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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2011Maggie LucasJulia TrogeleCoquese WashingtonINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Penn State – 79 MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Maggie, can you just talk about your day today in the run that you put together late in the second half to really put things away? MAGGIE LUCAS: You know, it was kind of an up-and-down game. There was a lot of runs. You've got to hand it to Illinois. They really -- they never held their heads down, got to give it to them on that. But the run, I think we just stuck together when it got hard. We could have hung our heads when they came back on us, but we just stuck together even more, got some stops, and that led to our offense. Q. Julia, could you talk about the day you had free-throw line? You took 12 free throws, hit all of them. And the free throw discrepancy, you guys shot twice the free throws that Illinois did. That looked like a huge part of this game. Can you talk about that a little bit. JULIA TROGELE: I think we were just being aggressive going to the basket and knowing that, you know, we were going to get fouled, and we took advantage of that, made our free throws. I've never been to the free-throw line this many times, but I'm glad that the refs are finally calling some fouls for me. Just kidding. It was just being aggressive, going -- you know, going to the basket and making sure that when we did get to the line that we finished and kind of hurt them on the line. Q. They're not going to do it anymore now that you said that. You know that, right? JULIA TROGELE: No, they will. Q. Julia, props to the other team maybe from you guys. Are you allowed to admit that you didn't expect to be facing Illinois in the semifinal here? JULIA TROGELE: Honestly, I wasn't surprised. I think they really had nothing to lose and I think that they came in to the Big Ten tournament just like any other Big Ten team. This conference is extremely competitive, so I think that any team on any given night can win. So I don't -- I wasn't really surprised, I was, you know, happy for them, but I knew that we were going to take care of that. Q. This is for Maggie. What on the floor occurred in the last ten minutes that enabled you guys to put them away? Were they just getting tired? You guys just feel it? Or what happened out there? What was the big thing that occurred? MAGGIE LUCAS: One of the things I noticed when I was out there was our bigs were just cleaning up the rebounds and making it really hard for Illinois' guards when they would drive to the basket. I mean, they were influencing so many shots and then getting the rebounds and getting out to the guards on the run. So I think it had a lot to do with our post players just taking care of it, rebounding the ball so well. Q. Maggie, Illinois actually took the lead there in the second half and you guys came back. It really seemed like that one 3 that you hit kind of turned the tide a little bit. Can you speak to that a little bit? MAGGIE LUCAS: I can never say it's just one play in a game. So many factors go into a win. I'm glad the shot went in, but that didn't get the win for us. Q. Julia, the veteran of the team, can you describe what halftime was like when they made that big push, got back into the game, what was the mindset like at halftime and how were you able to come back in the second half? JULIA TROGELE: The mindset at halftime, of course we were pretty disappointed in ourselves for letting them get back in the game, but I think we knew they were going to make a run or two, so it was kind of like we were just encouraging each other. And we knew that we had to come out in the second half. We're usually a second half team, so I think that that plays to our advantage. And we weren't really discouraged, we knew that we just needed to take care of businesses and play our game. And be up, really. We couldn't let them get any uncontested shots, any second-chance opportunities from rebounds. So, like Maggie said, I think our post really cleaned up the board and we created some turnovers and that sparked our offense. Q. For either of the players, Illinois was a team that hadn't trailed yet in the tournament up until this game. How important was it to get an early lead and build that question early on? JULIA TROGELE: I think it's important, but the thing is we wanted to really extend the lead and we kind of let them come back in the game. But, like you said, it builds a lot of confidence. And I think that it shows you that -- for them, for example, they weren't ever down, so -- and they got those two wins against Wisconsin and Michigan. So for us it was the same thing. We knew that we could win the game having such a significant lead. Q. For both you, I can't ask you what you were doing 15 years ago, but you do understand the significance of 1996, don't you? JULIA TROGELE: Yes. That was the last time we were in the Big Ten Tournament championship. Q. And you won it. JULIA TROGELE: Oh, we won it? Okay. Q. Might bring that up -- JULIA TROGELE: Coquese said that we were already giving her gray hairs back then, even though we weren't even committed then. But, yes, I think it's really