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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 11, 2009

Angela Hartill

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

New Mexico Â– 62
Colorado State - 48

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by New Mexico student-athletes Angela Hartill and Amy Beggin and coach Don Flanagan. Coach, if you could start with some general remarks about the game.
COACH FLANAGAN: Yeah, first of all, I want to compliment Colorado State. Played with great effort. They appeared that they didn't have anything to lose and they came out and played that way.
I thought their defense in the first half bothered our offense, got us out of our offense a bit. We missed an awful lot of shots because of their pressure. And then their offense was difficult to defend because they've got some pretty good drivers and then they've got some pretty good shooters. For a long period of time there was a pretty darn competitive game. I thought because of these two players to my left we kind of closed it out in a positive way. But, again, Colorado State played an excellent game.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Angela, it seemed like they decided to double down you a lot. Can you talk about how you just decided to take them on the perimeter.
ANGELA HARTILL: Uhm, I felt that was the only thing that was open since the doubles coming from the other post player, I thought it best to clear them out so I could hit the other post player that was open.
So that's basically what I tried to do.

Q. From where we were sitting it looked like an extremely physical game. Was it as physical as it looked like?
AMY BEGGIN: Yeah, I thought it was really physical. Both teams were battling. Colorado State drives and drives and drives. They were attacking almost the whole game. At the end we finally started to attack back at them. But it was really physical both ways.

Q. Amy, have you ever hit a shot like that in a tournament? We watched you all year long sink shots. The one that bounced up and kind of fell.
AMY BEGGIN: No, I haven't. It kind of felt good to get a bounce go our way. Seems like we haven't had one of them in a while. I was struggling a little bit with my shots. My teammates stuck with me, just stuck with that shot and we got a lucky bounce.

Q. It seemed like you were able to keep Amaka Uzomah, she got her rebounds but wasn't getting the points like she did yesterday. What were you able to do inside to keep her from being an offensive force for them and make her a defensive-type player?
ANGELA HARTILL: Just try to push her off the block as far as I could basically, and just give her a little bit of space because I noticed she likes to drive, she likes to spin. By me stepping back and keeping my hands up, it was difficult for her to shoot over it. So that's what I tried to do.
THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll dismiss our student-athletes. Thank you, ladies. Open it up to questions for Coach Flanagan.

Q. What's different going into this game against Utah? Now that you have a day's rest, anything you're going to do different?
COACH FLANAGAN: Yeah, but I'm not going to tell you (smiling).
You know, both our games with Utah were difficult games, close games. And down the stretch they were more effective offensively than we were.
We're hoping that we can execute, keep it close again, and execute better down the stretch.
But I think the most important thing with Utah is that you defend their two great guards as best you can, because you can't stop them. And then make it a rebounding game, you got to win the rebounds. They're very good in their possessions. They shoot a high percentage shots. They're very good free throw shooters. They really don't have a lot of weaknesses. Their only weakness might be that they haven't played in this tournament yet and we have.

Q. It seemed like in the first few minutes Angela was dominating in the paint, then they kind of did something to change that and force her to the perimeter. Was it something they did or did you feel she got away from the paint game?
COACH FLANAGAN: Well, usually we're trying to take what they're giving us. They were doubling a little bit and then being physical with her. I allow the player pretty much to determine that. She's a player that's an inside-out player.
What they did well, I thought, was they mixed up the zone and man. So we were running pretty well against their man, and then all of a sudden there's a zone there. I think that gets us to slow up a little bit.
I didn't think we adjusted too well. By them mixing things up, it helped them defensively. And then so we were always kind of struggling to get into whatever offense it was.
Angela just figured it out. I figured she'd start hitting sooner or later. Then, of course, Amy's floor game is excellent. Then she gets you 20 beside that and then she chases everybody and defends as well as anybody in the league. I think she might be the best defensive player in the league, just because of her effort and her quickness.

Q. Again with Amy, what is it like having a point guard like that at the end of the game that can nail down a win like that?
COACH FLANAGAN: She's a gamer. What it's like to coach somebody like that is a pleasure. She's a team-oriented person. I would say she's a throw-back kind of player. You're always going to get effort. She's extremely dependable. And she does so many little things.
You know, I think she got double-figure rebounds if I'm not mistaken. I think she had 10 rebounds. She gets 10 rebounds, 20 points, takes care of the press, defending their toughest kid. Later on she's going to cook supper for all of us (laughter).

Q. At the end of the game for about the last five minutes or so you had kind of an unusual lineup on the floor for you. Was that just an attempt to kind of match up with their quickness?
COACH FLANAGAN: Well, I hadn't played Nikki throughout the game. Their point guard is a driver. I thought if we could get Nikki to put some pressure on her, that would relieve Amy to go play the shooters. Amy can get over screens better than anybody. Really, Nikki's a good defender on the ball. So I thought that really helped us late.
They were having difficulty real late because of the pressure on the point guard, not allowing them to start their offense, and then Amy being able to get over screens better than anybody else that we had out there. So that really helped. I thought Nikki's contribution, although she didn't play that many minutes, I thought those quality crucial minutes were very important to the team.

Q. Back to the double on Angela. It opened up a lot of shots on the perimeter. Yesterday you knocked them down. Why couldn't you knock them down today?
COACH FLANAGAN: That's a good question. You know, you never know from game to game how kids are going to react to it. And I think there was a little bit more pressure, run-out pressure on us. I thought their defense was quite good.
If you have free shooting with your team, they're usually pretty accurate. But then you put somebody with their hands up, they drop down about 10%. Then somebody that's all over you, probably drop down another 10%. So when people contest shots, it's much more difficult to be accurate with shots. You really have to focus on the rim.
I think every team has that kind of difficulty from time to time.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach.
COACH FLANAGAN: Thanks.

End of FastScripts

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