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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2009Ashley GayleGail GoestenkorsBrittainey RavenOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA Iowa State Cyclones – 59 THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by the Longhorns from the University of Texas. Coach, your thoughts about tonight's game. COACH GAIL GOESTENKORS: I don't know that you really want to know my thoughts. [Laughter]. It was rough. Congratulations to Iowa State. Have they played really tremendous team basketball. You know, they really rose to the occasion. I know it was tough for them with Ezell out, but I thought they just did a tremendous job. Alison Lacey basically put them on her shoulders and said: We will not lose this game. And that's what happened. THE MODERATOR: Okay, we start with questions for the student-athletes. Q. Brittainey, when you are in a game like that, 17 lead changes, and the other team up by more than four points till right there at the end, do you every get comfortable in a game like that? BRITTAINEY RAVEN: You have to take advantage of every position. You can't have empty possessions, turning the ball over. Every defensive possession you have to get a stop and you have to come down and execute on offense. And for us, unfortunately, we had a turnover and a couple of quick shots towards the end of game and it really hurt us. Q. Brittainey, talk about struggling in the first half, and then trying to overcome in the second half of the game. BRITTAINEY RAVEN: That's been the story with us all year. The first half we come out slow, and the second half we immediately pick it up. And in some games it might be a little too late. You have to come out with the same fire and intensity in every game. Q. Brittainey, can you talk about the play at the end where you had the baseline and the shot got blocked. Did you see the girl? What were your thoughts on that play? BRITTAINEY RAVEN: I was doing my best to focus on making the basket. There were two people on me, so one of my teammates was open and I probably could have kicked it out to somebody. Q. Ashley, you played a great game defensively, like 9 rebounds and 3 blocks. How frustrating it is it to know you brought that energy off the bench and it still didn't happen tonight? ASHLEY GAYLE: It's frustrated, but I just know that I have to bring the energy every game and not just for tonight. Q. Ashley, coming off the bench and all, stepping out, just talk about what it was to balance down inside, especially in the second half going down the stretch. ASHLEY GAYLE: Coach just told me to rebound, so I knew it was going to be a battle. It was a battle last time we played them, so I just knew as a team we had to go hard to the boards and box out and just play with a lot of heart. Q. Brittainey, can you talk about what losing Carla -- looked like she went down with an injury and came back up again. What did it do to your offense? BRITTAINEY RAVEN: Carla runs our team, and when she is in, I think everybody feels comfortable. To have her out we knew things would be different on the floor, but that's no excuse. Other people need to step up. We all need to step up and fill in for her. And unfortunately, we didn't do it the entire game. There were some plays, but we needed to do it the whole game. THE MODERATOR: Any further questions for our student-athletes. Okay, ladies, we are going to let you go. Best of luck to you in the NCAA. Coach, we'll let you take some questions now, if you don't mind. We will start over on the left-hand side in the middle and then we'll move to the front. Q. Gail, two questions. How is Carla? And secondly, was Stuckey about the last person in the world you expected to shoot a three? COACH GAIL GOESTENKORS: Yeah, Carla, she hurt her index finger in the last game. She fractured it in three places. So, she didn't practice with us today, and we weren't sure if she was going to play. But she wanted to try, and I thought she gave a valiant effort. But then, she hit it during the game again, and she was just in a lot of pain. So I didn't feel comfortable putting her back in the game. And, you know, when Stuckey hit that shot, it's, you know, I thought oh, no. [Laughter] It's their night. You know, that's just how it felt. Because she doesn't shoot the three. She's not a great shooter, she is a great competitor though. And sometimes when you are a great competitor, you make those shots. Q. Coach, talk about losing a player that runs your offense and then having to make the adjustment on the fly. As far as team, and as players. COACH GAIL GOESTENKORS: Yeah, I think, like Brittainey said, Carla, she runs the show for us. So, when she's not out there, you know, we had two freshman. Yvonne had a key turnover, you know, towards the end of the game at that point position, and so did Ashleigh Fontenette had a traveling call. Those are pressure situations. They both played great. I am very proud of the way they played, especially on the defensive end. And they had the attack mindset, but it was putting freshman in a tough situation, in a pressure situation, and at times I thought they played like freshman. You just would prefer to have your senior point guard out there. Q. Coach, your team didn't shoot real great in the first half. Did you think that was something that would turn around? Or did you talk about that at halftime at all? COACH GAIL GOESTENKORS: Yeah, we did. We talked about it. And once again we were pressing, shooting too quick. The goal was to have two ball reversals before we took a shoot, and that never happened. And again, we had one assist at halftime and that's just not the kind of basketball that is very pretty. It's not the kind of basketball I like to play. And we're just not very good when we're not sharing the basketball. So the second half I thought you saw a different team, especially at the start of the second half. We moved the ball, we went inside out, reversed it. And then we got shooters in their rhythm and it was much better. So, I told the team after the game, I said everything we need to work on are things we have control over. Moving the basketball, sharing the basketball, setting better screens. Little things that really make a big difference in big games. Q. Gail, how concerned are you about confidence at this point heading into the tournament with the recent losses that you've had? COACH GAIL GOESTENKORS: Yeah, well, most of our losses have been to ranked teams, so it's not like we've had bad losses. We haven't. But confidence probably is an issue. I'm glad we had several days now to just really get back to basics. And I think when you work hard and you work on the little things, I think you can get your confidence back, even if it's during practice. Q. First of all, is Carla going to be back for the tournament? And second of all, how do you regenerate the momentum going into the tournament after, you know, you played a rough schedule the last two or three weeks? COACH GAIL GOESTENKORS: Right. I think -- yes, Carla will be back. Like I said, I could have put her back in tonight, I just didn't feel comfortable with it because of the pain she was in. She will definitely be ready for the NCAA tournament. And then generating that momentum again, I think the thing we feel good about and I will reiterate to the team is that we played one of the toughest schedules in the nation. We are ready for anything that we may face, whether it's a team like Iowa State that just can really spread you out and hit the three, or a big, physical, very physical team like A&M or a team like Oklahoma who's got the inside, the outside and the Paris twins. I don't think we'll see anything that will surprise us or anything that we cannot be prepared for. Q. Hi, Gail. You know, you coached your own Aussie shooter, Jeff Foley, for a few years back. Can you expand a little more on Lacey and especially for her to come up on a night like this when she doesn't have Ezell out there? COACH GAIL GOESTENKORS: Yeah. I mean, like I said, she put this team on her shoulders. She was so focused and motivated. And she made us pay for every single mistake we made on the defensive end. And I think I need to go to Australia and begin recruiting again. Q. Continuing on the positive note, you have to be excited, somewhat, with the rebounding tonight. You talked about that all season. You finished with 15 offensive rebounds for this game. COACH GAIL GOESTENKORS: We're getting better with our rebounding. I think we got out rebounded last night by one but the game before we rebounded Oklahoma, which does not happen. People just don't out rebound them. Two of the last three games I think we have done a good job on the boards. That's an area that we have really been focused on. Now we will focus on our shooting and maybe that will help. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you for your comments. Best of luck in the NCAA. End of FastScripts |
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