significant for us. And I think that this just shows like for the whole season we worked extremely hard and we think that we deserve to be in this game and we want to go home with a title. We didn't play all these games during the season, battle this hard, to not take it home. Q. Maggie, you're not going to get off the hook that easy. You got a chance to do something you haven't done in 15 years tomorrow. Maybe you won't dwell on it, but it's got to mean something. MAGGIE LUCAS: I mean, it means a lot being in a championship game. So many teams want to be in our shoes right now. So we have to bring a 40-minute game tomorrow. We can't have any comebacks like we let just happen there. So we have to bring 40 minutes of mental focus tomorrow. MODERATOR: Thank you. That will do it for the student-athletes. Now we'll open it up to questions for Coach Washington. Q. Coach, when you went in the locker room at halftime, they had made that big run. How much maturity did the team show in the second half that maybe you hadn't seen in the past? COACH WASHINGTON: Maturity? Wow. Interesting choice of words. Maturity. Well, we've been a second half team for most of the season. We usually play a little bit better the second half. Sometimes it takes us the first half to kind of get a feel for the game and how it's being played and what we need to do and sometimes for them just to settle down and get in the game and not play with so much emotional -- you know, up in the air, being up in the air emotionally. But, you know, I felt like we played better the second half, and I encouraged them to do that. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH WASHINGTON: Uh-huh. Encouraged. Q. Is there anything in particular that you said in the locker room after they came back, got it to two, or anything that you can repeat here? COACH WASHINGTON: Well, now, my mom is here. I'm very civilized when my mom is around. Honestly, what we talked about was really two things offensively we weren't executing. We weren't really running any offense. And sometimes, you know, we want to play up tempo, we want to play fast, and we're good at that. But there are times when we're playing fast without a purpose. And we did that late in the first half. We were playing fast without a purpose. Our shot selection, it wasn't bad, but sometimes we weren't getting the best shot that we could have got on a possession. We talked about the need to balance playing fast with executing offensively once they got back in and had us running and had us running offense against their set defense. We needed to be smarter and play with more intelligence. And also defensively we kind of got a little lazy when we got a lead. We were pretty aggressive in the zone to start the half, and then we kind of got a lead and we got a little bit of complacent, so to speak, and so we really talked about having more energy on the defensive end of the floor and slowing down a little bit and executing on the offensive end of the floor, and I thought we did a better job of that the second half Q. Coach, kind of following up on that, again, ten minutes to go, all of a sudden your team started playing a lot better. Was there a fundamental change you made defensively or offensively or was it just your team started playing better? COACH WASHINGTON: We switched from zone to man to man, and I thought we got a little bit more aggressive. We got some steals, got some stops, got some rebounds and got going in transition. So I thought the switch from zone to man really helped our aggressiveness and our intensity on the defensive end of the floor. Q. Seemed like the other big advantage you had in this game was bench points. You outscored them 33 to 18. Can you talk about the importance of that both today and looking forward to tomorrow? COACH WASHINGTON: Well, I like our bench and I think we have people that can come off the bench and come into the game and impact us in a lot of ways. Certainly Maggie does it from a scoring perspective. But the game isn't just about offense, and I thought our bench came in, Talia and Ariel and Renee Womack, and they gave us -- and Marisa, all of those guys came in and gave us some good minutes. Especially defensively. And in the first half we were able to be rested for the second half and play our starters a little more the second half and have energy to finish the game. Q. The significance of the 15 years since the school has won this, will you mention it? Will you dwell on it? Will it be a source of pregame speech? I've heard both sides of how to fire a team up for a game and whether you want to dwell on it a lot or not. COACH WASHINGTON: We're really proud of our history. And we talked about the fact that we've won Big Ten championships in the past, not in terms of a drought, but in terms of just the strong legacy that this program has carried over the years. We've been a program that has had a lot of success in conference tournament play. We've had a lost success in regular season play. We've had a lot of success in NCAA tournament play. And we're just happy that we're in a position now to add to that legacy. MODERATOR: Coach, congratulations. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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