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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 2, 2012Kevin BorsethCourtney BoylanCarmen ReynoldsINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Ohio State – 57 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Michigan head coach Kevin Borseth and student‑athletes Courtney Boylan and Carmen Reynolds. Coach, an opening statement. COACH BORSETH: I guess it's hard‑fought. I thought our kids played very well. I was very proud of them. Got down there, start the second half. So I'll take one of your questions away from you: We thought the difference of the game was the start of the second half, and we came back and fought our way back into it and fell short. But we're very proud of our effort. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Courtney, there were a flurry of missed shots and missed free throws around the 3‑, 4‑minute mark. Do you feel like you had your opportunity to get back there and just weren't able to convert? COURTNEY BOYLAN: Definitely. I felt we had some good opportunities around that time. I believe we were down like six points, six, seven points. And, like you said, I had a couple of opportunities to make some free throws. Some of us had some good, open shots. But just didn't seem to knock them down at the time. Q. For both of you, you guys struggled from the 3‑point line, especially early. Was that their defense or was it you guys just not being on? CARMEN REYNOLDS: They were pressuring us. I think we had to focus more on getting shots and rhythm. But I think that was key, getting shots and rhythm. Sometimes we would take shots that were a little out of rhythm. COURTNEY BOYLAN: That was a good answer. Q. You guys held (indiscernible) in the playoffs again under their season average like you did earlier in the season, and your defense played exceptionally well again today. Talk about that might‑‑ like Jenny Ryan or Kate Thompson might have helped you keep the score extralow and made it more like a grind than a high‑scoring shootout. COURTNEY BOYLAN: We had a similar game plan to the first time we played them, just to focusing on stopping their key players and helping off on players who don't shoot as much. So I guess we were able to do that, but... CARMEN REYNOLDS: Going into the game we know Prahalis and Tayler Hill take 50, 60percent of their shots every single game. So you know you really have to key in on those two players, they're so talented, and that's what we tried to do. Q. This tied Ohio State's season low points. Would you think you guys would have had such a good defensive effort and still not come out with a win; didn't you think your defense would be this successful? COURTNEY BOYLAN: Our defense has been great all year. It's been‑‑ I feel like it's been our strong point all year. And we, down the stretch, just didn't hit the shots that we needed to hit. And I think had we done that, we could be sitting here with a win. Q. Brenae Harris, the freshman, she hits that 3‑pointer from the baseline, and Ohio State is forced to take a timeout. What kind of momentum did that bring you guys? COURTNEY BOYLAN: That was great. I love anytime our freshmen or people on the bench get a chance to come in and play, especially when they're successful. That was a huge, huge shot that Brenae hit, cutting it from 9 to 6. It was huge. And had we capitalized on some more opportunities, that would have been great. Q. After that timeout, they came out and they spent a little bit more, had a couple of missed free throws. Do you think after the timeout that might have been the game‑changer? COURTNEY BOYLAN: I never thought we were out of it, no matter what. Even after that timeout, even if they scored a bucket, we're down 8 with still three, four minutes to go. I mean, that's a lot of time. So I never thought we were out of it. Q. Courtney, you finished with 10 points all in the second half. Was there a particular struggle in the first half with not getting on the scoreboard? COURTNEY BOYLAN: I can't say it was a particular struggle. I think all of us would have liked to hit shots that we had taken in the first half or to start the second half. I don't think it was necessarily just me. But looking back, I'm upset with myself, had opportunities that I didn't capitalize on that I think would have really helped our team. