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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2010Kevin BorsethKrista PhillipsCarmen ReynoldsINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Michigan State – 61 MODERATOR: We'll begin with an opening comment from Coach Borseth. COACH BORSETH: I'd like to begin by saying the beginning of the year they picked us to finish 11th in the conference. Last. We didn't. We finished tied for sixth, which was pretty good. In our eyes obviously we'd like to finish a little bit better. I thought overall our kids played better today. We stole the ball ten times. We only allowed them six assists. Turned them over 17 times. Unfortunately, we weren't able to stay with them on the glass. I think that was probably the story. The tale of the tape. But it certainly wasn't lack of effort on our kids' part. I'm very proud of them. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. We'll take questions for the student-athletes. Q. Carmen, they seemed to contest every shot and make it tough for you guys to get open. Did you see it that way too? CARMEN REYNOLDS: I mean, yeah, they're a good defensive team and they're always contesting shots. And me in particular being a shooter, like everyone knows that. But I don't think it was any different from any other game. Q. KP, even without Allyssa out there in the second half, how were they able to dominate the boards? Especially offensively. KRISTA PHILLIPS: I think they're just a good rebounding team in general. I think that was kind of one of the things we wanted to do well. I think in the second half we didn't do as good a job as taking care of the rebounds. And I think that's -- I think you can tell from the session, I think that's part of the reason why we kind of lost hold of it in the second half. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. Questions for Coach. Q. Kevin, you guys didn't shoot well again in the second half. Is it their defense or just missing shots? COACH BORSETH: Well, I gotta go back and look. I looked at the last game. We got a lot better shots in that game. We didn't play very well I thought. We got some really good looks. We got some good looks down around the basket. It's critical to score on that basket. We had some good opportunities down there to score it. We just never made any of them. I think you have to be able to make some of those. It's a little tougher to get to the rim obviously because they really got the gaps shrunk and they're a lot bigger than we are, a lot more physical. They played good defense but they're physical. You try to get open and they bump. They're in you the whole while. It's body to body. It's a very physical game in the Big Ten. I think that's probably got a lot to do with it. Modify some of our movement, perhaps. But they're a pretty strong team. Physical. Q. Kevin, did you change your offensive strategy at all when DeHaan was out? COACH BORSETH: I don't know. Again, I go back to that first game and I looked at the shots that we're capable of getting. Kalisha Keane is a heck of a difference. Let's face it. It's 10-2 and they insert her in the game and it turns the game around. She's a pretty good player in this league. Very good player in this league. I'm surprised that she's not in the first five personally. She's one of my kids, I thought one of the best players. But that was really their answer for us is her. She's a really good player. We moved the ball freely. We got the shots we wanted to get until she got in here, then she tightened things up physically on us. I don't know that we were really, you go back and watch videotape, the way we watch it and you look at it, you'd be surprised sometimes the really good looks you get. And I think sometimes you get frustrated and you want to get better looks than the good looks you're getting. Does that make sense? Because you're not making the ones you got. So I think it's a combination of two things. Again, it's down low. We didn't get it down low enough. We didn't score it down low enough, certainly. And I think that was something we want to be able to do. So we didn't change a lot. We tried a couple ball screen things. We tried a couple double-screen things that we thought was effective. And we didn't hit any shots on them. Q. Is that a matter of confidence that your players lacked? COACH BORSETH: No, they're a pretty good team. You've got to give them credit. Q. But when you said you get a good shot, you're looking for a better one, is that confidence? COACH BORSETH: You know what, we took a couple of shots in the first half really early that we shouldn't have taken. We took some really quick shots. Probably five or six shots that we took really early in transition that we probably shouldn't have taken. We make them, we look good. But we just took them a little too early. Those five shots are ten points. We come away with nothing. So you gotta give kids freedom to do things. I don't know if it was a confidence thing. Some of it is because the defense was pretty good. Some of it is because you just don't get enough of them. Some of them because it's not in rhythm, it's a whole combination of things. But they're a pretty good team. Q. What do you think now about your post-season chances, NCAA, WNIT? COACH BORSETH: I don't know that NCAA is an option. Obviously we'd like to be able to do that. I think I'd really like to play somebody outside our conference. I think anybody in our conference would like to. I think we're realistic to look at a WNIT bid, obviously. Post-season play is pretty critical as we build our program. I think our two programs are in different stages. And we're trying to get our program to get us to the middle of the pack, and then just be that one player away from vaulting ourselves to the top, because Larry, Michael, Magic, LeBron, you get one of those kids in your program and all of a sudden you've got a good, solid base of kids around that. You can vault. We think we've got the right kids in. We've got kids that want to be at our university. We think we've got kids that can make things happen in the meantime. And chances of playing the post-season for us I'm hoping are good. We want a chance to play. Two teams, we told our kids at the end of the year only two teams get to finish their last game of the win. If they let us in the NCAA we'd like to be able to do that. Realistically being able to do it, you know, I'm an optimist, but I'm a realist at the same time. But going the other direction, I think we've got as good a chance as anybody. I think our kids are well schooled and I think they're hungry, and I'm very proud of them. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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