|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2010Chelsey LeeMonique OliverKhadijah RushdanC. Vivian StringerHARTFORD, CONNECTICUT West Virginia – 56 THE MODERATOR: We will open first with questions for our student athletes, please. Q. Chelsey, at the end of the half there you guys had the picked-off inbounds, pass and everything. How much did that raise the emotions of the team heading into the locker room, and what happened in the second half that you guys fell off? CHELSEY LEE: It definitely did help the momentum, but coming out second half we always tell ourselves that the score is 0-0 or we're down by 10 so we come out with more of a fight. But I think we sort of lost our heads a little bit, and they made a couple of good runs, and they got hyped and they fed off of it, and we just couldn't recover. Q. Late in the second half after West Virginia went on the 12-0 run, you guys turned around and put on a good press. What was going on there? What was the main goal of the press and how did it inspire you guys knowing you were getting closer and closer? KHADIJAH RUSHDAN: We always play with fight, you know, and I think that our 55 is what shakes a lot of people up, and we usually go to that when we're down. I think we did a good job when they broke it a couple times, which killed our momentum a little bit. But for the most part that 55 really brought us back. Q. Monique, how do you feel going forward knowing Coach wants to play you in crunch time this early in the season? MONIQUE OLIVER: I'm going out there trying to do the best I can to help the team. So I'm trying to keep a cool head and knowing I need to help the team. Q. Di, it looked in the second half like you guys were down a little bit. Last night you came back. Tonight you guys came up a little short. What do you think the difference was between last night and tonight? KHADIJAH RUSHDAN: We had a couple breakdowns, just last like night. Me made the runs and Coach always said teams are going to make their runs. As long as you can make them, I think they went up 10 on us, we came back, they went up 10 again and we came back. We just fell a little short tonight, but I think we did a good job of fighting. Q. Khadijah and Chelsey, despite the loss tonight, you have a run here that probably puts you into the NCAA tournament. Can you talk about how your season has gone? KHADIJAH RUSHDAN: I think we've picked it up, as Coach says, better late than never, although it took us 31 games to get here. We made a really good run. I believe a lot of people doubted us and didn't believe that we could actually get this far. So I have faith in my teammates. We're praying and hopeful that we can get into the NCAA tournament, and when we get back, we're just going to keep working. Q. Khadijah, do you think at the end of everything, three nights, the double overtime game, do you think at the end of the game tonight it just became too much, that you guys were running low on energy? KHADIJAH RUSHDAN: Oh, no. The type of practices that we have, you know what I mean, prepare us for situations like this, and we practice hard. We practice a lot. So going into double overtime playing in this game, that's what we do, and we love this. We love to play like this. We just fell a little short. Q. Chelsey, is there a sense of accomplishment from this trip? CHELSEY LEE: Definitely a lot of people thought we'd be going home after the very first game, so it's great to see that we've come this far to play up until now. But I just hope we get promised another 40 minutes. I believe if we are promised another 40 minutes that we will make the best of it. It'll be in our hands and our control to make sure we get it though. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. Questions for Coach? Q. Do you think they did anything specific to sort of contain Brittany throughout the game and give her problems? COACH STRINGER: I thought they played as aggressive as they always do. It's an outstanding team. But I thought that we were just really a little wound too tight. I think that we all wanted to do better, especially Brittany and April. But as a result, we were running, it was a lot of wasted energy because the extra steps that we were talking about, going into the lane and screening and coming back out, allowed us to calm down a lot more, and it happened the last couple of minutes, but it was a little too late. We were getting on the lane and trying to outrun it. You're not going to outrun anybody no matter what. There were too many times we were on top of each other. I know what we need to do. We'll be okay. But Brittany had a tough time, and she just needs to do a better job of freezing her cuts, and we need to do a better job of screening. But I think she knows. She's so bright, I'm sure she'll take the tapes back and look at it and know what she needs to do. But all credit to West Virginia; they did a great job. Q. Coach, Mo had I believe 29 in three nights here. How important, I guess, will her ability just to score off the bench be for you guys if you're in the tournament, just her efficiency, I guess? COACH STRINGER: Yeah, Mo is efficient. She has been