	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 12, 2010

Anna Prins

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

Oklahoma State Â– 62
Iowa State - 59

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by the Iowa State Cyclones, Coach Bill Fennelly, his two student athletes, Kelsey Bolte and Anna Prins. Coach?
COACH FENNELLY: First of all, I want to thank the people of Kansas City and the Big 12 Conference for an amazing event. It's the best Conference Tournament in the country the way they run it and we were honored to be a part of it. Certainly want to congratulate Oklahoma State. The biggest difference was -- obviously, Andrea Riley scored a ton of points.
But they made a few more hustle plays, defensively I was fine with the way we played. Offensively we weren't very good, turnovers, and missed shots, couldn't do the things we need to do. Hopefully we'll have another chance to play and a little more commitment to doing the things we need to do to have a chance to win.

Q. What was it like trying to defend, trying to find Andrea Riley? Could you have done anything differently defensively?
KELSEY BOLTE: Neither of us really defended her. I think the biggest thing was attention to detail and trying to get her as much as we could and just trying to get the offensive rebounds.
THE MODERATOR: Anna, you want to comment?
ANNA PRINS: I agree with Kelsey. We knew she was going to get her points tonight. The big key was defensive rebounding. Post players didn't get it done tonight. But she's a good player.

Q. Kelsey, I know you didn't guard Andrea, but when she puts up 44 shots she always tries to get the ball what do you have to when you're not guarding her, talk about that.
KELSEY BOLTE: Definitely she is known for taking a lot of shots and you have to be aware of where she's at on the floor because when she shoots is you have to make sure your person isn't running down the lane and getting the rebound so you have to know where she is all the time and when she's going to shoot it.

Q. Kelsey, could you talk about what you thought of the team's ability to come back, you guys were down by as much as 15 in the first half and you were able to take the lead at one point in time. Can you talk about what you thought of the team's offensive play?
KELSEY BOLTE: Kind of like Coach Fennelly said, often we were making bad decisions. I think I was being face guarded the whole game, so I wasn't able to do very much. I think we just need to do a better job next time.

Q. Kelsey, what made it so hard to get some of those shots off and you being face guarded the whole team.
KELSEY BOLTE: It's hard, somebody standing in front of you all the time, it was even tough to set screens because they were in between you and the ball the whole time so you had to make movement every time to set a screen or even try and get open.

Q. Anna, why were you guys able to come back after being down so far in the first half?
ANNA PRINS: I think -- well, we started making shots and then digging deep on defense, getting the rebound, having that not going to lose mentality at that point and things seemed to start going our way.

Q. What is it like to have Alison out on the court and were you struggling without her, do you think?
KELSEY BOLTE: She is very, very missed, but, you know, there definitely is a difference when she is not out there. She is the game changer and you know, she led very well from the bench tonight.

Q. Can you talk about what she did from the bench. Talk about her role tonight.
KELSEY BOLTE: The girls were used to bringing up the ball and with her on the side lines giving an extra voice for her yelling out the plays. It was extremely helpful.
THE MODERATOR: Okay, ladies, thank you very much. Congratulations. Questions for Coach Fennelly?

Q. What was your view when Riley stuck in long and the half-court pass?
COACH FENNELLY: We were trying to face guard, obviously, and trying to the first two times we denied pretty well, got a time-out, made a good effort. Kelsey's foot was out of bounds on the one and the last one we said they were probably going to throw deep and it's a ball in the air and there is contact and they make a call. So I guess that's what I saw, I don't know.

Q. (No microphone.)
COACH FENNELLY: The three people officiating the game make that decision.

Q. Coach, could you talk a little bit about the defensive game plan that you had against Andrea Riley. I know Coach Budke said that you guys were allowing her to get so many shots and such, could you talk about the defensive play that you had against her?
COACH FENNELLY: The game plan was to make her a volume shooter, not foul her, make her go to the right, lay back in the lane and make her drive at you, not kick it to the weak side wing. She is so dynamic with the ball when you're hedging and running all over the building and we wanted to try and make her hit some tough shots and she took 44 shots, and I take 100% responsibility for the game plan, and you can write anything you want about how stupid it is, that's fine with me, I don't really care.
That's the only chance we had to win the game, our problem was not our defense, it was our offense. You can't shoot it the way we shot it and turn the ball over the way we did and have a chance to win. We held Oklahoma State to 62 points. I don't care who scores. We didn't want her to come left off the dribble bounce and she hit two that way and we fouled her a couple times.
There is no way you're going to stop her from scoring. That was the plan, and I thought Denae did a great job of trying to guard it, Denae did a great job. She drove down the lane a couple times ask we didn't step in and have the courage to take a charging foul when we need it, but she's a great player and certainly someone that has had a great career and certainly someone that all of us will be glad to graduate.

Q. Coach, you mentioned offensively, was that a product of something they were doing or was it -- did that have to do with Lacey want not being on the floor?
COACH FENNELLY: I'm not -- Lacey not being on the floor impacts our team, she's one of the best point guards in the country. So obviously that impacts our team. But that's not an excuse. We knew -- we practiced they were going to face guard Kelsey Bolte, which they did. And we missed I don't know how many lay-ups in the first half. You can't go 8 for 23 in the post and turn the ball over 18 times. You have to score the ball, they came out hot to start the game to their credit, made some shots and we had some -- I thought open lay-ups that we didn't convert. We missed some three's, Whit and Kelsey didn't hit some shots.
Offensively you've got to find a way to score, and when the other guy is hot you've got to score once in a while to stay in the game and we got down 15 because they were making everything and we weren't making anything and we got down 15 points.

Q. Bill, what does this do for seeding in the tournament?
COACH FENNELLY: I don't know, I hope the committee looks at a team that competed and took a team to the wire without their best player, a lot of it will have to do with what happens in the tournament. All of the smart people handle that, I just -- my goal from the start of the year was to was to try and put our team -- help our team be in a position to finish the season in the NCAA Tournament.
It's in our building, and I hope that's going to happen. I think we deserve to be there, that's not my choice. But I just wanted to finish this the right way and hopefully we finished the season the right way.

Q. When was it clear Alison Lacey wasn't going to play, did y'all make the decision or --
COACH FENNELLY: No, that was a decision made by the team doctor, and I was never told at anytime that she could play and that was never really in our plans, but at least she practiced. She was running around and hopefully with another 7 or 8 days she'll be ready to go and end her career at Hilton Coliseum, which would be kind of cool.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you for your time. Good luck to ya.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297