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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2010Beth BurnsQuenese DavisJene MorrisLAS VEGAS, NEVADA San Diego State – 77 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by San Diego State head Coach Burns and student-athletes. We'll start by taking an opening comment on the game from Coach Burns. COACH BURNS: Well, obviously we're really excited about the position that we're in, which is 40 minutes away from the ultimate goal, which is to play in the NCAA tournament. You know, I think since we've been here, it feels like a very long time. The quarterfinal games and the first-round games were so competitive, at first blush today was almost stunning on both sides. I think in this game it was more the experience of our team, the game was called a little bit differently, called a little bit tighter. We got into some early foul trouble in the post. They got into some early foul trouble. I think we were able to adjust to that. Whereas when these guys were sophomores, they would have kept reaching, making faces, being mad they were blowing whistles. I think we kind of adjusted to the way the game was called. But BYU and San Diego State like to pressure. Pressure is risk/reward. When you're making steals and everything is good, it's good. The risk is obviously either fouls or baskets. I couldn't be prouder of how I felt we kind of took a step back and really executed as well in the halfcourt as we have through the balance of the season. THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll open it up to questions for the student-athletes. Q. Jené, the first game they win by 10, the second game you win by 2. What do you account for such a lopsided score this time around? JENÉ MORRIS: I think hunger. You know, we came in as the third seed and we had to play more games than we did last year. We know we needed to make it to the championship. We made it two years in a row and came back empty-handed. We wanted to use this time to show how good we can be. I would say that hunger definitely attributed to that. Q. What about you personally to have the kind of game you had today? JENÉ MORRIS: I think we prepared pretty well. You know, we prepared all day yesterday. The coaches did a very fantastic job of letting us know what to expect in the game tonight. So I think it was definitely due to our coaches, them preparing us for this game. Q. Jené, when your coach was talking about pulling faces, how come you were pulling a face? JENÉ MORRIS: I agreed with what she was saying. Two years ago I am pretty sure we would have been upset at the refs, making faces, stomping our feet. We've matured. A couple years ago we were the youngest team in the conference, now we're one of the oldest teams. I agreed with what she said (smiling). Q. Do you think it was an advantage this is the third game you played this woke? QUENESE DAVIS: We talked about this earlier. COACH BURNS: This is the second game. I know I'm getting old, but I think we only played two. QUENESE DAVIS: It's going to be harder for the higher seeds to come in. It's their first game back. They don't have all their kinks out. We got into a rhythm playing those two games we already played, or the first game we already played, then playing this game, we were ready to go. Q. Explain your defensive performance. Was there something you saw? JENÉ MORRIS: No. It was attributed to our team. We're a pressure style type team. We have great bigs who are pressuring inside. We have great ball stops. The team helped me get steals. I was able to make reads off their great defensive pressure as well. THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student-athletes at this time. We'll continue with questions for Coach Burns. Q. Do you feel you had an advantage that you had a warmup game? COACH BURNS: You know, I have no earthly idea. I was one -- I voted against it, you know. Coach Flanagan and I were the ones, I don't mind saying Coach Flanagan and I, because he said it to anybody that would listen, I voted against it only because I think our league is so good that I worry about our three, four, five seeds that I think are good enough to go to the tournament, and it puts them at a challenge. I don't like having to start on a Tuesday. With that said, until we have a separate tournament, it doesn't make sense to me to have a -- to me the three is the best normal spot because you have an off day. You know, if we had to play on Thursday after we had to play the game we played against Wyoming on Wednesday night, without question, BYU's advantage. To be able to play a game, have an off day of preparation, play another game, is the normal, I think, rhythm of our season and it's not challenging on anybody physically. I also think you got to be willing to change and try some new things. We wanted to protect our top seeds. I still don't think that's important. We just have to sit down in the spring and tweak it a little bit. I still think we want to protect other seeds, but I don't think anybody is real comfortable with the way things are laid out. Q. I would think this had to be a good day to be a coach because so much of what you tried to do worked. COACH BURNS: Yeah. Well, and I thanked Q as we came off the floor. I said, Q, I appreciate you kind of letting me take it easy today. And I think it really had to do with our level of experience coming in. I heard Jené say, If you have good preparation and you're experienced, then you can make reads, then things start going your way. I think the team that's a little bit older is advantaged. They've been in that situation before. Q. I know you were kind of wracking your brain trying to figure out what was going wrong. Why the surge all of a sudden do you think? COACH BURNS: Well, I think that we can't put, "we" being coaches, we can't put a sense of urgency into somebody until they kind -- they had to figure it out. This team had to figure it out. We've always had good parts, but they are different parts than a year ago. We're a totally different team. We have a totally different dynamic. I think as our bench has developed, I mean, think if it was two months ago and we got in that kind of early foul trouble, our bench developed, got more comfortable, and we've developed balance. I think that's been the biggest difference. As to the whys, if I'd have known, I would have fixed it. We had a little hiccup right in the middle. We had a tough week, the New Mexico, Wyoming week. The best news, we rebounded, are on an upswing, we're confident. The sense of urgency is you better win tomorrow to know you can go in the front door of this tournament. Q. You have a rematch against Utah. What do you need to get done in that game tomorrow? COACH BURNS: We were having such a good time here. We were reflecting back. You're going to make us shift to the next step (smiling). You have a Hall of Fame coach and you have, I think, the most storied program in our league since we've been here. I think we both split. We played real well when we played them in San Diego. They played well in Utah. We both obviously played really well today. So I think the challenge is that March is about making plays. You know, we're not going to do anything different. They're not going to do anything different. They know what we're going to run. They're not going to let us get a thing in the paint. They're going to want to punch you in the mouth, slow, tempo paint points. We're going to get up and down the floor a bit. It's going to be a tempo game. I think it's going to be a great game. Q. Do you think you have to win tomorrow to make it? COACH BURNS: I sure do. I sure do. You know, I thought for sure we had to get to tomorrow, and then I didn't know whether from a standpoint of a loss to TCU, which is a higher RPI team, who knows what's important. Utah you could argue was the hottest team in our league coming into the tournament. I think they'd won 8 out of 10 coming in. So there's no surprise to me. But without question, I think it's important for us to win tomorrow. Now, I'd like to think that -- I think this is our 20th win, the NIT format has changed a couple times since I played in it. I would like to think that is secure. I don't think there's security for Utah or San Diego State. It depends. A lot of basketball yet to be played. As long as there's no upsets. Everybody cheer for high seeds. We all cheer for 1 seeds to win their conference tournaments. I think we have a chance. Our Wake Forest win was good, our Auburn win was good. We had a loss to Las Vegas that might have hurt us. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach. COACH BURNS: Thanks, everybody. End of FastScripts |
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