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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2010Asya BussieMike CareySarah MilesLiz RepellaHARTFORD, CONNECTICUT Connecticut – 60 THE MODERATOR: We'll open right for questions, please, first for the student athletes. Q. This is for Liz. In many ways this game seemed to resemble the first game you played against Connecticut earlier this year where it seemed like for 15 or 20 minutes, a little longer, you guys were in it and all of a sudden in the blink of an eye the gad widened. Would you agree with that assessment? LIZ REPELLA: Yeah, definitely. I mean, we just had breakdowns on defense, offense, and you can't have those breakdowns in play with UConn. Q. Asya, could you just go through the defensive job you had with Tina Charles and kind of what you felt? You pushed her away from the basket quite a bit. ASYA BUSSIE: Yeah, we played off a little bit, just being a helpful style a little bit more and just living with that shot that she's going to see. Q. Liz and Sarah, can you talk about the job that you did on Maya Moore and Tina Charles for that first 25 minutes at least when they were 4 for 17, 4 for 13? What was it you were doing that was affecting them? LIZ REPELLA: We were playing our regular defense, like Asya said, with Tina Charles. We were backing away from her when she got it on the foul line so she could help with the cuts and stuff. Defensively we got up the lanes a little bit and just kept them in front of us and made them shoot tough shots. Q. This could be for any of you. Did they do anything defensively to shut down the offense, or what happened that you went from closing the gap to sort of no offensive production? LIZ REPELLA: Yeah, we have had offensive droughts a lot this season, and they really exposed it tonight. I mean, we weren't picking. We were just stagnant. Q. Sarah, they have a habit of taking the top scorers of teams out of play. They did it to Diggins in the second half last night to get to this game, and your stats seemed to indicate that they had a pretty good time shutting you down today. Can you just talk about your game and what they did to you? Did they surprise you, come at you in a different way? SARAH MILES: No, I felt I got a lot of good looks, but I just couldn't get them to fall. I think that had a lot to do with me, I couldn't get my shots to fall. But I did get a lot of good looks. That's pretty much it. Q. Obviously, Liz, a difficult loss tonight, but postseason, I mean, really gets going now. What does this team -- are you confident that this team can put this behind and look towards a new season really with NCAA starting? LIZ REPELLA: Yeah, definitely, I mean, we have to. We're going to have a few days off, and then we're going to start getting after it in practice. I mean, we still have a lot of goals to accomplish, and just this one loss isn't going to -- I mean, we're going to come back out ready to play tournament time, no doubt about it. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. Questions for Coach? Q. From the 12-minute mark -- I think it was the 12-minute mark until like 24 seconds left or something when you got the lay-up, you guys didn't score, so it's like 12 minutes you didn't get a basket. Talk about what was going wrong, and how much of it was what Connecticut was doing and their intensity and stuff. COACH CAREY: Well, all eight of them did a pretty good job on defense, first of all. You know, like Sarah, a question was asked about Sarah, she got in the paint at will, just didn't hit her shots. We had some open looks. We just didn't -- and Liz was right; we were stagnant. We were so stagnant on offense. And then when we did drive, we just didn't get the call or float it up there and missed the easy shot. Needless to say, we haven't scored all tournament, you know what I mean? And give Connecticut credit, too; they played great defense, great help defense, and big and strong, physical. Q. It seemed a little different than the last time. They made a run early and you guys actually answered it and cut it to that five-point margin. Do you take a positive out of that, that you guys didn't quit once you were down big? COACH CAREY: We cut it to five, and then we had a couple bad shots. They got a couple offensive rebounds and a three-point play and that type of stuff. Then the game got very, very physical, and we're not going to win that battle with them. They're just too big and strong. It just got very, very physical. I'm just glad nobody got hurt at the end. Q. Just to reiterate, the strategy with Tina and Maya; what was the overall plan? COACH CAREY: Well, in the high post we were just going to back off her, and she hit two or three there, because there was a lot of times during the course of the game she wouldn't take that shot. Even though we just felt they threw over the top on us and back-doored us so much our first game with them we thought we would back off and put Bussie in the paint a little bit. Even if they used Tina for an on-ball pick, we'd go over the top and Bussie would be standing there. It worked some of the time. But make no doubt about it, they're a great team, and they deserve every award and everything they get. Great team. Q. What is it going to take to beat this team? COACH CAREY: Well, I just think -- we held them to 60 points. You just want to score with them. If you can hold Connecticut to 60 points with all the players they have and people that can score and all that, you should be in the game. We struggled to score, and I just think somebody is going to have to score with them, I really do. Q. You've had such a great season, really, except for the two games against Connecticut. Is it good for the mindset of the team to go into the NCAAs having played them, or would you have rather not they had the experience heading into the tournament? COACH CAREY: No, I think it's great. We'll have some great practices coming up after film session. You know, it'll be great practices. I said to the team, I said, they exposed every weakness we had. Those are things we need to work on going into the NCAA Tournament. You know, after you get beat like this, you have their attention real quick when it comes to practice, when you come back to practice. Q. Do you have any idea -- you may not play for another nine days or so, so just a general idea of what you have planned until then. COACH CAREY: I'm giving them three days off. We've got a couple people banged up and that, and they need it off. They need away from me and I need away from them, so three days will be good for everybody concerned. Then we've got to come back and get back to basics and fundamentals and that type of stuff. We've got a lot to work on. We're going into the postseason. We need to win some games, so we've got to get prepared and ready. Somebody asked the question do we think the girls will come back from it. Absolutely. We bounced back when Connecticut thumped us last time and came back and won eight, nine, ten in a row. These girls are hard workers. We'll learn from this again tonight. Q. Can you just talk about what Kalana Greene brings to this UConn team? Most people think you stop Charles and stop Moore and you're going to stop them and then she steps up. COACH CAREY: She's been a great player. She's to me always been the blue collar worker on this team. She did a great job. She gets on the offensive boards. She played defense. She drives on the floor. She complements the others very, very well. She's just a great player. But she accepts her role, and Geno has got her accepting her role. When the other two are struggling or other people are struggling, she steps up, and she has the capability of doing that every night. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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