty good job with that. They lowered the boom and trapped us. We couldn't get out of it. Presses are not very complicated. They really are not very complicated. You got to get out of the first wave. We got out of it a number of times and then at that point just came unraveled. Q. You played Indiana about four days ago, had a very similar result. Did it hurt you having to play them again right away? COACH BORSETH: I'll be honest. I was really hoping that someone wouldn't do this to us all year, what happened today. We always stayed at bay with teams, never really made them mad. You know what I mean? I think Indiana is very athletic. They're athletic. They've got athletes at all their guard positions. They took their big kid out, put four perimeter kids in there, just run-and-jump type scenario. I think that was probably the difference in today's game. But it's always been the same scenario. It's always been the other team just a little more physical gets up and invades our space a little bit and we don't do real well when they do that. As long as they're at bay, we can do some things. But you got to be able to do things with people up on you a little bit. That really hurt us today. Q. You're a coach who doesn't have a lot of patience. Has it been hard this year dealing with everything? COACH BORSETH: It's been hard for everybody. The players, they really, really, really tried. That's what you want your players to be able to do. It just didn't work out. It's hard going into that locker room after every game. It is. Putting a week's worth of work in and I don't want to say failing, but failing at your job I guess to a point. It's hard on everybody. It's not just hard on me. It's hard on them, too. That's what the game's about: it's about the kids. Q. Krista Phillips was scoring pretty good early in the second half. Did that press just take her out of it, too? COACH BORSETH: We didn't even get a chance to look at her. Never got a ball across halfcourt for about five minutes, did we? I don't think it even got across halfcourt. We tried. Put Courtney Boylan in there because she's a good ball handler. Tried Carmen Reynolds. Tried to break anything we could potentially break. Jessica Minnfield was having trouble. When she did have it, she went down into the corner and picked it up. We just did some things -- you got to be able to get by somebody. Got to be able to get by somebody in that press. You got to be able to beat it off the dribble and create. It's just not possible for you. They just pass through presses. You have to be able to put it on the floor. When we did put it on the floor, they knocked it out of our hands, reached behind us. We just weren't very good with it. Q. You said at the beginning of the season, coming in last year, you really wanted to establish a tradition of women's basketball at UofM. Would you call this season a step back or how would you characterize it? COACH BORSETH: I don't know. I think people watching, you've got to determine whether or not they see basketball on the court. If they see the kids are having fun, if the kids are trying. I think they did. I don't think they kids ever gave up. I thought the entire year they played hard. You want kids that do that. I thought the entire year they played together. You want kids that do that. I thought they played smart. I'm biased. I think it resembles basketball. It really does. We're not the most gifted at times in things that we do. Melinda Queen is a great player, she really is. But when you have to match Linda up against Jefferson (Michigan State) who has two inches and 30 pounds on her, that's a little more difficult. [Veronica] Hicks is a little thinner, too. It's more difficult. [Krista Phillips] got better as the year went on. Today she was really good as the day went on. Carly Benson I thought really came on strong at the end of the year, she really did. I thought she had a great end of the year. It's going to go in the right direction. Anybody that's a naysayer, we're going to make it go in the right direction. We feel we're headed in the right path. This might have been a step backwards. I don't know that. I looked at where it was two years ago. The program never had a chance in a lot of games that they played in. I think we were in just about every game we played. There were not many games we were out of. This one here was probably the bitterest for all of us. Not bitter, but what's the word I'm looking for? I don't have a word for it. This was a game we didn't want to end on this note. We didn't want to end on this particular note, going down fighting. It's going to work. It's going to take a matter of time before it works, but it's gonna work. I think we've got the right people in place. Happy with our recruits we've got coming in. We're gonna make it go. Q. It seems like you had a habit of getting down on yourself mentally when things started to unravel. What can you do as a coach to keep that from happening? COACH BORSETH: Well, you got to be able to dribble around somebody. Have to be able to dribble around somebody. This isn't rocket science. You got to have a player that can get around somebody. You got to dribble around somebody. We're in the right spot. We got the right people taking the ball inbounds. We think we're putting it into the right player's hands. You got to be able to make things happen. I thought for the most part during the course of the year a lot of times we were in the right spots. We didn't make shots a lot of times down the stretch. Other teams did. But you got to be able to score down the stretch, got to be able to put the ball in the basket. We averaged 53 points. That's not a lot of points to average in a basketball game. You're not winning many games averaging 53 unless you're really holding the other team down. Got to be able to score in this game. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Kevin. COACH BORSETH: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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