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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 3, 2012Kaitlyn BurkeJordan HooperConnie YoriINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Nebraska – 77 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Nebraska head coach Connie Yori as well as student‑athletes Kaitlyn Burke and Jordan Hooper. Coach, an opening statement. COACH YORI: We're excited about tomorrow and having an opportunity to win a conference championship, and particularly because this is our first year in the Big Ten. I think it magnifies that. And our kids were really tough today. And we have‑‑ I think we're a very well‑conditioned team and I've said that all year. And I think mentally we have a pretty good toughness about us. But we've been a team that's gotten down numerous times this year and has made comebacks. So getting down early in the game I don't think scared us, and we've been there. And our kids stayed composed and stayed poised. Credit to them. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Ohio State is a lot bigger team than you guys, yet you guys outrebounded them by seven in the game. Including 20 offensive rebounds. Talk about your guys' grit in the paint today? JORDAN HOOPER: That was one of our focus to outrebound them. To make energy, get energy for our team. Offensive rebounds so we focused on that, that was one of our keys to the game. Q. For Kaitlyn: Explain yourself. KAITLYN BURKE: Well, I give a lot of credit to all my teammates. They set screens to get me open, which allowed open shots. And there was a lot of people‑‑ they were guarding Jordan and Lindsey and Emily really hard. And that allowed some openings for me, and I was able to get open shots and open looks. Q. Jordan, I think I had you charted for 2 for 21 to start the game, and then in back‑to‑back possessions Kaitlyn hit two short jumpers, and I think you might have hit a 3. How big was it that she did that for you guys? JORDAN HOOPER: It was game‑changing. Her hitting those points gave us all confidence. And we just talked in the huddles every time. She's like our shots will go in. Hers went in, so that gave us confidence. So it was huge. Q. You really kind of got mine, but you seem to be standing around maybe a little bit star‑struck the first couple of minutes. Was it just kind of a new environment, you were pushed out on the perimeter and not doing a whole lot? JORDAN HOOPER: Yeah, I don't know if I was star‑struck I guess. Maybe I just wasn't being as aggressive as I usually was. But I guess as the game wore on I got a little more‑‑ yeah, we probably just weren't being as aggressive as we should have been. We were kind of maybe in a daze from yesterday a little bit. But we snapped out of that and came back. Q. Kaitlyn, they came out really, really fast, really, really pushing, really, really pushing, and basically I guess you like to play that way. So when you guys got into it, I guess, you showed them you could more than answer, right? KAITLYN BURKE: Yeah, they're a team that likes to push the ball and so are we. We had to make sure we got back on defense and stopped their transition, and we just wanted to push the ball ourselves on offense. Q. Kaitlyn, what did Brandi Jeffery do for you guys in the first half, kind of rally? KAITLYN BURKE: Brandi played awesome tonight. She's such a spark player for us, she was pressuring the ball really hard. Hit open shots, too. So she was attacking on offense as well as defense, and she played so awesome tonight and we're just really proud of her. That's the thing about us, we're an entire team, and everyone comes in and contributes in different ways, and she really gave us that spark offensively and defensively. Q. Kaitlyn, how special is it to walk off the court at the end of the game and see Lane (phonetic) and Harleen and be able to give them a memory like this even though their careers came up short due to injuries? KAITLYN BURKE: They're the seniors on our team. We're all playing for them, too, as well. And, like I said earlier, we're just a team and we want to play for each other and also play for the University of Nebraska. Q. Kaitlyn, Jordan kind of talked about the rebounding, but you and Lindsay were really having to post up against much larger opponents there in the first half. Talk about that. And then you guys being able to shoot from the outside, how much did that help pull them way from the paint? KAITLYN BURKE: They're a bigger team. We had to box out. We weren't doing that early on. Coach reminded us: Hey, we've got to box them out. So I think that was big for us as well. Q. Jordan, your first season, it ends 13‑18, tough loss to Iowa State in the Big 12, and now you're 24‑7 playing for the Big Ten Championship tomorrow. How does it feel? JORDAN HOOPER: It feels really great to be on this team. I almost said it, but I didn't. But it feels awesome to be a part of this. And just making history, I guess. THE MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Questions for Coach. Q. Coach, Emily had gotten 24 against them the last two times. Were you expecting them to shut her down and then open up? COACH YORI: Yeah, they guarded us differently. They matched differently. The first two times we played them they put a big kid on Emily, exclusively. And she had a matchup advantage. This time they mixed different kids on her and she didn't have as much of an advantage. But what