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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2011Amanda BestDon FlanaganJessica KielpinskiLAS VEGAS, NEVADA New Mexico – 65 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by New Mexico. Coach, start with general thoughts on tonight's game. COACH FLANAGAN: Well, first of all, I thought San Diego State really played a very physical, strong game. Very difficult to defend them. Got a good inside game. We were quite worried about transition offense. I don't think they got any hoops off of us transition. Did a nice job there. We didn't run the prettiest of offense because of their pressure. But down the stretch, I thought we played with a lot of poise. I thought our defense was quite good throughout the evening. As I said, they're very difficult to defend. Have a lot of athletic kids. Got long and tall kids. So it was a tough group to defend. But I thought we did a great job. And we shot our free throws very well. THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions for the student-athletes. Q. Amanda, what do you think is the biggest difference tonight between what you did the first two times you played them? AMANDA BEST: I think we came out really prepared and we really wanted to win this game. Everybody was on the same page. I feel like we had so much energy. Everybody was on, like I said, the same page. When you have everybody focused, wanting the same common goal, we accomplished it, so... Q. Jessica, you hit two big threes during the run in the first half. Talk about that run. JESSICA KIELPINSKI: I think that run was really big for us just 'cause we were all playing -- I think at the beginning we were a little bit flustered. With the run, I think we kind of gained a little bit of composure. It kind of set us off that, Hey, we have a chance at this. We're going to run with it, go with it. I think that fired us up quite a bit. Q. Are you worried at all about being a little gassed tomorrow? As far as the bench was a little thin tonight, you were asked to play a lot of minutes. You don't worry about tomorrow if you don't win today. Yet, are you just a tad bit concerned about that? You too young to worry about that kind of stuff? AMANDA BEST: Jess and I, every game this could be our last game. I know both of us have some energy. We'll give it our all. We're going to take some ice baths tonight so we'll be prepared. Q. Jess, talk about playing their bigs. You were aggressive attacking the basket. Was that something you focused on? JESSICA KIELPINSKI: Yeah, I think I just was able to play my game. Against like taller posts, I guess it's more -- I guess I'm able to play in my comfort zone a lot more easily than a quicker guard or something or post. I just try to push 'em out, not let 'em post up. I guess that's the biggest thing. I just hustled and I played like it could be my last game and I left it all out on the floor. Q. Amanda, what is it like playing as the No. 7 seed in the tournament this year? AMANDA BEST: I don't really look at seeding. I just look at the opponent we're going to play. To me, everybody is on the same playing field. It might help you as far as positioning, you might get a couple games off. I'd rather play four games than sit around and have to play the last game, so... THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll dismiss the student-athletes and open it up for questions for Coach Flanagan. Q. Don, the second half wasn't your normal substitution pattern. Was it just a matter of win or go home and you were going to stay with the people who brought you? COACH FLANAGAN: My idea prior to the game was to rotate players in and out. That went out the window very early in that game. I was at a point where I felt comfortable with certain players and uncomfortable with some players. I like to normally rotate more kids. My intent was to do that. With that game being the way it was, I just felt like we'd have a better advantage if we restricted some of the substitutions. Then as the game progressed in the second half, I thought nerves would be a factor if I started substituting too much. Of course, Porche fouled out there. Jordan did a nice job while she was in, but she was in briefly. I would have liked to have played a lot more players, especially since we have a game tomorrow. Q. Could you talk a little bit about Jasmine's performance tonight. COACH FLANAGAN: Well, Jasmine was having some problems early on getting free. They did a nice job defending her, bumping her cuts, being real physical with her, trying to deny the ball to her. But Jasmine is a scorer. She has a way of scoring. She has a way of - I don't know what it is - but she can score in bunches. Once she starts scoring, she gets that confidence. Really, she's a player that has some limitations skill-wise 'cause she hasn't really worked on parts of her game, but she's a heck of a competitor with a great shot. She's pretty fast, too. Q. Staying on Jasmine for a second, on a lighter note, even before the tip, I was watching her in the starting lineup. She went to the center and she didn't know where to go after she shook hands with Coco Davis. She had to wait till she was told where to go. This is a young team. You looked at that when that happened and laughed. Can you talk about that, nerves going into this game. COACH FLANAGAN: When you're playing in a tournament situation, you know, we played a regular season, so you feel like they're probably