|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 4, 2012Jordan HooperLindsey MooreConnie YoriINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Purdue – 74 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Nebraska head coach Connie Yori and student‑athletes Lindsey Moore and Jordan Hooper. COACH YORI: Congratulations to Purdue. That was a hard‑fought game. And they played a great tournament. And they deserve the crown. They played really well. They rebounded the ball really well. I thought our kids fought really hard. I mean, I don't know what else we can ask of our kids, in terms of our effort, you know, playing 50minutes after already have played three games previously, I think it says a lot about our kids' toughness. But Purdue was pretty tough, too. So credit to them. And congratulations to their program. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Lindsey, you played 50minutes. How exhausted are you? How hard was it to keep coming? LINDSEY MOORE: It was hard. But, you know, we just wanted to finish this game strong. And so it's not like we could really let up. I just had to keep telling myself that I'm not tired, and I have plenty of time to rest. Q. Jordan, you feel like you were reliving a game about a month ago, West Lafayette? JORDAN HOOPER: It felt a little similar. But I felt like we had this one, too. But, yeah, I guess. Q. Lindsey, at the end of the one overtime, were you kind of trapped when you flung the ball up? LINDSEY MOORE: I don't know what you're talking about. I don't really remember. What overtime? Q. The end of the first overtime, you had the ball, then you got‑‑ looked like you got trapped in the corner and just kind of flung. LINDSEY MOORE: Did I make it? Q. Second overtime. Q. That was the last shot. LINDSEY MOORE: Oh, yeah. Q. You were trying to tie the game. COACH YORI: We should have called a timeout. There were two to threeseconds left. I should have used a timeout. That's my mistake. Q. When you play a game like that, I know it's fresh right after the game is over right now, but when you walk out of here, isn't there a sense of pride in what you gave and what you did, because I think we'll probably know a lot more about Nebraska, those that are here, and we'll remember this game longer than probably a lot of other ones we've seen. LINDSEY MOORE: Absolutely. I think it says a lot about the type of team we are, the fact that we can play four games in four days and go into double overtime and still be right there. We had plays down the stretch where if we had executed or done something differently, got stops on defense, the outcome could be different for us. The fact we hung in there and being as young as we are, it says a lot about who we are and the type of ball club we are. Q. Jordan, your thoughts? JORDAN HOOPER: I agree. There's a lot of pride that comes from this. And I'm really proud of all this. Q. Lindsey, let's go back to the shot at the end of the first overtime. There were three seconds left, right around there, after the shot. Did you think there was less time on the clock? LINDSEY MOORE: No, I honestly should have taken it to the hoop with that much time. I shouldn't have forced the shot. Q. Lindsey or Jordan, in the first half you guys were both driving to the basket a lot. Got to the free‑throw line a lot. Is that because their defense loosened up a little bit when they got in foul trouble, a lot of their players? LINDSEY MOORE: I think we were just being aggressive, honestly, is what we were trying to do, just be aggressive, not settle for the outside shot. We struggled a little bit shooting it from the arch, just getting in, creating contact and trying to finish the old‑fashioned 3‑point play. Q. Jordan, are you tired? You're smiling. JORDAN HOOPER: I don't know. I mean, the first two games I didn't play as much, so I guess I'm not tired in that aspect. But you're always tired after an overtime game, for what that's worth. Q. Lindsey, do you guys feel comfortable when you're down by 11 there in the first half as you've done it all week long? LINDSEY MOORE: I definitely think that we are. We're a type of team that we seem to come back from those deficits. So we're just competitors, and we will keep fighting until we can get close enough and either come back from behind or get it close enough down to the stretch. Q. Lindsey and Jordan, when you guys see your teammates not hitting the shots they have been this entire tournament, how much of, I guess, an offensive load does that put on you guys? LINDSEY MOORE: You know, not really, because we were confident in each other. So we know that they're going to get the next one. It's not like we're going to stop passing to them. We're going to keep feeding them because we have confidence in each other. So, if anything, that just means for us to be more aggressive and get to the foul line. JORDAN HOOPER: I agree. It didn't take any confidence away from me seeing them not go in or anything. I'm still going to give them the ball when they're open. It doesn't put any more pressure on me at all. Q. Jordan, at the end of regulation, you got that block. If you commit a foul there, they go to the line. Do you know how aggressive to be in a situation like that? JORDAN HOOPER: I knew I wasn't going to hit her because she first went around my body or whatever and then I went to the ball. I knew she wasn't going to go to the foul line in that situation. Q. Was that kind of a swat, a spike? JORDAN HOOPER: It wasn't a spike, it was more of a swat, I guess. Q. What was going on that you were able to really stop their inside game towards the end, when you're down by four at the end of regulation and then come back? JORDAN HOOPER: I don't really know.  I guess we just buckled down and we got rebounds when it counted. Q. Lindsey and Jordan, what do you each think of when you walk out of here? LINDSEY MOORE: Just how proud of my team that we are. We are young, and I don't think anyone expected us to do what we did. And I think it says a lot about the type of character we have on our team and we how love playing with each other, and I think you can tell that out there. And we're very confident right now, and even though we lost, I still think our confidence is right where it should be, hopefully leading into the NCAAs. JORDAN HOOPER: We have a lot of basketball left to play, and I'm happy moving forward from this. Q. Lindsey, when you kind of smashed into the floor there, were you seeing stars? LINDSEY MOORE: Yeah, those are always hard, especially when you're hounding to get a drag screen, but I just have to be more aware as I'm guarding the girl coming down the floor that those are going to be there. You just gotta get up and get back into play. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. Connie, you get Rayburn, 1‑and‑9. Moses, 2‑of‑11. Houser becomes a little bit of an X factor for them. Is that just a byproduct of a lot of your defense on those two, or did she create a lot of openings for herself? COACH YORI: She played well. And she did a lot of good things. Plus, she stole the ball and she got some easy baskets in transition, she hit some shots. But I think overall I think the game was won and lost in the area of rebounding. I think that's really what was the biggest factor in the game. They scored a lot of points off of offensive rebounds, and we had a lot of offensive rebounds we didn't score. But I thought KK played well. I thought Poston played well. They have a couple physical kids that can post us that provide some matchup problems for us. And we have Kaitlyn Burke who weighs about 115pounds trying to guard Poston, and that's not a good matchup. They're smart enough to take advantage of it. They're a well‑coached team. We definitely had some issues with some of their perimeter kids. But we did a good job on Moses and Rayburn, but they've got good players, KK is a good player, Poston is a good player, Howard is a good player. They've got good players. They've got a lot of kids who can score the ball. One thing we don't have, we don't have many scorers as they have. Q. How difficult was it, then, to match Poston's athletic ability and her desire to maybe get some of those? COACH YORI: We really don't have a matchup for her. And she's an issue. And she can get it down low and she can‑‑ we're guarding her. If you look at‑‑ we're trying to put Hailie Sample, who is our bigger guard, on Rayburn. And then if Poston's in, that means Kaitlyn Burke or Lindsey Moore have to guard her. That's a bad matchup. Then we switch our matchups, Lindsey guarding Rayburn and put Hailey on Poston, which helped us a little bit. So you just gotta do what you gotta do. But they definitely had some options there that they could go to that they did a good job of going to. Q. Coach, after Lindsey's kind of desperation shot at the end of the second overtime, what were you thinking about when you were staring off into space? COACH YORI: I was thinking of stupidity on my part. We should have called timeout. We had maybe two seconds to get a shot. But I've also seen Lindsey hit that shot, too. So it's not like I haven't seen her make miraculous shots. But, anyway, I should have called timeout. Q. Overall now you guys have played through a tie in two games after five overtimes. Do you feel like these two teams are pretty well matched? COACH YORI: Yeah, I think that's a pretty good assessment of the situation. Yep. You've got two teams that are two games and a lot of extra ball. Q. So you guaranteeing like a four overtime when Purdue visits Lincoln next year? COACH YORI: I hope they visit Lincoln. I don't know. Seemed like we got everybody on the road this year, top half of the league, if you noticed. The new guys on the block. Q. You talked about the rebounding battle. Seemed like Emily did a pretty good job of sneaking in there, getting some balls and forcing the steal in the overtime. Can you talk about her impact even though she didn't score a lot? COACH YORI: Emily's a tough kid. She's built like an eighth grader yet she's a kid that can rebound the ball, and she's really active. She's got long arms and she's got great hands. She can go get the ball. But, overall, they're a more physical team than us. And pound for pound they have an advantage on us. And we knew rebounding was going to be a huge key. When it's all said and done, really that's the biggest factor in the game. Q. I know this is moments after this game, but now that you've been through this Big Ten one season, just what comes to mind about the league, and maybe what your program‑‑ what step it has to take for year two in this league? COACH YORI: Well, first of all, I'm really proud of our kids because I'm pretty certain if they would have picked 1 through 12, you know, if they had a preseason poll to pick 1 through 12, we probably would have been picked 10, 11, or 12. And so for us to be in the championship game, to go into overtime, I think that says a lot about the character of our kids and the toughness that we have. We gotta get stronger. That's one of the things that we gotta do. We gotta get in the weight room. But we're young. When I watch other teams in warm‑ups, I'm like, whoa, they're physically stronger than we are. So that doesn't mean we can't‑‑ but that's also part of the youth. When you're not very old you haven't been in the weight room so much. Those are areas we can improve. Q. Talk about‑‑ you say how young you guys are. Talk about the leadership of Burke, of Hooper and Moore throughout this tournament today. COACH YORI: Well, Kaitlyn's a great leader. She is as good a leader as we have in terms of her understanding of her role and understanding of others' roles and buying into our system, and she is a great behind‑the‑scenes leader for us. And Lindsey does a really good job of leading by example. That's the kind of leader Lindsey is. She's going to go out and give everything she's got. And she's got phenomenal toughness. And Jordan's a worker. We've got kids, our best players are hard workers. Anytime you have that, I think there's a lot of positives ahead for us. Q. I know it's fast after a tough loss, but what case would you make to the NCAA Selection Committee and where do you think the Huskers should be placed? COACH YORI: I don't know. I mean, I don't think I need to make a case. I think our resumé speaks for itself. We've won a lot of games, a lot of games on the road. So we'll see what happens. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|