they did essentially they guarded three of our players. And they chose to guard Lindsey hard and Jordan and Emily hard. And that enabled other kids to have looks. That's why Kaitlyn had the game she had. And somebody had to step up and make shots. And they were really focused on three kids. And they wanted to take those three kids away. And we feel like Hailie did some good things and Brandi came in and gave us good minutes. And kind of got us going in the first half. And then Kaitlyn had the big game. So somebody had to do something for us to win, other than those three that they focused on. Q. Before the tournament, you guys struggled shooting from the field for a while. Were you worried at the beginning of the game when you were 2 for 21 or whatever it was? COACH YORI: Well, that's been the nature of our season. I mean, when we shoot it well enough, we're good enough defensively. We feel like we can compete at a fairly high level. And our struggles have primarily been on the offensive end this year, during the stretch where we didn't win we couldn't get to 50 hardly because we did not shoot the ball well. And we were in an offensive slump.  And we have played better offensively here lately, and I think that we're sound enough defensively that we‑‑ not to say we're going to stop on every possession, but we work hard enough defensively that if we play well enough on offense to make some shots, I think we're a tough out in some ways. Q. How much fun, how exciting is it to coach so much good young talent, and is there a poise to it although they're young? COACH YORI: Yeah, it's been really kind of an amazing year. Going into the year, you know, we thought maybe we would have Harleen Sidhu, one of our seniors, and now she's not really played for us all year. And Adrianna Maurer, a kid we counted on playing the post for us, has been hurt most of the season. And she was experienced, she was a sophomore, but we knew we were really, really young. And our kids have grown up a lot. They've learned a lot. We went on a foreign trip in August, primarily because we wanted to gain some experience for those kids and get some practice time and get an opportunity to teach them the things we want to teach them. So we have made great strides. And those guys have‑‑ our young kids have made great strides. So we have a bright future. And we're probably overexceeding I think the expectation this year, but I think our kids have a lot of toughness. And we are probably more of a mentally tough team than I would have expected for such a young team. Q. At the highest level that this team can play, where does that relate to all the other teams you've coached? COACH YORI: Well, we were pretty good two years ago. That's the best team I've coached. We were the No.1 seed in the NCAA tournament. And we were a veteran team. And we were really good at every position. So that's the best team I've ever coached. We had‑‑ I don't remember what year it was‑‑ I can't remember, Kelsey Griffin's sophomore year, I think. And we had a really good team that year, too. And so, I mean, this is probably comparable to that team. And so this is one of the best teams I've coached, but had other good teams as well, but it's definitely not the best team I've coached. Q. No matter who you play tomorrow, what's the condition of your team do you think? COACH YORI: Well, every day we wake up in the morning in this tournament and we're like, okay, who can walk today. And Emily Cady is playing with a torn cartilage in her knee. I don't know how much tougher she can get. And she's trying to play through it. This morning she woke up, and she couldn't move her leg. She got it worked on by the training staff, and she was able to go. I don't know how many minutes she played; sure seemed like a lot. We are not the healthiest team, but there are a lot of teams not healthy at this stage. But it is hard to play four games in four days, and particularly because we play full‑court defense. If we were a zone team, a team that didn't put as much effort into the defensive end, it might be easier. We're not going to change things now, unless we want to put a 2‑3 zone in in the hotel tonight. Probably won't do that. Q. What did you do defensively against Prahalis when she was driving every Ohio State possession? COACH YORI: They're a ball screen team. You have to defend their ball screens. We tried to mix up what we did. They took advantage of our switches early in the game and that's where they got their low block touches. As the game got on, we switched our defense. And it's a little bit more of a containment. And I thought‑‑ I mean, she's just really good. She's going to get the ball in transition. And she's so fast and she's so good with the ball. I mean, you can swarm four people around her and that doesn't mean you're going to stop her. So you gotta get there and hopefully get in front of her a little bit and do the best you can, hope she missed. Q. You guys closed out the first half on a big run, but just how important was it to open up the second half with another big run? You guys went on a 12‑2 run I believe to open up the second half. COACH YORI: Well, you want to play well coming out of halftime. And we did that. So nothing magical about that. Just our kids were focused and they came out ready and we hit some shots. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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