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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 13, 2009

Kalee Whipple

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

Utah Â– 56
New Mexico - 55

THE MODERATOR: We're ready to get going with university of Utah. Student-athletes are Kalee Whipple, Morgan Warburton, coach Elaine Elliott. Coach, if we could start with you.
COACH ELLIOTT: Obviously, I'm so proud of my kids. My team just -- it was just such a battle. They played it out to the end.
I tip my hat to a great New Mexico team. I mean, boy, did they have us on the ropes. They just -- they've had a tremendous tournament.
It's tough to beat any team consistently. It's really tough to beat a good team, and it's really tough to beat New Mexico. Just an amazing team, an amazing game.
THE MODERATOR: At this time, we'll open it up for questions for the players.

Q. I wonder if you could kind of take us through that last sequence with the winning basket, and if the poor shooting night was on your mind at that point.
MORGAN WARBURTON: You know, it wasn't. Elaine took me into the huddle before the free throws and said, hey, get the ball and do what you can with it. No matter what the score is, you've got to take it. Just that confidence with her and in my team. I wasn't thinking about anything else but winning the game.

Q. Kalee, talk about the foul shots at the end of the game. You guys had been doing so well the whole game. All of a sudden, not just you, but everyone started missing. What happened with that?
KALEE WHIPPLE: That's a good question. I think I just got in my own head for my sake with free throws. Thinking about it too much, overthinking. Don't shoot short, and then you hit short.
I mean, coach just said, Forget about it, we'll move on. With everyone else, I think everyone on our team did pretty well with free throws. I don't know.

Q. For both of you, how would you explain the difficult shooting night that you had, and how did you feel like you got back into this game with the big comeback?
MORGAN WARBURTON: For me, I think Josi and Sasha, those huge threes they hit for us was awesome. To come off the bench and shoot like that is just great.
When it's not going your way, you've just got to find other ways. We gritted it out on defense and tried to find other people to hit shots. And it happened that way.

Q. Morgan, traditionally in the past two games you guys have made a run towards the end against New Mexico at the Pit. They were up five, and you guys made a run. Why have you been able to make those runs against New Mexico?
MORGAN WARBURTON: I don't know. You can't really explain it. Elaine's been able to help us out, knowing that you just got to keep battling.
That's what this team really did, and I'm really proud of them. There's close games where we didn't come back and we just lost the game. This game was a lot better than most with those of us coming together and realizing this is our last chance to do something. We've got to make it happen. It's been against New Mexico all three times.

Q. Morgan, can you just maybe go back through the last shot a little bit, about what was any particular plan you had? Were you just going to do whatever you could? Did you think the ball maybe wasn't going to come out there? It kind of bounced around.
MORGAN WARBURTON: When I had it, I was going to shoot the three. I felt like it was there. And I just decided to take it in. Luckily it fell through.
I wasn't really thinking. I was just thinking, Try to get to the rim and make a shot, make a play. It went my way that time.

Q. What do you think the turning point in the game was? Your defense and offense seemed to turn around in the second half. What do you think the crucial turning point was?
KALEE WHIPPLE: I think Morgan already talked about it. On the stat sheet we had 17 bench points, and New Mexico had 7. I think that's a big turnaround point where our players came in.
Like when me and Morgan weren't shooting as well, they hit big shots for us. I think that turned us around and gave us some momentum to get defensive stops as well.
THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll dismiss the student-athletes. Thank you, ladies. We'll open it up for questions for Coach Elliott.

Q. I would imagine you were surprised to see those last two free throws from New Mexico pop out. What was going through your mind as that last play developed with Morgan?
COACH ELLIOTT: Well, obviously, Amy is so amazing. And she's the reason they're in the position to win. So on a personal level, it's always tough.
Obviously, Kalee's missed free throws. Had it gone the other way, she would have been the one that would have felt that way. That's tough. There's no doubt. I feel for any great player like that.
What was the rest of the question?

