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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2011Raimee BeckAlicia LeipprandtAndrea WilliamsLAS VEGAS, NEVADA Air Force – 66 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by the Air Force Academy. Coach, if we could start with your general thoughts on today's game. COACH WILLIAMS: Oh, it was a phenomenal game. It was going to be a good rival game with the in-state rival. Our team was fired up and focused. Put it all together at the right time. It's just one of those things we wanted to show what we could do for the year, beat Colorado State this time. Third time's a charm for us. THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll take questions for the student-athletes. Q. Your three-pointer that gave you the lead that turned out to be the winning points, how confident did you feel on that shot? RAIMEE BECK: Well, they started zoning us. They did it about two possessions before. I was like, you know what, this is perfect for me, a great opportunity. I love to shoot threes. We swung the ball around about twice. That third time I was like, I'm going to shoot it, she's giving me enough room. I shot it. I think I made one before. That one I was like, Please, let this one go in if any of them go in. It went in, so I was pretty happy. Q. It seems like every time I talk to you it's about some point in your career. What does it mean to you to win a game here and be a huge part of it? RAIMEE BECK: You know, every time we've come, either it's been in the play-in game or tournament game and we've lost and it's been pretty frustrating. We're always looking forward to this point in the year. Coming out this year, getting this first win that I've ever had in a tournament, in the Mountain West Conference, has been amazing. It's precious. I've told you that before. Getting a win with this program is precious. It's really going to help this program in the future. I think this win is great. I'm looking forward to see what the program does in the future. Hopefully we'll win again, UNLV or Utah. We'll see. Q. Alicia, what was it that you were able to do tonight in this game? Last game you had a huge game, too. Against Colorado State, you scored 10 points in the first two games. Tonight you seemed to have your way with them. What was the difference? ALICIA LEIPPRANDT: I just kind of got hot tonight. My teammates did a good job of getting me the ball. Coach gave me the freedom to attack the basket. I'm not a very good shooter, but I love to attack the basket. She's opened that up a lot more for me. Q. Alicia, at some point in the first half did you realize they couldn't guard you when you penetrated the ball? ALICIA LEIPPRANDT: Yeah. Q. What does that feel like? ALICIA LEIPPRANDT: It felt pretty good (smiling). Just playing with the defense, feeling unstoppable kind of. I don't know. It felt good. Like I said, my teammates did a good job of giving me the ball, getting open when I'm driving. Dymond, I like playing with her, she gets open when I drive. Q. At what point did you guys really start believing you could win a game here? I hate to put it that way, but you're 1-11 all time here as a program. You seemed confident coming in. RAIMEE BECK: Well, personally I feel like with Coach A's new philosophy, her optimistic attitude really helped us. She told us all year, Look forward to the tournament. Let's get wins during the regular season, but that tournament is when it really matters. Funny story. When we were coming out of the Hard Rock hotel today, Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing' was playing today. I think that's our new song, 'Don't Stop Believing.' THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll dismiss the student-athletes and open it up for questions for Coach Williams. Q. Coach, what triggered the decision to put Alicia in the lineup, she scored 50 points? COACH WILLIAMS: I finally got a clue (laughter). A lot of things, when we start playing well together, seeing it in practice. Trying a lot of combinations. I think outside the box, they've heard a lot up on the hill. The civilians decided to go even smaller in the post and put her at the 4. We've been playing her out of position all year. Now we finally got it figured out. Her down at the 4 takes a little pressure off her and some freedom to do things, different sets. Dymond playing well in the two-man game in the post-up. She can be that creative guard that also can scissor cut off of her or create her own shot. You have to find a day she is on and off and you have to limit her turnovers and get her confidence on. She's worked on it. A lot of it is talking about different roles, what they can do. They stuck to the game plan very well. Starting to experiment at TCU with those bigger players what she would do in the 4. Colorado State last time when the game was out of hand, getting some freshmen seasoned a little bit more with the last three or four minutes, so we don't have deer in the headlights. They all responded well. We moved her down to the 4. If we can get smaller and better, then we'll do it. Q. Defensively you were able to negate their height. They had stretches where they got really going and it looked like there was nothing you were going to do to stop them, all of a sudden you were able to regroup and do some things. How difficult was that and critical was that to winning this game? COACH WILLIAMS: Our staff put together I think