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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 12, 2010

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Utah head Coach Elliott and student-athletes. We'll start by taking an opening comment about the game from Coach Elliott.
COACH ELLIOTT: Well, obviously very encouraged and happy that the kids came out and really competed just from the start. Played very good defense. We had kids, you know, stepping up, chipping in from different places. I mean, I think that we're really -- you know, as we hoped with this team, that we would become better, that we would, you know, learn more, that our young kids would step up and begin to contribute and chip in and we'd have the leadership that we needed from the older kids. That's really what we saw tonight, was just a combination of those things.
You know, good fortune for us. TCU is just unbelievably talented. They earned a regular-season championship for a reason. They absolutely are going to be a great representative to the NCAAs for this league. We'll just, you know, try our hardest to try to be another one.
THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Can you talk about your defense on No. 4, what you were trying to do?
HALIE SAWYER: Well, we knew Sverrisdottir was going to come at us. She's a great player. I knew that if I could contain her as much as I could, that my team would help me, and they sure did.
As for rebounding and scoring, I think just went my way tonight. I, you know, just felt good in warmups. Went throughout the game. Just happy about that, I guess.

Q. Kalee, can you talk about the team, how they're playing right now.
KALEE WHIPPLE: Yeah, I think it's all about like what coach said, that we had people contribute, and that's what a team is all about. That if we have more than just two players contributing at times, if we can have all five people when they're out on the court coming in and contributing, that we can be a really good team.
We're excited to be here. I know we don't want to be done playing. So we're going to keep playing as hard as we can each game.
THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student-athletes at this time and continue with questions for Coach Elliott.

Q. Can you talk about Halie's overall plays, most offensively and defensively how she did tonight.
COACH ELLIOTT: Well, we've kind of been waiting for this. Halie has the capabilities. The way people choose to defend us, because of Taryn's presence, is not to defend Halie. That's where the double-teams come from.
It's really, kids, can they make people pay. She absolutely did so tonight. She knows that she can. The shots she took, she's a very nice shooter. She took advantage of those opportunities.
The other thing it opens us is the opportunity to get the ball. We told her that was what she needed to get done. She could go have a career high on the offensive end of boards if she goes because there's nobody between her and the basket when the shot goes up.
You know, it's one thing talking about or understanding. That's the easy part, sort of what you need to do. Then it's completely a function of whether a player can do it and does do it. That's exactly what she did tonight. That's to her credit.

Q. What happened to Taryn with the injury and was there a discussion about a possible flagrant foul on that?
COACH ELLIOTT: I'm not really sure, to tell you. I mean, it was about -- they were trying to decide if, after the foul, then there was an action of a flagrant face hit, I guess is what you call it. Sort of that was after the foul. So their determination was it was all one play, and so there was no more action on that play.

Q. (No microphone.)
COACH ELLIOTT: Well, you know, our concern, we wouldn't let her come back because she had a headache. It's a concussion problem. You don't know the severity of that. The determination of that is not ours to make, it's the doctor's to make. I hope it's one of those scenarios where they weren't going to let her go back because that is the smart thing to do. Our hope is it's not a graded concussion of some sort so we can have her. That's obviously our hope, but we don't have that answer.

Q. Halfway through the season you were struggling to stay around .500. How surprised are you with where you sit right now?
COACH ELLIOTT: I'm not surprised. You know, we really believed that we would continue to get better. That's what this team, you know, really was about. We weren't made up of juniors and seniors coming back from, you know, a campaign that said you were going to start strong and rip through. We had so many players that are used in our rotation that didn't know what their capabilities would be at this level.
We believe they'll be very good at some point in their career, but the expectation that's going to happen as freshmen and sophomores is not a normal one to have at this level.
You know, even in our league, the whole league scenario, I mean, our first games in league were road games against TCU and San Diego State, who ended up first and third in the league on the road. So we played them first. So we were 0-2. Everybody else played them late and they went 0-2. It doesn't matter. Nobody played the same schedule at the same time. It only matters when you're done.

Q. Rodrigues had an outstanding game tonight. Talk about her play.
COACH ELLIOTT: Yeah, that's the kind of chipping in mentality that we've talked about through this tournament, that everybody's just got to chip in. We believe she's a very talented young freshman player, who is very inconsistent, who is better at some things than others, has many things to learn.
But certain games especially, any I guess you could call them more athletic games, she's somebody we know we have to use because she's really got a beautiful athleticism to her game.
She did better defensively. That's really what keeps her from playing consistently for us, isn't her offensive potential, it's the difficulties that you have in teaching kids their responsibilities defensively. That's coming along. She's really going to be somebody people will know about before her career is over.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach.
COACH ELLIOTT: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 12, 2010

Elaine Elliott

Halie Sawyer

Kalee Whipple