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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 11, 2011

THE MODERATOR: We're ready to begin with BYU. Coach, we'll start with some general comments on today's game.
COACH JUDKINS: Well, got to give Utah a lot of credit. They played a great game. They hit the shots when it counted. Being up five points, that three-pointer was a big basket for them. Then we had a couple chances with eight seconds, I thought, to stop them. We gave them too many opportunities.
Then, of course, we had the ball. If we would have scored the last possession, it might have been a big difference, but we didn't seem to get it to fall for us. Didn't really get an easy shot.
It's hard. These tournaments are tough because you play all season for two and a half months, and then you get into the tournament, whatever team is hot, whatever team that hits some shots. Utah right now is playing really well and doing the things they need to.
I thought they did a lot better job against us on the boards, where we dominated in the first game of the year. We didn't do as good today.
I'm proud of my team. We didn't play our best ball tonight. We still hung in there. It was a real ugly game. Not a high-scoring game. We just hung in there. Just needed to make some plays at the end for us to win.
THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up to questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Haley, y'all talked about at the beginning of the season the goal of the getting to the NCAA tournament. Still feel realistic at this point?
HALEY HALL: We don't know. I think that was why we wanted to come down and win this tournament, so we could secure a place for us. Now we're just kind of in limbo till Monday till we find out.
I would say right now we're probably on the bubble of maybe we're in, maybe we're out. I know it's going to be a long weekend waiting to hear.

Q. Mindy, could you address the physical nature of this game. Looked pretty rough out there.
MINDY BONHAM: You know, it was. I think that's kind of our style of play. I was glad that the refs kind of let it go.
But, you know, we just need to step up and kind of play to how the refs are going to allow us to play. So I thought we did a good job tonight just being physical. They were physical. I thought it was an all-around, good, well-reffed game. Just came down to the end where we needed to make a couple more stops there. I thought our team played well and their team played well.
When a rivalry game comes like that, it's always going to be a good physical game. You know, we just got to make a couple stops there at the end.

Q. Could you go through the last sequence that happened there.
HALEY HALL: Well, yeah, I mean, you can't give a team three chances at the end of a game to win it. I think there were eight seconds left and they had three different possessions.
You know, I think Jen did tip that last one and it fell into Michelle Plouffe's hands. She made the play. Credit to her for making the shot. It hurts when the buzzer goes off and you know you did all you could in that defensive possession.
We feel like if you're going to give a team three chances to win at the end of a game, they're probably going to capitalize on one of those.

Q. Mindy, based on what Haley said, do you feel this is kind of one you gave away?
MINDY BONHAM: You know, I don't think we just gave it away. I thought our girls played really hard. We play to win every single game. I just think that it comes down to making smart plays at the end of the game, just staying aggressive and being smart.
So, you know, credit to Plouffe. She made an awesome play and scored it. I don't think we just gave it away. But I think there were opportunities there where we could have just made a little smarter play.
THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student-athletes at this time and continue with questions for Coach Judkins.

Q. You missed your first nine shots coming out. Talk about the way the tournament is formatted, that you hadn't played for a couple days. Also just talk about the defensive pressure you applied, forced a lot of turnovers tonight.
COACH JUDKINS: Well, we tried to pressure as much as we could. We thought with them playing three games in four days we could wear them down. It didn't seem to really bother them. They didn't seem to be as tired as I thought they would be.
Once they broke the press, Badon did a nice job a couple times of attacking it, getting to the foul line. Then when she didn't have it, she did a good job of pulling it out and making us play their game, which is slow down and so forth.
Our team has had a bye. We've had a week off before. This doesn't bother me. I do think this format is fine, except for one thing: you can't give a team a day off. If we're going to do this, we should do it where a team gets penalized, has to play four straight games. To get a day off, rest, be here, all those things, is a little bit of an advantage.
But that's not why we lost tonight. We lost tonight because we didn't shoot the ball. Go 4-17, shoot 30-something percent from the field. They hit every shot tonight that really counted. What I mean by that is their comeback, hitting the three, hitting baskets. They hit 'em. Some nights it goes that way. We've won a lot of games this year with teams missing those or us doing a great job.
I have one of my best players go 3-15 and she had good looks tonight. Cori is a great player. If I could say, Hey, Cori, you get the shots she had today, I'd take them. They weren't falling for her. She's trying a little bit too hard.
I'm proud of these guys. They work hard. There's no excuses. We lost this game. Utah made the plays that they had to. We're going to hopefully have a chance to play somewhere in some tournament. These guys will bounce back.

Q. Why would you say that this league should be more than a one-bid league in the NCAAs? What would you say to get your team or any other team in the conference into the NCAAs?
COACH JUDKINS: The reason for that is we've had four different teams get to the Sweet 16. We've had several years where all our teams have won the first round of NCAA games. I think we have proven over the years that our conference is solid.
Yeah, do we get banged up sometimes in pre-season? People don't want to play us. Big schools don't want to come and play at our place, so we have to go play at their arenas, get paid, something like that, which is really not that fair.
But this is a tough league. Got great coaches. I think we have proven over the years that this conference can guard anybody, play against anybody.
You know that when people won't come play you. You call them up, say, We'll go one for one, they look at you like you're crazy, big conferences.
I think we deserve it. Our RPI is not probably as good as it's been in the past. I think a lot of us this year tried to play a really hard schedule. We kind of paid for it, losing some of those games.
I know that there's three or four teams that could do well in the tournament.

Q. That second-to-last inbound play, a couple of 10ths of a second went off. Did you think of asking the officials if more time could come up?
COACH JUDKINS: I asked them. They got the monitor. I guess they felt like they knew the time. Every second counts, there's no question. If Cori turns and sees the ball, it's ours, we win. You know, they made some big shots.
A lot of this was my fault. We were up five points. I told my team, Don't give them a three-pointer. We should have switched that stagger, made Rodrigues take a shot. We didn't execute down the end when we needed to. That really falls on me.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach.
COACH JUDKINS: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 11, 2011

Mindy Bonham

Haley Hall

Jeff Judkins