poised at that point. But then they get in a tournament situation, it's just like the beginning of the year again, beginning of a season again. Yeah, she did make me laugh. Jas is a great kid. Has a great smile, great attitude, and is a competitive person. She doesn't really like to be embarrassed. That's why we laughed a little bit. But she's starting to relax a little bit now. Freshmen a lot of times throughout the year you don't get much from them, you don't get to know them too well. We're starting to see her personality surface. Of course, the fans are starting to see her talent surface. Q. Late in the game it seemed like rather than try to set up your offense and perhaps take some fouls you did some long passes, really attacked the basket. Was that by design? COACH FLANAGAN: It was probably lucky (smiling). No, just kidding. We actually wanted to go at them. It appeared like they got a little tired at CSU. I don't know if that was true, but the second half was not one of their great second halves. I felt like we could run them a little bit. We felt like she would not substitute as much as we were going to, and it turned out to be exactly the opposite. I didn't substitute much and she substituted pretty freely. That really didn't work. But we continued to run at them. If we run a press breaker, get it to Jas, we don't give her any rules. We say, Go as fast as you can to the basket. That's it. Q. A quick turnaround for tomorrow. What becomes critical against Wyoming? COACH FLANAGAN: Well, the one thing we have going for us is that we played a game in the tournament, we won, and we're confident, and we feel better about ourselves. Maybe Wyoming, having not played in the tournament, could be a little bit nervous and have some nerves early. I don't expect that to happen because Wyoming has a lot of veteran players. At the same time, it could happen. We're going to play hard no matter what. It is unfortunate that I played so few players and I played people like Jas 40 minutes. I can't do that tomorrow. But the most important thing I think that we have to do with them is, last time we played them, I think they had 48 threes. No, it wasn't quite that many, but it was a lot (smiling). We have to make sure we don't let them get set on the arc. We have to run them off the arc. I think that's real important, make them be drivers. Then rebounding is going to be important. Vandiver is the most important player in the conference and she's difficult to handle. If you play her with a guard, she powers a guard. If you play her with a post, she goes outside, gets all the screens, gets an open three. She's a very difficult player to play. We're just hoping that we play harder than they do and maybe not give them so many threes and make them put it on the floor a little bit more. It's not going to be a complex game plan. We don't have time for that. Q. Your teams are 21-6 overall in conference tournament play. What is it about the tournament that makes your teams perform so well? COACH FLANAGAN: We had some runs where we were going 3-0 and won the tournament, I don't know, two or three years in a row. That gave us a great record right there. But we've always been pretty good at the end of the year. I don't know. I like March tournaments for some reason. I think our players like March tournaments. Usually our players feel like they want to play some more games at this time of the year. They're not burned out. They're pretty happy with playing together and getting that camaraderie. They just want to play hard. I try and take all the pressure off of them by not being too demanding at this time. I'm more relaxed at this time probably because I see the end of the season coming, too, so I'm a little bit more relaxed. But I don't know what it is, but we have been successful at these tournaments. Q. Other than Jasmine, who else did you see tonight that you like that played? Also talk about the senior leadership tonight. COACH FLANAGAN: Well, I think Jessica played an excellent game. Paris Johnson is a very difficult player to defend. I thought she was physical with her. I thought she did a nice job. Her stepping out and shooting threes really were big. We wanted to do that a bit. We felt if we could bring Johnson out, even if we didn't hit the threes, at least we got her out of the middle and we could drive a little bit. Then, of course, I thought Amanda Best played a great game. Although she turned the ball over too many times, at the same time she was the main person that could bring the ball up. We were having some problems bringing the ball up for a while there. Nobody wanted to bring it up. We had to go and make sure Jess set the ball screen in the backcourt because Johnson didn't want to switch out on that. Amanda did a lot of work. She did a whole bunch of work in that game. Probably got a ton of rebounds, too. Probably got double figures in rebounds, I would think she did. She's been doing that. She's a well-conditioned players. So those three players were the primary players. I thought Lauren did a nice job of getting the ball in play on the press. That's a difficult job when you have somebody in your face. They continue to put that pressure on you. They're quicker than we are. So she did a good job of delivering the ball to the right person. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. COACH FLANAGAN: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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