offensively efficient. Can you imagine how much better she's going to be when she knows when she's supposed to go, because she really doesn't. She knows the vast majority of the things, but believe me, there's a whole lot of things -- and when we start looking a little confused, it's because there's a lot of stuff coming at her. But I'm extremely proud of her. She rebounds hard. She makes great passes. She's the best passer on the team. I mean really, when you consider guards or post, she's an outstanding passer, and she has a high percentage of conversions. If you foul her and one, she's going to be the person that's going to get it done. I like her enthusiasm. I'm really high on her. She and Chelsey are the future of our Scarlet Knight team. I'm glad that you made the statement actually that you did, because I don't know that they understand how significant it is in a game of this magnitude and to play someone in those last few minutes, then obviously I have a lot of trust, a lot of trust. So I've got a job to do to make sure she knows all the things that she's going to know because she's going to be major for us. Q. How hard is it for your team to win, however, if you don't get more points out of Brittany, just given how you're made up? I think you did it last night, but it's got to be tough for you guys. COACH STRINGER: Yeah, it's real tough. You know, let me say this, though: It doesn't just have to come from Brittany. I think it's a bit much, because you have to consider that Brittany is not a kind of shooter that manufactures her shots. She's not getting away from anybody. So unless she sets shots up and screens up -- that's why I said that. Unless she sets screens up better and unless we screen -- but she's got to do her first part. She knows. She just got anxious. When that happens -- it's not going to happen. We've got two parts to this. If we can get April to shoot, then that'll take a whole heck of a lot of pressure off Brittany. If I can get Erica to calm down, because Erica helps out there on the floor. Brittany, Di, those guys were tired. The point guard, Miles, that was running that cut, if you consider that we were playing in that double overtime, that should have never happened. But in order to break that cut so Miles doesn't get it, you have to have wings on your feet as well. And we were a step slow on that, and that's where it showed up. When it kept coming like that, it wouldn't normally happen. They turned the ball over a heck of a lot more at West Virginia when we did not play two or three games back to back. But I think that there are three people more that can make a big difference, and we're going to do everything that we can to at least get one of those three to show up in a consistent way. And I think that that'll do a lot to relieve the pressure from Brittany. Q. Wherever you find out, wherever you land on selection Monday, I guess, what have the past three games taught you about this team that I guess you didn't know before you came up to the tournament? COACH STRINGER: I think that I didn't know that it mattered as much as it does. They're not a very emotional team. I think sometimes when a team has a lot of talent, I'll tend to be more of a motivator, someone who just gets them up, especially against the great games, and I say the great games, when you're going to play the No. 1 or No. 2, and it just takes you to believe that you have the talents that are there. This team, probably top to bottom, doesn't have anywhere near the same level of talent and experience. But knowing that, what I was much more concerned about was where our heart was. But they're not as expressive as a lot of teams. You're not going to see Brittany -- like I was asking her about why she didn't get the ball as much, and I was saying you're probably in the corner saying pass me the ball, pass me the ball, really soft, and someone else was saying -- Mat Matee, she would have been calling for the ball. With that said, it's just a softer team. But I was so proud of the way they stepped up to see how much it meant because a lesser team would have given up last night. A lesser team would have given up. But they never stopped, and I hear them saying the words, what it means to be a Scarlet Knight, and to finally understand. We had a game I guess against Syracuse and several players that I've coached before had a few choice words for the players as they watched that game that was beyond what I can even explain to this day. But I think that they understood that, you know what, there's a lot of people who wear the scarlet and white, and it means a lot to be a fighter, and that's what we've been. So you can never count us out. It's worth its weight in gold to me, because as I was sharing with the team, for the next four years, Erica is going to remember this and Mo is going to remember this, so the next time we're having new people coming in, they're going to know and be able to say with certainty this is what it means to be a Scarlet Knight. I'm really proud of them, and I just believe that it's a symptom of a lot of good things to come. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|