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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 11, 2009

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by TCU student-athletes Helena Sverrisdottir and Shayla Moore, and Coach Jeff Mittie. We'll start with some opens comments from Coach Mittie.
COACH MITTIE: Well, I thought Vegas clearly outplayed us. They had to beat a lot of people tonight. They'd have beat a lot of people tonight. When they shoot 52%, shoot 43% from three, almost 90% from the free-throw line, they're going to beat a lot of people. It's tournament time. You catch some people with some momentum, just a wave of enthusiasm and passion, anything goes.
I thought we waited too long. We got off to a decent start, but then that run right before half killed us. If we could have kept it at 10 or 12, I think we would have been okay. But they ran away from us.
We fought hard in the second half, but just came up short.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Can you talk about the play of Hampton and Smith inside. Did you expect UNLV to be able to be as strong inside, both defensively and offensively as they were?
COACH MITTIE: I think the thing that we had done to them in past games was we really disrupted their rhythm offensively. They had better rhythm tonight, so they were able to get the ball in there. They only had two turnovers at halftime. Last time we played them, we forced them into 25 turnovers.
We know how good Smith and Hampton are. They're both more physical at times than we are. We're more of a finesse team. We needed to disrupt them out front more than we did in the first half. We didn't play with enough energy to do that.
THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student-athletes first, then we'll get back to coach, please.

Q. Helena, how difficult is this loss for you, as leader of this team? What goes through your mind now that you have time to sit back and reflect on the game?
HELENA SVERRISDOTTIR: I'm just really disappointed, of course. I feel like we could have come out here and played a lot harder than we did.
A lot of it is on me. I feel like I could have stepped up better in the first half. We made some mistakes. We weren't on the same page as a team. Right now, it feels really bad that we just lost this game, so...

Q. Could you talk about the new format, whether you like it, don't like it.
HELENA SVERRISDOTTIR: I don't have an opinion on it really. I guess that's how it is right now, so we just have to go with it. Whatever.
SHAYLA MOORE: Just me personally, I don't think we were too much worried about the format. It's new. Everyone has an opportunity to get a championship. That's what we were coming out to do.

Q. Shayla, you came out with a lot of energy in the second half. Immediately when you came into the basketball game, you got into the flow.
SHAYLA MOORE: Energy is something that we really didn't have in the first half. So when I got my opportunity to play, I felt that I could bring the energy. And my teammates just kept feeding me the ball. It kept going from there.
THE MODERATOR: We'll let the student-athletes go at this time. We'll continue with questions for Coach Mittie.

Q. You have beaten some really good teams this year. Obviously this isn't the way you anticipated your season coming to an end. If you had to make a case to the NCAA selection committee, what would you tell them?
COACH MITTIE: You know, I think if the NCAA committee's listening to coaches making a case across the country, if that's what they're going to base it on, we're really in trouble. I think our rÃ©sumÃ© speaks for itself. Obviously the wins over Cal and Maryland, and specifically a road win at Cal is something that you think they'll take a look at.
But we have other wins in this league. You go back a week ago to Utah. We've got some good wins. I mean, we'll see where it shakes out. I've been in this a long time. A lot of it just depends on what happens across the country.
Now you're getting me to make a case. I guess that was the reason for your question, huh?
I don't know all the parameters of those things. This is a disappointing loss. It's hard to get your head around that. I'm really proud of this basketball team, though, because this team has really, for a new team together, four sophomores, Younger has only been started -- she maybe started five games. When I took the timeout with 40 seconds, that timeout was just about me telling them how proud I was to be their coach because this team has really worked hard.
So I think they've done a lot this season. Whether that turns into an NCAA tournament, I hope it does, because I'd like to see this team play. We haven't shot the ball very well lately, so that has really hurt us. If we shoot the ball, we're very dangerous.

Q. For this team now, how do you get them to regroup mentally knowing that they put a lot into this tournament, preparation for this tournament, now into the post-season situation?
COACH MITTIE: Well, that's a good question. I'm not sure. Obviously, I'll sit back and take a look at that.
If you look back the last three weeks, every game has been a grind. I mean, the 41-38 over New Mexico, the Utah game. We dug ourselves some holes in those games. We went out to San Diego and were down 14. Came all the way back and had it tied with four. So, you know, we'd been down this road before.
I don't know. This group's fine mentally. I mean, they're hurting right now, guys. In the locker room, they're hurting right now.
I think my job is just to really just tell them that I'm not judging this team on one game. This has been a great group to coach. Out of my 17 years, this has been one of the most enjoyable years I've had as a coach with the team.
I'm hurting for them right now.

Q. What did UNLV do different offensively to be more effective in this game after you had been so effective against them earlier in the season?
COACH MITTIE: The one thing we noticed last night watching them play is they were very committed to getting the ball inside the zone. They've shot a lot of threes against us the last time. That's really what we want you to do, is to fall in love with that three-pointer.
Tonight they hit more threes than they ever had against us and shot it less than they ever had. So we knew this was a team playing with great rhythm, and certainly more committed to getting the ball into the areas that hurt the zone.
They really attacked it inside. They did a good job of -- people against our 1-3-1 have tried to get physical in the blocks against us. They have personnel that can do that. So they just mixed that up very well.
I thought, watching 'em last night, I thought they were a much more committed team. You know, new coach, getting what she's trying to get out of them. This team, everybody always gets caught up because they struggled so much early, but this team beat Utah a couple weeks ago, this team had San Diego State on the ropes. This is not a big surprise here that they're playing very well and playing at home very well.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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