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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 8, 2011

THE MODERATOR: We're ready to begin with UNLV. Coach, if we could start with some general comments on today's game.
COACH OLIVIER: We ended the season with Utah. We knew we had them first in the tournament. We knew it was going to be a battle. The last game was very, very physical. It was pretty much a defensive game. We knew that. We talked about it. They just came out ahead this time.
I'm just really proud of our student-athletes and our players for, you know, keeping it together. It's been a hard season. But they never stopped working hard. They never stopped playing together. Hopefully next year things will be better.
THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll open it up for questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Erica, Badon guarding, what problems did she present for you guys?
ERICA HELMS: I thought she penetrated our zone well. But down the stretch, we kind of contained her. She just made plays. She had her teammates step up. She just kind of penetrated and kicked. Looking to score much, so...

Q. Erica, can you talk about your emotions after your final game as a senior.
ERICA HELMS: (Tearing up) It's the last game.
COACH OLIVIER: I'm going to speak for her for a second so she can gather her thoughts.
I'm going to tell you one thing about Erica Helms. She always gives 100%. She's a fighter. She will do anything for her teammates. She just is very, very competitive. We're going to miss everything about her.
It's kind of a team joke, she brings a craziness that our team will miss. That's supposed to make you smile. She leaves it all on the floor. You can tell by how she's answering this question. She's going to miss us as much as we're going to miss her. She has done great things for this program. Scored over a thousand points the other day. Keeping us doing what we're supposed to do as one of our leaders. We're going to miss her.
ERICA HELMS: I just thought as a group we played hard. Everyone didn't give up. I think I just left it all on the floor the last game.

Q. Jamie, with all the missed free throws the team had today, was there a concern that you would pay the price? How frustrating was it? I mean, layups.
COACH OLIVIER: We shot 83%. That's a good day for us.

Q. Layups.
JAMIE SMITH: The missed layups, we were just going hard into the basket. Calls weren't going our way. But we can't ever worry about the refs, it's all about us finishing.
I mean, we definitely paid for it with a loss. But I just think their defense was really good. They probably just like really contained us. We had a lot of missed layups, but that just shows we were going hard to the basket.

Q. Jamie, the technical in the second half, can you talk about what happened, what the ref saw?
JAMIE SMITH: Yeah, I mean, that's just frustration. That comes with basketball. I think that I just feel that our team was going so hard and we just weren't getting as many calls. I think, I mean, I'll take the blame for that. I'm not proud of getting a technical. I mean, it's not a good thing. But I just was going as hard as I could. The frustration just came with it.
COACH OLIVIER: And, again, in that instance, I think, again, Jamie was doing a really good job blocking out. She was playing against a player that was a lot bigger than her. It was getting really physical in there. That's a good thing. I mean, we showed a lot of fight. I thought we represented the university in a great manner. Frustration got the best of us there. But I don't think that made a difference at all. I thought actually it kind of inspired us, kind of sparked us, made us fight that much harder. It showed how much we care.
These two, along with their 11 teammates, they all care so much and they all want to do so much. If I had to say anything, that sometimes gets in the way because they're pleasers and they fight so hard. We just have to learn how to play together as a team a little more - in a good way, not a bad way, in a good way.
THE MODERATOR: At this time I'll excuse the student-athletes and we'll continue with questions for Coach Olivier.

