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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS & FINALS: OKLAHOMA CITYMarch 31, 2009Danielle CampbellSharon VersypLindsay Wisdom-HyltonOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA Oklahoma – 74 THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by the Purdue Boilermakers, Coach Versyp, our two student athletes, Lindsey Wisdom-Hylton and Danielle Campbell. Coach? COACH VERSYP: I thought it was an incredible battle tonight. Oklahoma having as many fans, hopefully they broke the record for how many fans you can have at a regional, and the support that they have and how Oklahoma City has taken care of all the teams. I want to thank all of them first and foremost for their hospitality, but a very tough basketball game, came down to a lot of runs, they hit big shots, were able to get some offensive boards and we knew that would be a little bit of a problem. We came down and were knocking down shots and they kind of got that 4 to 6-point lead, we needed to get two stops in a row to turn the tide. We kept battling, but in the end they won. I wish Sherri Coale and her team the best of luck in the Final Four. Most of all I'm proud of our ladies, played very hard, never gave up. Obviously it's an intense environment. I thought we didn't back down whatsoever and we can leave here holding our heads high. Q. Lindsay, you guys were behind four points at the beginning of the second, was that the critical moment? LINDSAY WISDOM-HYLTON: I think they shut us down, they were able to come out and run, and I think we put our heads down for a second and they were able to get the lead and we started coming back and we couldn't quite get the couple stops that we needed at the crucial times. Q. Lindsay, you guys talked all week about "us against the world" mentality, was the crowd a factor or do you tune it out? LINDSAY WISDOM-HYLTON: I feel like we tuned it out the best way we could. We stayed well as a unit and communicated the best we could. It helps when you have a crowd of this size, and I think the crowd helped them is what I think was effective. But I think we were able to still tune them out. Q. Danielle, what was the feeling at halftime, up five? What did you think you needed to do in the second half? DANIELLE CAMPBELL: Coming in the second half, we thought that we needed to slow down the tempo and actually execute our plays. We were still up five, but we weren't playing Purdue basketball, we weren't running sets and executing. So that was the big thing we said we needed to work on in the second half. Q. Could you guys talk about what it's like to play against Courtney who just seems to come at you, come at you and pretty powerful in the lane? Could you talk about that? LINDSAY WISDOM-HYLTON: She's a great player. She got on the boards on us early, and I think she was able to get us in foul trouble and that hurt us. She plays her game really well and she is very physical and it's tough to defend her. That's what kinda hurt us, the boards early on with her play. DANIELLE CAMPBELL: Lindsay said it best, she's a great player and it's tough to defend her and she did get us in foul trouble. Q. I know this is an emotional moment, but when you step back, can you reflect, you guys got this far as a 6 seed, that's pretty amazing, wouldn't you think? LINDSAY WISDOM-HYLTON: Yeah, it is, I think we're the 6th team ever to do that, and I'm proud of what we've done. I feel like we could have taken it to the next level, we just fell short. DANIELLE CAMPBELL: What Lindsay said. We played hard all this way, we left it all on the floor, I'm just proud of our team. THE MODERATOR: Ladies, congratulations on a great season. Thank you. First question for Coach? Q. Coach, just the ride they put you on these last few weeks and the momentum they gave you and just everything they gave you this last month or so. COACH VERSYP: This team has been amazing. You hope as coaches you get them prepared to play in February and March, and we went through a lot of adversity, handled them very well, really empowered our players. This group of seniors have been amazing. That's what is so sad is now they're moving on to their next life, you know, after basketball. I think the biggest thing is they totally believed. You always try to figure out -- everybody says how does the switch go on? And a lot of that is confidence. You know, you can tell it, you can see the swagger on the court, the shoulders are back and it's just a different mentality. The mental imagery that we do, trying to keep it loose, all those things. This ride has been phenomenal, I'm trying to get them to understand it's a journey, it's a process, the end result isn't always great, but as you're enjoying the process, that's what you learn the most and this team is one of the most special I've ever been a part of. Q. They got a 7-point lead, you call time-out, you call a time-out, Brittany hits the 3 and you get it down to 4 and then they come down and Courtney and Ashley team up for another 3. COACH VERSYP: Our kids did a great job, every time I held up a card, they executed and we scored. We knew we needed to get a stop and Lindsay was trying to get them off the boards, but they're tall and they have long arms and have an opportunity to get the boards. Didn't break our back because we're going to keep fighting back but, again, you need to get stops and when we did we needed to make sure we scored and we didn't maybe a couple of times in a row. At the end we weren't out of it, we kept going back and forth and still doing good things, but we did fall short, obviously. Q. Coach, I wanted to ask you about those cards. I noticed that you were flashing printed cards there with your plays on them. Is that because of the size of the house and the noise? COACH VERSYP: It's not normal, but I think when you can -- you have hand signals, but when people are running down the court, sometimes they're not always paying attention and you're trying to figure that out. So when it started getting loud, I kept flipping the card and we scored every single time. That was the biggest thing, it's kinda that confidence with them. They knew exactly what they were going to run, they got into their spots and they scored. It was effective. Obviously we didn't win, but it was a big part of our success. Q. (No microphone.) COACH VERSYP: No, I didn't run out of cards at all. Q. You came out at halftime, and the first three minutes you hung in there, still up 7 and then five straight empty possessions. Do you see that as the difference in the game right there? That's when they went on their run. COACH VERSYP: Yeah, we had layups down low, didn't knock 'em down, you know, and that sometimes is draining. But there were times when they didn't score in the first half and that's why we had a 5-point lead, it just happened to be the reverse in the second half. Theirs was 23% in the first half, ours was 30%, but they were able to do some things, we were trying to execute, we needed to do that better. We were trying to go for the first option and then we got wrapped around it and doing the things that we do well and that's when we started scoring. Q. You came into this game in the last three tournament games shooting well. You picked it up late, but why was it a struggle for you to get that rhythm early on? COACH VERSYP: I think both teams were playing great defense. They shot 30%, we shot 23. They didn't allow a lot of three's, we didn't allow a lot of three's. I thought it was a very defensive game. A lot of people didn't have good looks. The looks they had down low were offensive boards and layups, but I thought it was a defensive battle that first half. Q. Despite this loss, the runs you've made, it makes people have to acknowledge that Purdue is among women's elite basketball? COACH VERSYP: Like we said before, we're the top-10 winningest team in the country, 15 Sweet 16s, consecutive NCAA appearance, three consecutive Final Fours, National Championship runner-up, and I think the stats speak for themselves. The coaches before me and my staff has done a great job and we're trying to keep with that tradition and being as successful as possible. THE MODERATOR: Coach, congratulations on a great season. End of FastScripts |
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