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. Defensively, was that the game plan, to try to keep the score low and just do what you pretty much did out there today? COACH BORSETH: Defensively, you've got ten or two kids, Prahalis and Tayler primarily. We did a pretty good on Prahalis, all things‑‑ turned her over seven times‑‑ held her to 11 points. She was four for 15 from the floor. One for seven from the arc. So that was a good thing. Looks like Beach did a pretty good job coming through for them. Tayler, those kids get their points. So we held Prahalis down. Defensively, I thought our kids did a really good job. You can't hold a team scoreless. I wish you. It's not football or baseball, from that standpoint. But I thought our kids did a great job defensively, on one day prep or without even one day prep. Q. You probably got a feel going into the game it's going to be tough on the boards. Do you feel like you battled there anyway? COACH BORSETH: Yeah. I don't think that was‑‑ I don't believe that was the difference of the game, in my opinion. That wasn't. I think maybe the shot selection we took in the first half potentially could have something to do with it. But you gotta feel it. We tried to get down inside that lane, but they kept challenging us from the arc. We had some good looks down low. Nicole went down low and missed it. Nya went down and missed it. We tried a few backdoor cuts, when we went after it with one hand instead of two hands, got deflected, went out of bounds. We tried to get it in there and the ball just wasn't going our way in the first half. And as a result you line up with 3‑point shots that don't go in. If they go in, it's a different conversation we're having here, but... Q. When Brenae checked in late, I'm not sure if it was a coincidence, but you went on a 10‑0 run with her defensively. Obviously she's giving you guys good defense. Talk about Brenae, what she gave you today during her time. COACH BORSETH: Very good. I put her in initially and then I took her out and had to get her back in there. She's a great athlete. She can make a lot of things happen, hasn't had much of a chance this year to show her wares, but she's a tremendous athlete. She really is. Game experience is going to make her a whole lot better. She hit that 3 tonight, good to be able to see that, because that was a big 3. And she was pretty fired up. Q. You mentioned in the beginning of the second half, how did you see what happened? COACH BORSETH: I went back and looked at it. I just got done looking at it. We traveled the first time we had it. Sheffer missed a 3, Courtney missed a pull‑up 2 Sheffer missed a pull‑up 2. Those are first four possessions. Didn't score on them. They went down and scored. As soon as the game was over, looked at that, the start of the second half. It wasn't bad shots we took, they were good shots. They were shots that were taken in the lane trying to get inside. And then we're making our comeback, how many shots did we have that one time? Remember that one flurry? Shot. Miss. Rebound. Shot. Miss. Rebound. Another shot. Miss. It was like, okay, what's going on here, is there a lid on that thing? So I thought we gave it a great effort. I really did. And Courtney missed a couple of free throws and she makes those free throws. There's a lot of things in that game that could have changed the outcome. And I thought our defense did everything it could on that side of the ball to give us an opportunity. We just had to be able to knock some shots on the offensive end of the court. Q. Do you think the pace of the game ever got too quick? COACH BORSETH: Did I think the pace ever got too quick? Got too quick, we missed and went down and laid it in, when it got too quick. That's playing with fire with those guys. You play with fire, you have Prahalis and Tayler running up and down that court, and they're getting those kinds of things. I think they caught fire in that stretch when we weren't making baskets. That's when it got a little bit quick for us. Q. Do you feel like you've done enough for the committee? COACH BORSETH: I hope so. I mean, we had a great year. We had a great preseason. We beat everybody from the major conferences. We put 20 wins on the board. We finished 5 in our conference. Our RPI is good. We had a great strength of schedule. You know, we're a strong team. We're a very strong team. We feel we've laid our case, but at this point it's unfortunately not in our hands, it's in their hands. So we have to have a kind of wait‑and‑see scenario right now. Q. Do you feel like, with your strategy, looked like they were trying pretty hard to get other people involved, which sounds like you were hoping they would do that. Do you feel like that sort of worked for you and then they were able to make things happen after that? COACH BORSETH: When you're dealing with Prahalis and you're dealing with Tayler Hill, you don't know what you're wishing for, because those two kids‑‑ if you think you want to get this, they take that. You think they want to take that, they get this. We were trying everything we could to concentrate on those two kids, and from that point just hope for the best and rebound, hope they miss shots and rebound. Those kind of things. But I thought defensively it was‑‑ we were very good defensively. I felt, yeah, there's breakdowns, but you can't pitch a shutout on every possession. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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