one of the great scouting defensive plans with Coach Robinson having her scout with what we're going to do with Kim and how we're going to defend her and lock her up, just limit her touches. That's what usually hurts us. Also Sam. We're used to getting pounded inside, getting beat with everybody's post. We do a little digging off of some people if they weren't true scorers, go doubling, keep her off balance a little bit so she couldn't get rhythm and do some things. Yeah, they're going to get some back doors, shoot over us, gather their feet. That's what you want someone of Sam Martin's caliber to do if you were coaching them. Our kids dug in. Told them they had to get physical, come up with the jump ball or lose ball, tips and touches. With Raimee getting 15 rebounds, we're getting in the paint, can run and do some things. It was a great defensive plan from my assistant coaches. Great job in the turnaround on Monday morning at 6 a.m. in our practice at home to talk about it with a few of our kids attending a lab they needed to do. When we got here, a lot of shots in Cox and reiterating what our defensive plan was. They stuck to it. It even trickles down to our bench, how young we are. Bryanna Mueller, her job was to make sure everyone knew who the doubler was coming off of, make sure when they come in, you're screaming and hollering on the defensive end to get us a good start for the first half, then come out to play with somebody, then the second half we can run our offense at our bench. They dug in. Then Raimee comes up with the big block and things are just rolling for us. Q. When Raimee got that block, what was your reaction at that point? COACH WILLIAMS: To finish the game was phenomenal. Like, Okay, that's our ball now. We wanted to close out on three. That's the thing. Been our nemesis all year. For her to have courage to go up, close out, get the block, waiting and gasp to see if it goes in. They are such a tremendous three-point shooting team. For her to get the block, for her to rebound, for to make the three, for that senior to find a way to will her team to win, the look in their eyes, take a win away from somebody, be in the position, believing and knowing in the assistant coaches yesterday and today getting even prepared more and more focused. It's tournament time, anything can happen. Q. You said all season that you were just setting little goals one at a time. Are you ready to set bigger ones now? COACH WILLIAMS: Well, we did attain this goal of winning our first game here in the tournament. Yeah, the next goal will be UNLV and Utah. Again, our kids are in a different position where they're coming back to scout, they're not just going to watch a game with their parents. They're here for a mission: scout this game, play for another day. We'd loved to be in the semis. It's that focus, it's that belief. Utah is a tremendous team. Again, the mini goal was to come here, win a game, solidify what we've done all year in case somebody didn't believe or we caught somebody on an off night. It's a tremendous aspect that the kids want to change and do what we ask them to do and are ready to change. They've done it all year. You say we're going to be up-tempo now, play man-to-man, we can scramble. It's a testament to how they do and what we do during the day, then come down and do basketball practice with us. They're accepting the change, their roles, believing in them. The mini goal, so now we have to set some new ones. That will be now two. Q. Raimee talked about her game-winning shot, them going zone. Did you see that developing? And how confident were you? COACH WILLIAMS: Very confident. Her look and demeanor was even more hungry tonight. When we ran a couple sets trying to get into a dive play, we call, can go inside but also the kick-out is there for shooters. We also can run a four out and one in. You have to play a gambling game. If J is in for defense, we're going to put her in for offense. Then if Katie comes in for defense or we sub somebody out, Kelsey is our shooter. Just knowing what sets we can run with certain people on the court even though it may not be our defensive tendency at the time. Yeah, she had the look. She was ready to shoot it. I told them to spot it. When she started taking shots early, looking for her shot, we knew her head was in it, really wanted it, and we're going to go through our senior. Q. You talked about her having that look. I'm sure you expected a lot out of her today. I know you were upset with her at the shot clock violation. Did you just expect her to bounce back from that? COACH WILLIAMS: Yeah, you did, because you also had a turnover with a 'gasp' happened. They came down and scored. You expected her to bounce back. I thought she would take it. A lot of things were falling in the paint for her, Megan Muñiz. But again, you can't get down on them. You're on to the next play. Stay focused. At that time my team responds. We're on to the next thing. Get another defensive stop with two minutes to go. Again, it's knowing roles and for us passing it to somebody not really ready to shoot. They're expecting her to shoot. I'm there for the rebound, do what I can, reset the defense or offense. Again, just a temporary moment to reiterate that you need to shoot the ball. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. COACH WILLIAMS: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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