	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 8, 2011

Lauren Mansfield

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

Iowa State Â– 69
Nebraska - 61

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Coach Fennelly, and we'll have an opening statement.
COACH FENNELLY: Thank you. I think, first of all, I want to commend the University of Nebraska for a great effort. It's been an honor to coach against Connie Yori. She's a class act. They've represented our league in an amazing fashion.
I've had two odd 5-12 games in this league. One was Ceal Barry's last game as the coach of Colorado and now Nebraska's last game in the women's game, Big 12. But I really think the way they conducted themselves all year was amazing. And Connie's an outstanding person. They've got a great team.
It was a game that we kind of anticipated it would be. First tournament game, a little bit of jitters, but like I told the kids after the game, and everyone hears it, is just move to the right, survive the game, forget anything bad you did because it doesn't matter and we get to stay in Kansas City and be part of what I think is the best conference tournament in the country.
Very proud of our team, and certainly we had to work for it and that's the way it should be in this tournament.
THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by our student-athletes. Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Why did it take you 35 minutes to get Chelsea the ball? Could you talk about her finish, the way she came down the stretch?
KELSEY BOLTE: I think we kept running the same play and they kept kind of cheating out on the shooters on the outside, and that was the lane wide open for Pop-ins and for Chelsea. So we kept feeding it to her, and she did a great job of finishing and making the free throw as well.

Q. Why not earlier? Was that just something that happened late in the game?
LAUREN MANSFIELD: I think that's just kind of the way the game happened. I mean, when she's open, we're going to try and get it to her, but I feel like the defense kind of really spread out because we're making our shots, so that was nice, and so we got it to her and she did really well with it.

Q. Lauren, I know you like to pass the ball. Tonight you were kind of a scorer. Talk about the role. Was that planned or just kind of happened?
LAUREN MANSFIELD: Just kind of happened. I feel like they left me open on the zone as well, I'm sure they were chasing Bolte. So I started to hit a few, so it took me some too. But my teammates really had my back and told me keep shooting, keep shooting, so I did that, yeah.

Q. Kelsey, what was it like at halftime in the locker room when she made the 3-pointer and what was the mood and especially of your coach?
KELSEY BOLTE: Well, before Coach even got in there, we kind of collectively decided it wasn't good enough.
Any team that scores or that shoots, makes seven 3s on us, we weren't doing a good enough job. We decided we needed to step up and play way better defense than we did. Obviously Coach Fennelly wasn't happy about it, but we weren't happy about it either.

Q. Kelsey, you guys had trouble scoring in your last game against Missouri. What did you do differently offensively to score more points this time?
KELSEY BOLTE: I mean, we hit our shots. I don't think I made -- I think I made two shots at the Missouri game. And Lauren really stepped up. She had five 3-pointers. That's great. I think our shots were just falling tonight.

Q. Lauren, Chassidy had that big 3 with eight minutes left or something. Were you telling her to shoot or was she -- was that a shot she should take there? Or was it just -- talk about that play right there.
LAUREN MANSFIELD: I feel like when she's wide open she's been making them, those kind of shots. So we try and help her and tell her you can shoot that. And I guess just depends on the game, and that was really a big moment in the game and everyone was really excited for her.

Q. For either of you, talk about tomorrow. You've got K-State, another team you swept in the regular season. You just saw them. What kind of challenges does that present and will it be difficult to do it a third time?
KELSEY BOLTE: Yes, we're just going to prepare like we always do. It's a game just like any other one. We're going to prepare. Obviously stay off our feet. Already had a game today, so we're going to prepare just like we always do, get everyone ready, get the team ready, and we'll be ready to go.

Q. Anything particular about Kansas State from those two games? What's unique about them in matching up with you guys?
LAUREN MANSFIELD: Definitely their shooters. They can really shoot the ball. Wide-range shooters with Chambers, so that will be something that we are really concentrating on, I'm sure. I think that's the main thing, just getting to the shooters.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. Questions for Coach.

Q. Following up on what was asked as far as halftime, what was the message there at halftime?
COACH FENNELLY: Basically the message was exactly what Kelsey said. We had given up seven 3-point shots, and I think six of the seven were defensive mistakes on how we were -- talked about guarding. And we talked a lot about like you do in tournaments, if we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to go home. And we need to play better, smarter defense.
And I thought -- held them to 23 points in the second half, and it was very uncharacteristic of the defensive consistency of our team. You have to give Nebraska a lot of credit. They ran some good stuff. They caught us in some mismatches. But our team, the core of our team has been the attention to detail defensively, and it wasn't there in the first half.
And I thought for the most part it was in the second half. And that that kind of turned the game a little bit. And we also had some foul issues. Lauren got two fouls. Anna Prins gets two fouls. And we had to play some people that probably weren't ready for this moment, this stage.
With only nine players and two of them in foul trouble, that was probably the biggest concern, just could we get it to halftime without anyone in major foul trouble. At least we did that.