Q. I was just curious what was going through your mind as Morgan brought up the last shot.
COACH ELLIOTT: We were set. They don't usually remember what you've told them. It seems like they just -- the shooters go to the corners. Our kid inbounded, has to trail. Kalee's got to pick off a defender that's on Morgan. And Morgan has to know if you're we're down one, two, or three based on the free throws, what kind of throw she's going to make. Whether she has to make the three, go to the rim, if she's got shooters in the corner.
Kalee had fouled out. We had Sasha in the corner and Halie Sawyer is who we had left. That's the way we can play it with a player like Morgan. It worked out.

Q. Elaine, in this new format, did it feel weird at all not to play till Friday? Do you think not playing till Friday affected the game in any way positively or negatively?
COACH ELLIOTT: No. I just think the debate on the format's been off base. They talked about it.
It's sort of like whoever wins or loses, then you start talking about must mean somebody's tired, must mean somebody's rusty.
The reason that it was done was to try to get our highest seeds in the semis, which I think is still the best thing for our league. It did a better job of it than the year before. This year we had 1, 2, 4, and 7 in our semis. Everybody still has a chance. I think that's probably better for us in the long run.
Last year we had 2, 4, 6, and 9. So as far as what my understanding was as far as what we were trying to accomplish and how we could help our league, I think that's good. In terms of each and every game, I knew that whatever happened, if somebody asked me, Oh, were you rusty today? The answer is no. It was going to be no. It would have been, No, New Mexico beat us.
You come and play under all different circumstances, and you do that all year long. It's not about not having practice time on a floor. It's none of those things. We play on everybody's floor, and the kids have played there four years and you come in and play one night.
It's not part of the discussion for us in terms of what should be highlighted. What you highlight are the two teams playing, and that was a very, very amazing, competitive game.

Q. Elaine, the decision to play McDermott, McKinnon, and what their contributions were and why the coach didn't play them earlier in the season more.
COACH ELLIOTT: Well, Sasha wasn't even available. She's had knee surgery - her third knee surgery -- second knee surgery. She hasn't played for three years. So she was hurt all of preseason. And it's just been basically back with us the last four weeks.
And Josi McDermott is a kid who, quite honestly, I thought she'd never play for us because she had back surgery last year. She didn't play last year. She was coming off her back surgery and was out in our pre-season. Neither one of them has had any kind of a real season of preparation to play certainly in those circumstances. But that's our bench. That's who we have. I'm just so proud of them obviously.
It gives us more firepower because they do have better offensive skills than our point guards. So you obviously noticed that we played Morgan at the one to try to get some people who could help us on the offensive end because that was obviously -- I mean, we weren't really stopping on the first half either, but we also needed to catch up. We had to do a little bit of both. They just did a great job.

Q. Can you talk about the gumption your team has had to pull out three close games against New Mexico.
COACH ELLIOTT: It's been -- you know, whatever. It's pretty amazing because of New Mexico is amazing. You know, this game really was just -- I was just a cheerleader for 20 minutes. I just wanted them to just go to war because I -- you know, New Mexico battled; the first 20 minutes was theirs without a doubt.
So we were just asking that, Listen, this is -- we don't want to go down without a battle. They just seemed to respond.
I kind of feel foolish. I'm not sure I've ever been quite that animated. I just sort of didn't know what else to do.

Q. What do you think the problem was there in the first half in the first part of the second half, where you guys couldn't make defensive stops and your shots weren't falling?
COACH ELLIOTT: That would be New Mexico. They're just -- you know, they're just very good. They're very well coached. You know, they can take advantage of mismatches. They're all inside-out kids. They can drive the ball. They can shoot.
That's just a very tough team to match up against. We were not able to contain them in the first half and starting into the second, without a doubt.
After that, I mean, there was a lot less pointblank. We stayed between them and the basket better. If there's one thing we did, that's about it.
We also did a pretty darn good job on the boards in that regard. That changed. You know, neither team had this amazing offensive rebounding night. But I felt like the loose balls were there and sort of the second chances were theirs. I feel like maybe that changed in the last ten minutes.
THE MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you, coach.

End of FastScripts

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