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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 3, 2011China AntoinePam BortonINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Northwestern – 53 THE MODERATOR: Welcome. First we'll have you, Coach, give an opening statement and people can ask questions of China. COACH BORTON: I thought it was obviously a battle of defenses tonight. And a lot of turnovers, a lot of missed shots in the paint. I think we gave ourselves an opportunity to win with our defense and getting ourselves back in the game. At least in the first half and cutting it to one. I thought our team did a real good job executing down the stretch. We just couldn't put the ball in the basket. I think we got a lot of nice looks inside to our post players. But we have three of our better players having tough nights scoring. It's going to be tough to win. THE MODERATOR: Questions for China? Q. You were only one of two players tonight to shoot over 50 percent. What do you think was enabling you to have success tonight while the others were having trouble following their looks? CHINA ANTOINE: Me being successful? I think our team needed a boost and momentum and I knew I had to step up as a leader and as a captain and as a senior, this being possibly one of my last games. And I knew I needed to step up, and from that point it was easy to score. Q. Were you surprised at all about how long it took you guys to come out of the gate? It seemed like in those opening five, ten minutes Northwestern just kind of pounced on the opportunity quicker than you guys did. CHINA ANTOINE: Yeah, I think we had nervous jitters coming out from the beginning. I think that we were sloppy, then once we calmed ourselves down relaxed we came out playing like we usually play. Once we got the nerves out, we started playing better. Q. That sloppiness, was that something more you guys were doing yourself or was it something that the Northwestern defense was forcing? CHINA ANTOINE: Absolutely. We were rushing. It's something we did ourselves, we were rushing and throwing sloppy passes and not taking the best shots. We definitely did that to ourselves, nothing they did to us. Q. What do you think you guys were able to accomplish on -- I guess what struggles did you guys have in the interior, Loberg went 1 for 12 and Voigt went 1 for 10, something like that. How much of a struggle was it for you guys to establish a post game today? CHINA ANTOINE: It's hard to win games without having our posts scoring as much. They were getting good shots, but they weren't falling tonight. That made it hard for us to get that inside/out game. But we know that they're talented, and so we were hoping they were going to make some shots. They did make a few shots toward the end which kept us in the game. They knew what they had to do. Q. At the other end of the floor, you were posting a lot of turnovers, five steals yourself. Talk about the defensive effort. CHINA ANTOINE: Absolutely, I think our whole team was playing very good defense. We were intense on defense and we knew that would keep us in the game, as long as we played good defense. We knew our shots weren't falling, but if we were just playing good defense, we can keep ourselves in the game, and eventually we thought our shots would fall. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, China. Questions for Coach. Q. With a game like today, how much do you consider that Northwestern beat you guys and how much do you guys consider you sort of beat yourself? COACH BORTON: You have to give Northwestern credit. They're a very good team. Amy Jaeschke takes a lot of energy and a lot of attention. And, you know, when all the other players are knocking shots down there, they're a tough team to beat. Jaeschke is an All-Big Ten player and she's tough to guard. I thought Hackney stepped up and knocked shots down when they needed to go on the run. Q. You've played Northwestern now three times this season. I was wondering, did you notice anything different about this game? Did it seem like there was a different emotion or different kind of feeling to this one? COACH BORTON: I don't think so. I mean, I think both teams came out and played with a lot of energy. I think we kind of felt like when we played at home. I mean, I think we played with a lot of energy. I think we played a little bit better at home. And I think when we played Northwestern at their place, I think both teams were pretty flat. It was a pretty ugly game. And Northwestern came out on top. And I think both teams came out and I think played extremely hard and were playing for something. We wanted to play for another day. And Northwestern is one that made a few more shots down the stretch than we did. Q. With the frequency of turnovers tonight, how much did that -- for both teams how much of that was due to sloppiness, handling the ball, and how much was just high-energy defense? COACH BORTON: I think we've had a problem with turnovers all year. I think we went through a stretch where we weren't turning the ball over, but I think in the last few games we've turned the ball over a lot. But a lot of it has to do with, you know, ourselves. We're traveling. It's just a lot of fundamentals of passing and footwork. But, again, you've got to give Northwestern a lot of credit for putting the pressure on us to put us in those situations. Q. I wanted to ask you about the final five minutes of the game. You guys fought really hard to get back into it, tied the game up on several occasions, but at the end Northwestern behind, two big 3-point plays from Orban and Jaeschke pulled away, what did you think of those final few minutes and what they were able to do to you guys? COACH BORTON: I think the final media time-out we were down one point and we needed to execute on both ends of the floor and just follow the game plan. We got the shots we wanted to down the stretch in the paint, and they just didn't fall. And I think a couple of players got loose on us and hit 3s, but Jaeschke is going to step up and knock a 3 down. She's a senior, great player, an All-Big Ten player. And Orban is a great player as well. Good players step up and knock shots down in crucial times. Q. How tough is it to get running on offense when Loberg, Buford and Voigt are all having off nights at the same time? COACH BORTON: It's going to be tough to win basketball games. It's going to be tough to win when you don't have a post game that's scoring. And I thought they had good looks. And it just puts more pressure on your guards. They have to make shots and you're designing plays to get them to the rim, but you've got to be able to have an inside/outside game to win basketball games. Q. If you could just talk a little bit about how good China was tonight in terms of getting you guys back into that game, hitting shots from all over the 3-point line. How impressive was her performance tonight? COACH BORTON: I think her performance was very impressive and it started on the defensive end. I think she really created a lot of steals and created a lot of offense for us defensively. And she was open. And I think tonight she stepped up and knocked shots down and kept us in the game. And I think if we would have had one more player step up and have a good night, I think we would have been able to pull this off. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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