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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2010Kurt BudkeTegan CunninghamAndrea RileyKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI Oklahoma State – 62 THE MODERATOR: Coach Kurt Budke has joined us on the stage. Coach, congratulations, your thoughts tonight? COACH BUDKE: Very excited about tonight's win. I thought it was a great women's college basketball game. I thought you saw two teams really going at each other and each finding different little runs in the game. I don't know how many times the lead changed in the game but there was no quit in either team. Just proud of our girls. We're the only team so far today to win that played yesterday, and that does have a little affect on you. But I thought we played probably the best defense we've played in a month today, and I thought they really did a good job of readin' sets and being where they were supposed to be. We're excited about it, glad to be back in the semi finals. THE MODERATOR: Student athlete questions, please. Andrea, can you talk about the night you had, you started off red hot and then it came down the stretch. ANDREA RILEY: In the game of basketball, it's always up and down and sometimes you're not going to stay hot. So I had to listen to my coaches and my teammates who continued to be in my ear, and I'm glad and appreciate how many they support me and have so much confidence in me and they really made me push in the end. Q. Can you talk about that play at half-court, Andrea, where you and the Iowa State girl went up like receivers going at it on a football field? ANDREA RILEY: I was just looking at the ball and I was just trying to jump for the ball, that's all I really seen. Q. Andrea, you guys changed the offense a little bit, instead of screening at the top of the key, it was more to the left, looked like maybe you had more room to shoot your jump shots coming off that screen. ANDREA RILEY: Playing Iowa State they pack the lane and make you hit shots, and they have a good defensive plan so you have to outsmart them. So when we went to the corner chase it gave us room and them not coming off of Tegan and Lakyn, it really opened it up in the middle of the floor. Q. Andrea, do you always know it's coming back when you get cold for a while? Did you sense it's going to fall again? ANDREA RILEY: Yes, you have to stay positive. I know I'm going to miss 15 in a row, it happens, but listen to my coaches and teammates and staying positive and believing and they'll go in. Q. Andrea, can you talk about the play in the final minute when you drive to the hole and you face the 6-6 girl from Iowa State? ANDREA RILEY: I faced a couple this year with Bridgette Griner, Michigan State, Koke. I've faced a couple of them this year, and I'm not scared to go in there (chuckles.) I've played against guys that are bigger and thicker when I was growing up, so I think I'm big sometimes. Q. Andrea, the importance of winning tonight, Coach talked about the advancement you guys could make seatingwise for the NCAA Tournament, talk about that and Tegan. If you would talk about what wing tonight might mean for the NCAA turn support. ANDREA RILEY: We knew we hit a bump at OU when we didn't play up to our potential, so we wanted to redeem ourselves and try to make a run in the Big 12 Tournament, because when you come here all the teams are tied for first, everybody plays hard. It's a different team that comes out of these and I think advancing in the tournament does help your seating in the NCAA because it shows them that you guys do play hard and you're not going away. COACH BUDKE: There was a second part, Tegan. ANDREA RILEY: She answered it all. COACH BUDKE: Ms. Australia doesn't talk much. Q. Tegan, talk about playing against a team that sets a lot of picks and screens and the job you guys did tonight. TEGAN CUNNINGHAM: Coming into the game, we knew they were good shooters. We attacked them when they shot the ball and we knew who wasn't going to shoot it and we gave help to the good players, and we had a better game plan than I think the last time and we executed on that. Q. Andrea you took 44 shots, the NCAA record is 47. Do you feel in any way guilty when you take that many shots or do you know when you take that many shots it gives your team the best chance to win. ANDREA RILEY: I never think about how many times I shoot, but Coach Kurt Budke told me if they're going to give you that shot I don't care if you take 50 shots and I got close! (Chuckles.) COACH BUDKE: That's true. That's what I told her. ANDREA RILEY: My teammates don't care how many shots I take, it's making them that helps the team. Q. When you have a teammate like Andrea Riley and she's shucking up shots, do you feel good with that? How is she as a teammate? TEGAN CUNNINGHAM: We have faith in her that she's going to make it, so if they're going to give her that shot every time we'll take it every time because her percentage is good and we're confident in her as a team that she'll make it every time. Q. Andrea, you guys -- your team is going to play without you in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Do you take some of this on your shoulders to say I want to get my team as high as I can to get them in the best position they can be without you? ANDREA RILEY: That's always been the main focus, to get me to play in the second round. I've got a lot of confidence in my teammates, and plus I want a Big 12 Championship so that always clicks in my mind. Q. Tegan, can you talk about the last two or three possessions, you guys fouled intentionally the next to last time and then right before Iowa State inbounded the ball. Coach Budke called you guys over and you didn't foul that time. Can you talk about the defensive philosophy to fall one time and not the other? TEGAN CUNNINGHAM: Obviously, they're a great 3-point shooting team so we didn't want them to get a shot off so we would rather waste time in the frontcourt and come down and foul and we would rather have them hit 2 points rather than 3. That was their mentality. Did we let them -- ANDREA RILEY: We tried to foul but they did a hand-off and then -- I tried. COACH BUDKE: We were going to foul again. We kind of whiffed on it. TEGAN CUNNINGHAM: We can blame Dred on that one. ANDREA RILEY: Okay. THE MODERATOR: Okay, ladies, we'll let you go. Questions for Coach? Q. What about the seating aspect of things and do you get the sense she takes this on her shoulders to make sure you guys are in the best shape without her? COACH BUDKE: I don't know if she looks at if that way, she knows we need to get -- I don't think she feels guilty about it or anything like that, I think it's just we know we need to get as high of a seed as we can get and I told them that I think there is no question getting to the semifinals in this tournament will move us -- whatever spot we're at it will move us a spot and she said it right there at the end she wants to win a Big 12 Championship. Q. Coach, these past two games you have -- past two you've played against Iowa State, Alison Lacey has not been playing. Did the fact that Alison Lacey not playing tonight, did that have any impact on how many shots you were looking for Andrea Riley to take tonight? COACH BUDKE: No, that really didn't have any -- the reason she took the shots is just how Iowa State chose to guard us tonight and it almost worked, it really did. Bill is one of the best coaches in this country and he took a different kind of a different way of doing it tonight and like I said it almost worked. Lacey not being there didn't change anything, we've got a game plan still in our drawer for her that we prepared a long time for and haven't used it yet. I just hope she gets back in time for the tournament because they've got a wonderful team without her but with her I think they could be really good. Q. Kurt, do you have the sense that your life will be less interesting when Andrea Riley isn't on your team anymore? COACH BUDKE: You know, I don't know. She's special. She's a special kid. We've had a lot of good times together and it's been really fun watching her grow as a person as well as a player. You know we've got some good young ones coming in and we're not looking forward to it but it's like OU losing Courtney, you move on. We've got some good, young kids comin' in, some good kids in the program and we'll see if they can make my life interesting. Q. Kurt talk about the defense that Lakyn played on Bolte tonight. I can't remember the first game if she was on her the whole game but she didn't have any more than 7 points up until the last 5 minutes. COACH BUDKE: I thought lay kin did a wonderful job, Bolte is a good shooter, she don't need much room to get the shot off ask we knew for us to have a chance to win we had to limit her open looks and make her work hard to get those open looks and I thought Lakyn did a great job of hustling all night long. I thought that was one of the keys to the game and the helpers when she did come free did a better job of helping out to cover up. Q. Kurt, you got 15 offensive rebounds. A lot of those are in the first half and it didn't do you any good because you missed again, but late in the game you got the lead for good you ran a play for Andrea Riley, she drove in and she missed but young was there and put it back. Can you talk about that play and young's progress? She had 10 rebounds tonight. COACH BUDKE: Toni is coming on for us and she's going to be fun to watch. She is one of those young once we're talking about for future years here. That set we ran we changed the angle a little bit, we got the shot we wanted, I thought the beginning was going to hit that one. But as they helped on Tegan it cleaned it up for Toni to get a put-back there. I think executing out of time outs we did one of our better Johns of the year listening and doing what I wanted them to do. I was proud of them tonight. Q. Kurt, I saw you talking to Andrea before the second half started, what were you talking to her about? COACH BUDKE: I just told her that I believe in her and I have believed in her for four years; and what she said, I said if you shoot 50 shots tonight and we lose that's okay but I bet ya we win if you do. I said just relax, shoot your shot and we've won a got of games with that young lady doing just that. It was just a thing of hey, you know what, there are two halves to this game, go relax and go out and play. Q. Kurt, she set a slough of records, but with her it's almost another day at the office. COACH BUDKE: Isn't that something? I guess she broke her own record tonight, didn't she? Q. Right. COACH BUDKE: Again, I said it last night, there is nobody more valuable to their team than what she's done in the last four years for resurrecting this program. She is -- I know we have a deserving M.V.P. in this league, but there is no way in the world I would vote for anybody else but her. She has been -- if y'all think about all the game plans that have been put together for her, all the box and chasers she's faced and triangles and two's she's faced. Every time she comes off a pick she gets hit and every time she is guarding someone she gets picked and that is a tough kid to go through what she's gone there in four years with not -- we've had some good teams. Obviously, the Sweet 16 team was a very good team, but she's been the main character here for four years and she doesn't get enough credit for that sometimes. Q. Kurt, how nice is it to have Andrea only gets to the line 8 times tonight, a lot of that late, your best free-throw shooter, ice in her veins, it's hard to deny her the ball when it counts down in the final stretch. COACH BUDKE: That is a great luxury to have of someone that -- we talked about it last night her shootin' percentage goes up in the last 3 minutes and so does her free-throw percentage. She's going to find the way to get the basketball. The kid is just -- she's tough and she wants the ball and she kinda looks at the end of the game like some kind of school yard game almost, it's like tag, can you catch me? That's how it's been for four years and it's fun to have that kind of player out there. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much. We'll see you tomorrow. End of FastScripts |
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