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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 8, 2011

Maya Moore

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT

CONNECTICUT Â– 73
NOTRE DAME - 64

THE MODERATOR: Joining us from Connecticut is Head Coach Geno Auriemma along with Bria Hartley, senior forward, Maya Moore, freshman center, Stephanie Dolson, and sophomore guard Kelly Faris. Coach, an opening statement, please?
COACH AURIEMMA: I was, as you can probably tell watching them, it was a real struggle. I thought the first half was very difficult to get anything done at both ends of the floor. We had a difficult time trying to get into some offense that made any sense, and we had a difficult time keeping them out of the lane ask getting to the free-throw line and all that stuff.
We kind of regrouped and went over a couple things. When we came back out, the first five minutes of the second half set the tone for the rest of the game. Made some big plays, made some shots, we got the ball inside a little bit more than we did in the first half. It was exactly the kind of game that I thought it would be going in.

Q. All season it's been team concept, team thing, lot of contributions. Talk about how that helped you tonight and the way you guys finished this run?
MAYA MOORE: We needed every person to contribute tonight, and I thought we did a good job, especially in the second half, stepping up, hitting good shots, running our offense and executing what Coach was drawing up for us. Whether it was dominating the boards like Kelly did for us tonight or hitting some big shots and making some great passes like Bria and Tiffany were doing on and Stef finished really well tonight. It took all of us, so I was really proud of the way everybody stepped up.

Q. Maya, you've won four of these in a row now. Talk about how meaningful this one was just because of how difficult it was to get here?
MAYA MOORE: Yeah, it's been definitely the most difficult year, but we have shown some resilience. I think overcoming some odds and being mentally you tougher than people probably thought we would be, and finding a way to win. Just going through the regular season and being consistent enough, just enough to win all of those games. To know that you can't really look to your left or right, you've got to suck it up and play through it, because we don't have a lot of reserves coming off the bench. That takes a lot of mental focus for a long stretch of time.
Because of that we've developed. Especially Bria and Stefanie have developed quicker. It's just a blast to see that, and see it in the games.

Q. Can you talk about tonight fighting through those double teams and being productive? Also, could you talk a little bit about where you feel you've grown the most during the course of this season?
STEFANIE DOLSON: You know, I tried really hard in practice just to push myself more, going harder, getting my stamina up, my endurance, and I struggled out there today. But I just tried to fight through.
I think the thing that I've progressed the most is just my mentality. Going out there and just playing as hard as I can, and not focusing on how tired I am. There was one timeout where I was just so exhausted. But C.D. talked to me, and I had to fight through it, because we don't have a lot of depth in our bench.
So I think I definitely just like I said, my mentality's definitely gotten a lot better.

Q. Maya, right after the final buzzer you gave Stefanie a hug and said something. Would you mind sharing with us what you said to her?
MAYA MOORE: Probably something like you're my MVP or I'm really proud of you or something along those lines. I gave her like eight hugs. I don't really remember what I said at that one.
I was just really proud of the way she stepped up and had everybody's back tonight. Relieving a lot of pressure, I think, for all of us, by scoring in the post. Every time we threw it in there, it seemed like something good would happen. She would either do her hook shot, didn't get frustrated.
So I was just really congratulating her and making sure she knew that what she did tonight was really special.

Q. For Bria and Stefanie, a lot was asked of you both this year. What's it mean for you guys to see your hard work pay off? Not only to win a championship, but to be named to the all-tournament team?
BRIA HARTLEY: It's definitely a great feeling. It's our first time winning the East Championship. We're just really excited and just glad that we went out there, played hard and won.
STEFANIE DOLSON: Yeah, I'm super excited. I mean, it feels great to know that we just won our first Big East Championship, hopefully for more to come. So it's a great feeling to know that we went out there and played hard. The fans were there supporting us. They were great tonight. It's a crazy feeling.

Q. Maya, do you feel that the team was discounted this season? If true, did that perception fuel the team this season to the point where it's at now?
MAYA MOORE: We take any motivation that we can get. It is an unusual year, and some of the challenges that we're facing this year, we haven't necessarily had to in the past, so we just use it to make us better. We use it to make us more focused, more competitive as a challenge to be mentally tougher for longer stretches of time, knowing that you're going to have to play more minutes. I think we used it in a positive way.

Q. There were a lot of plays in this game, but you were up 5 with about 2 minutes to go. You missed the shot and Stefanie went through about three Notre Dame kids and gets the ball to score instead of them coming down only down 5, you're up 7. Can you talk about how key that play was for you guys?
MAYA MOORE: That's one of the big plays I was talking about. She was there. She had my back in that instance. It's all those little plays that you look back on, and that makes the difference, hustle plays, getting a loose ball, getting an offensive rebound. That's what I think sometimes gets overlooked is the little plays when it comes to championships. That's what makes the biggest difference.
Like she was saying earlier with how her mentality has changed and matured, and that's the mentality that we've seen in Stefanie, and everybody's mentality has to be just not being tired. Going after every loose ball and staying with the play. So that was a big momentum mover for us.