Q. Not only the missed layups, but the 17.5% shooting, do you almost feel like you gave this game away?
COACH OLIVIER: No. We talked about it in the locker room obviously. Utah, they're very, very physical. Our plan was to take it hard to the basket. You asked about layups missed. That showed we were doing what we were supposed to do. We wanted to get good, high-percentage shots. Again, Utah is very physical. They weren't happy with what happened the other day. Neither were we. We were fighting.
But it just didn't go our way. We didn't get as many fouls as maybe we thought we would get inside. We talked about making our free throws this time around. We beat them last time by not making our free throws. They stuck with the game plan. We wanted to get easy shots. We got some easy shots. We just didn't finish.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about the last two minutes of the game. Erica hit two free throws to tie it up, then the three. Was that the momentum changer?
COACH OLIVIER: Well, I mean, yeah, it definitely was. Rodrigues is someone we talked about. She's a great player. She hits those open shots. Badon does a really good job of penetrating and dishing to her.
That definitely put a little damper on our mood. But, you know, again, I thought we continued to fight. We got the ball inside a couple times. Didn't get the foul like we were trying to do. We were trying to take, like I said, a high-percentage shot.
But we battled. You know, for us to get 21 offensive boards, I thought, again, we battled. But Utah's a good team. They've been here before. They won the tournament last year. Badon is a great leader for them. You kind of got to give it up for what Utah did. I thought they battled and did a very good job today.
And we're right in the game. We're shooting 17%. That's amazing. So as much as I'm giving it up for them, I thought we played some great defense. We really battled.

Q. You mentioned Badon. Talk about how difficult she was to defend.
COACH OLIVIER: Yeah. You know, I actually thought our team did a good job of containing her somewhat. I mean, you're never going to be able to totally contain her.
Where she really killed us is her rebounds. She made sure they got second and third attempts. A point guard gets 17 rebounds. Think about that. It's crazy.
But, again, she got turned over. She turned it over a couple times. I thought our defense was aggressive. They obviously were ready for our traps more this time around.
She's a great player. You're never going to be able to totally contain someone like Badon. She's too quick, too explosive. Like Erica said, she makes her teammates around her better. She gets some clean looks.

Q. Can you talk about Erica's performance. She led the team with 14 points. She showed a lot of heart in her last game.
COACH OLIVIER: I just thought that was interesting, too, when you asked her.

Q. I'm sorry about that.
COACH OLIVIER: No, I thought it was great. Erica is amazing in our eyes. I mean, Erica, she's amazing. She's a mother right now. She has a focus that's undeniable. Like you said, her heart is as big as can be. We're going to really miss her heart. And we're going to miss all four seniors.
Karla doesn't play a lot, but Karla works her tail off every single day she comes in practice. We're so proud of Karla. Kalie, too. They're all hard workers. India came in. I thought she did some great things today. Erica is probably the one that gets more minutes out of the group. Erica leaves it out on the floor. She's going to give you everything she possibly has. That's what she did today and that's why she had so much emotion.
But these ladies are going to come back and cheer us on. They're a Rebel for life. We're going to use this season to motivate us for next year and we feel strongly about that.

Q. Probably wasn't the season you had in mind, but talk about some of the positives, what can you take into next year?
COACH OLIVIER: Again, we were always looking for some positives this year. I think the biggest thing, you know, I have a great staff that works extremely hard. With that said, the players, they come in every day. They want to get better. They focus. They work hard. It's not like, you know, downerville. And it's hard. It's hard when you lose as many games as we did.
When you look at our season, we had I want to say eight or nine games where we lost by eight or fewer points. That's a complete different season if all of a sudden you win some of those games.
Some of it is, you know, what I need to do, do a better job just down the stretch, making sure we execute better as a group. Some of it is our leadership on the floor. As much as I feel like Jamie is a great leader and does so many positive things, we need basketball leaders to step up, too.
For us as a group, there's a lot of things we're going to get better at. But our free throws, it's funny, because when you said free throws, we shot 82%. Two years ago when we took over this program, we were last in the conference in free-throw percentage. This year we were 1 or 2. We were 1 or 2 in steals. We did a lot of good things.
Now we need to be consistent at what we do and get some wins early so we can have confidence to be successful in this conference. This conference is a very, very good conference. Utah is a good basketball team. Their record is 15-16. We're right in there with TCU. BYU is a two-possession game with under two minutes.
We feel like we were close, but we just weren't good enough. Hopefully we can take that on to next year and get better and build from it.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach.
COACH OLIVIER: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297

MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 8, 2011

Erica Helms

Kathy Olivier

Jamie Smith