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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2010Barnes AricoShenneika SmithDa'Shena StevensHARTFORD, CONNECTICUT Notre Dame – 75 THE MODERATOR: Coach, we'll start with an opening statement, please. COACH McGRAW: I thought it was an outstanding basketball game. Both teams really did a nice job. It's unfortunate for us they came out with a win at the end, but they're a great program, and I think we had an opportunity today to showcase ourselves against one of the best teams in the country, and we pretty much held our own. So I think that says a lot about our young ladies. I was proud of their effort. It came down to the wire. I think it's a great game for the Big East Conference, and I hope we all continue to do well in the NCAA tournament. Q. Shenneika, you made your first five shots out of your first ten. What were you seeing early on in the game that allowed you to make those shots? SHENNEIKA SMITH: I thought that the baseline was really opened and they wasn't really focused on me as much and my point guard was able to find me. So I thought we should run that play until they stopped it, and it was really easy, so we just kept going until they stopped it. Q. Da'Shena, you went down early with it looked like an ankle injury. Could you kind of go through what happened there and how you're feeling right now? I saw you limping on the podium. DA'SHENA STEVENS: I think I landed on my foot wrong or tripped over somebody's foot. I don't know what happened, but I just rolled my ankle, and it was bothering me a little bit, so I taped it up and put my ankle brace on. It's sore right now, and I'm just going to rest it for the next couple of days. Q. Kim, you had some tough calls and things go against you late in the game, and your team is obviously very young. How much was youth a factor in just not handling that adversity do you think in the last four or five minutes? They went on like a 12 or 14-2 run there. COACH ARICO: Yeah, I think today was probably the first time in some time that we showed our inexperience and youth down at the end. Our kids got extremely frustrated by it, and we tried to continue to stay positive, but I think it really affected us. You know, that's why it was a great game for us to play going into the tournament, and I told them today we're the new kids on the block. Notre Dame has been here before. They were No. 3 in the country this year. Those things can happen, and we just have to be able to handle those things and continue to play. So today was a tough one, like you said, down the stretch, and they are young. But it was a great experience for them leading into the tournament. Q. Kim, the most wins for this program in over 20 years, almost 30 years. Does this loss in the quarterfinals diminish things? You'll get obviously at least one more. Did you expect to go further with this team? How do you just sum up the way the team has gone up to this point? COACH ARICO: We just played the No. 6 team in the country, I think, so it doesn't take anything away from our program. If we come in here and beat them today, what does that say about us? We've already beaten them once. So I think we gave them a heck of a game, and the ball didn't bounce our way at the end. We missed a ton of free throws, as well. I felt as if the game could have gone either way. It shows our kids that we can play with anybody in the country, and we are for real. Right now we're No. 16, but we're excited about an opportunity to go to the NCAA tournament and see what we can do. End of FastScripts |
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