Q. Geno, just coming into the season, losing Tina was such a huge hole for you guys. It seemed in this tournament, Stefanie came out 24 the first day, 24 tonight. How important was she for you guys to win this tournament, and looking forward to the NCAA Tournament having her play really well right now?
COACH AURIEMMA: Yeah, I mean, I think it's hard to win championships if you don't have somewhat of a consistent scoring threat inside. Whoever that is, it doesn't necessarily have to be a center or any particular position.
I think what Stefanie has done is given us a little bit of a comfort level that we didn't have probably September, October, November, December. We were more having to make jump shots, have to get down in transition. Our half court offense wasn't as comfortable in it. Now that we have somebody like her that we really can count on night-in and night-out, we have a chance.
If she hadn't developed to the point where she's at now, I don't think we'd have any chance going into the NCAA's. Same with Bria. I think the two of them playing the way they did this week says a lot about what our chances can be going forward.

Q. Do you think Notre Dame deserves to be mentioned in the talk for No. 2 seed?
COACH AURIEMMA: I don't see who else has played a better schedule and had as much success as they've had. I haven't seen every team, but I would put them up against any other team that would be a 2 seed. So, yeah, in my mind I think absolutely. Absolutely.

Q. Is this as gratifying as any championship that you can remember just because of what you guys had to go through to get to this point?
COACH AURIEMMA: Yeah, it is. There were a lot more areas that we had to cover. In some years every mistake we made would get exploited and this is one of those years, like 2003, 2004 maybe, 2005, '06, '07, whenever we won the tournament those years.
Any time I think you don't have a wide margin for error, I think it's rewarding, because everything has to go right. You can see how easily it could go wrong.
Kelly plays one way last night, plays a different way tonight. Hard to -- it's hard to predict how people are going to behave night-in and night-out. For as bad as we played in the first half, to go in up one, I thought that was pretty amazing. It really was. I was shocked, shocked. To get killed like we did on the boards and still win.

Q. Bria got her third foul in the first half with 4:00 and change to go. Tiffany fouled with 1:00 and change. What goes through your mind? You left Tiffany in because you looked on the bench and obviously there weren't a lot of options. What's going through your mind? You know that's an Achilles. How difficult is that and how worrisome is that?
COACH AURIEMMA: Well, against a team like Notre Dame you just -- your worst fears are going to come true because of how they play, how they get the ball from point A to point B, and what they do when they get in the lane and how aggressive they are.
For me, we're trying to manage it so that we have enough offense out on the floor to help our defense. I know we're going to be good defensively regardless of who is playing. But trying to keep enough offensive players on the floor is a real challenge sometimes, especially when you have two of your best offensive players, Bria and Tiffany, with those fouls. Now you're looking out there and Kelly's struggling, so it's Maya and Stefanie and that's it.
Yeah, during that time I just kind of shook my head and let's see what happens. Let's just play and see what happens.

Q. (Inaudible)?
COACH AURIEMMA: Yeah, yeah. Exactly what happened tonight. We get in foul trouble, we get killed on the boards. We don't shoot the ball particularly great. A game like this could have easily gone the other way.
So that would have been impossible the last couple of years. We would have won a game like this by 25 points a couple years ago and last year, but not this year. This year, if we don't have all five of our starters play well, we could lose to anybody. I mean, not anybody, but some people.

Q. Was there ever a point in time in the fall or first few weeks of the season when you were worried Stefanie wasn't going to get to this point this soon?
COACH AURIEMMA: Yeah, I think there were a lot of times watching her practice that I didn't know how long it would take. When the season started, to be honest with you, this is what I thought. I thought if we could get ten minutes from Stefanie Dolson and we can get ten minutes from Heather Buck, that's 20 minutes.
The other 20 minutes we'll kind of zig and zag and figure it out. So that's what I thought going in, and obviously I don't have any idea what I'm thinking about, you know, because none of that ever came to pass. Maybe that's why she developed so quickly because she wasn't put in a situation where, hey, Stef, just give us 10 minutes. She was put in a situation where you need to give us 30 minutes every night, and it needs to be really, really good.
Sometimes that forces you to be better than you are, quicker than you want to be. So you look at her play the last three days. Look at the player that fouled out in the first 12 minutes against Baylor the second game of the year, and that's not the same person, not even close.

Q. If you had to vote for most outstanding player of this tournament, who would you have voted for?
COACH AURIEMMA: Unfortunately, I didn't get to vote. But I know who I would have voted for.

Q. In your 27 years now, have you ever had a player develop as quickly in season as Stefanie has done for you to be able to play 12 minutes and then 40 in the championship?
COACH AURIEMMA: Yeah, probably only one, but she had a lot to overcome because she was big, and slow, and not very bright and lazy and didn't work really hard. It took a long, long time to get her to where we needed her to be.
But Kara probably is the only one that comes close to what Stefanie did. And Kara was MVP, not MVP, she made the Eastern all regional team as a freshman after playing like four or five minutes a game in November.
Other than that, no. No, no. As I said, this one might have happened quicker simply out of necessity. But Kara was a dominant player, it's just it didn't look like that because we had Rebecca and Jen and Nykesha.
So it didn't quite look like that. During this time during Kara's freshman year, she was a dominant player. And I hope that Stefanie -- Stefanie can't be what Kara was because she's not as tall and doesn't have the same amount of help around her that Kara had. Hopefully we can get some of the same results though.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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