Q. Can you talk about Chelsea a little bit? She took it to the hole three times. Got two 3-point plays.
COACH FENNELLY: Pop always plays hard. She struggled early. She got into foul trouble. Had five turnovers and got herself going a little too fast.
But, you know, when they ran their zone against us, we tried to spread them out, and Lauren and Kelsey Bolte both made ten 3s. Their percentage was better than Pop. Probably not a bad choice to let them shoot. The good thing with Pop, she offensively rebounded the balls, some huge plays, stepped up made the free throws. She's always a kid that plays with an amazing amount of energy. I think she was shook up by the intentional foul call and I think it took her out of her flow a little bit.
She had a couple of turnovers early. But the one thing about Chelsea is there's never -- there's never a time when we've walked out of any building any day where we didn't say the kid busted her butt every minute she was in the game. It's not always perfect, but as a coach you want people to compete, and she competes every second of every play, and she's that way every single day.

Q. What did you think about that play? Did it look inadvertent to you?
COACH FENNELLY: It was inadvertent. Chelsea Poppens is not going to do that to anybody on purpose. They were scrumming, fighting for the ball. That's the rule. It's a new rule. If someone makes a contact above the shoulders, they're going to make the call.
And obviously there was a lot of discussion. So they wanted to get it right. But it was a big play of the game, because we go down three and they get the ball back, and luckily we get a stop right there and come back and stay in the game.
And when that happens to you as a player, you get a little flustered, because you're like -- you're out there and you're the one they call it on.
So it was something that happens in a Big 12 tournament game. And, number one, it happens, and, number two, luckily no one was hurt. And that's what you want to focus on.

Q. Talking about that play a little bit more. Did it do anything to spark you guys? Because you didn't trail after that.
COACH FENNELLY: I think it did a little bit. You know, you need something, a rallying point sometimes. And I think the other thing it did, too, to be honest with you, our kids were a little tired.
I think it gave us a little bit of an extra break and they could stand there and catch their breath a little bit. And I think the other thing that happened, which is so typical of the best fans there are, is our fans got into it at that moment.
And I think they sensed -- I mean, our fans show up is one thing. But they have an amazing ability to know when our team needs them the most.
And I think at that moment there was like a dead period and all of a sudden it got really loud and I think our kids got energized. And Kelsey Bolte had them together and I'm waving at them, and one of the officials is pointing, like do you want to talk to them, and I'm like, hell, they can -- I'm sure whatever Kelsey is saying is better than what I'm going to say anyway, so just stay there.
It was a well played last seven minutes by us certainly at a time when it was going to determine who won the game.

Q. Kelsey scores 15 points but doesn't score a bucket the last 16 minutes of the game, you talk about her teammates stepping up, I know it's been a big key here.
COACH FENNELLY: It has. They play a lot of zone, and we try to run. Like Kelsey said, we ran the same play a lot because they were just running at her, which opened it up for Pop. Anna had some great looks, didn't go in, but great looks at the basket. Certainly Lauren's 3s were big. Chas hit one.
Even in the zone they did a great job last part of the game of just shading. We tried to move Kelsey around a little bit. They defended her really well.
But when you run at someone before they get the ball, which they had to do, that opens up other areas, whether it was Lauren or Chas or -- someone has to be open. You can't commit. That's what Kelsey Bolte does to you. She hurts you just by being on the court and everyone's so conscious of guarding her that other people get open. And for our team today those other people made the shots.
Sometimes we haven't. And when we haven't, we usually got beat. So tonight it was certainly a night where between Pop and Lauren and just a few other people made enough baskets to survive.

Q. Can you talk about the one-day turnaround, playing K-State for the third time in the season?
COACH FENNELLY: You know, the one-day turnaround -- if you're the 4th seed, then you talk a lot about getting the extra rest. If you're the 5 seed, I'm glad we played today and we're used to the court.
The kids want to play. They sit there -- they're all nervous. It doesn't matter. I mean, we're going to play a really, really good team that we beat twice, which is great.
We play low-scoring, hard-fought games with them. The challenge for us will be to stay out of foul trouble because we aren't very deep without Z; that's a player we don't have. But the alternative is being on the bus going back to Ames. And if we've got to roll them out there tomorrow, we'll roll them out there tomorrow.
But they want to play and they're excited about playing. If you weren't playing, you'd be practicing. And they're looking at me like let's just play because this practice thing is getting real old.
The main point of it is if we lose tomorrow it will not be because we're tired from today. That's not fair to the other team. We're going to show up and play and hopefully it will be a great quarter final game.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297

BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 8, 2011

Kelsey Bolte

Bill Fennelly

Lauren Mansfield