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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2010Beth BurnsQuenese DavisParis JohnsonJene MorrisLAS VEGAS, NEVADA San Diego State – 70 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by San Diego State head Coach Burns and student-athletes. Coach, if we could start with you, comments on today's game. COACH BURNS: Well, very first we need to and would like to congratulate Utah, who I think was the hottest team in our league coming into this tournament. I think Coach Elliott did as remarkable a job as she tends to usually do with a group of two really special veteran kids and integrating the freshmen into their system. Again, I thought they were the hottest team coming in and I wasn't surprised they made it out of the backside of the bracket. With that, you know, as a group, as a team, as a program, we couldn't be more excited and proud than to be able to cut down the nets as Mountain West Conference tournament champions. We've had a lot, a lot of growth. I've got a great university president who says athletics has the most growth and development of any area of the university because everything is so hands on and emotions get so high. I think we've had such great growth. We had great senior leadership that really helped us raise the whole team to understand the sense of urgency and focus that's needed when we all do something together. But I think we played at a very high level all week long. I mean, we came in with the eye of the tiger, and I'm thrilled with the outcome, but I'm not surprised at the outcome. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student-athletes. Q. Jené, those last three seconds you had a fast break to the basket, pulled up. What were your emotions at that time? JENÉ MORRIS: At that point I wanted the clock to run out because after an overtime game, we were tired. We just wanted the clock to run out. We didn't want to be in the game any longer. I was excited. Pure bliss. I mean, it's nice for the first time not to be up here crying because we lost. We made it to the championship two years in a row and lost. So just the fact we worked so hard, battled through an overtime game against Utah who I believe won three overtimes against TCU. We knew they were a great team and could come back at any time. The fact we stuck together was amazing. Q. The last 10:29 you held them without a field goal. Did you do anything differently? QUENESE DAVIS: I wouldn't say we did anything differently besides kept them off the O glass. Coach pointed out to us at the timeout if we keep them off the O glass, we'll be successful, and we were. Q. The last couple of years you've had some pretty nerve-wracking Selection Sundays. What are you doing tomorrow? JENÉ MORRIS: I don't know. Probably be sleeping. COACH BURNS: I knew the answer (smiling). PARIS JOHNSON: Probably getting some treatment. Our bodies are beat. We played three games, tough games. For me personally, I'm in the paint all the time going up against strong bodies. I'm pretty beat. So I'll probably be resting my body, get some ice baths, just relax. Q. Ms. Davis, down eight with four minutes to go, what are you thinking then? QUENESE DAVIS: Got to step it up. I knew I huddled my team up at one point and was, We got this. We just got to stay together, get some big stops, make some big plays on the other end. Q. Jené, so many expectations on this team this year coming in as the pre-season favorites. Up-and-down games. Do you feel this sort of validates you, that you knew all along you could be the team everyone thought you should be or were? JENÉ MORRIS: Definitely. That was our goal coming into the tournament. We weren't really happy with the way we played during regular season. This was our time to show how good we actually can be. Like I said, these last three games have been amazing. We stuck together, it was balanced. We all played our hearts out. Now we're excited to take it to a national level to see how we compete. THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll dismiss the student-athletes and continue with questions for Coach Burns. Q. When Quenese picked up her fourth foul, did you think about taking her out then? COACH BURNS: No. She played a fabulous game. She had a fabulous week. If we were gonna go down, we were gonna go down guns blazing. We were in a situation that she really is the only one who has the experience to do the things you have to do so quickly on the fly when you can't use a timeout. You have to be able to verbally communicate, know she can do things on the floor. Obviously we had a Plan B so we would be ready in case it was. We always had her on the softest of their three perimeter defenders. They always have one great shooter out on the floor. The challenge was, and what I'm most pleased with with our team, we were able to do the things we needed to do to make up a deficit, and she couldn't really be involved in it because of that. I wouldn't have wanted to see what would have happened if she fouled out. I didn't even consider it. She earned the right to finish that game. Q. Did it seem to you your energy level kind of dropped after the fast start? COACH BURNS: Well, and I think that, you know, that's with our team, at halftime, we shot nearly 70%. I mean, we've played at such a high level. I kind of reminded them of our men's game from last night, where they played so well in that first half, and then I think somebody made a shot and they end up going in down one. Look at the shot Whipple makes right before the half. Again, I think for us psychologically it's a point, it's a game. So, yes, I agree with you. But the things that we felt we could do to Utah energy-wise, foul-wise, we were gonna try to hold off until about a seven- or eight-minute mark, then the game dictated we had to do some things differently. But we did. A lot of that is Allison Duffy. She is really versatile. She's really a catalyst on the floor. She's naturally going to speed the game up because of her speed. Q. Also seemed like you picked up your interior defense in the game. COACH BURNS: Right. She's a very good player. Not excited she's a freshman, not excited at all. What a year she has had. I think we kind of tag teamed. I think Jessika Bradley is a very good interior defender. Really for us it's more ball pressure. We need ball pressure. We need to make those 20-foot passes instead of 15-feet passes. People get tired, relax a little bit on the perimeter, gave her too many easy touches. When it was winning time, money time, they understood how to dig deep and do what we needed to do. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach. COACH BURNS: It's wonderful when a team reaches its potential, isn't it? End of FastScripts |
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