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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 4, 2012Doug BrunoKatherine HarryAnna MartinHARTFORD, CONNECTICUT NOTRE DAME – 69 DOUG BRUNO: Working from the back of our postgame conversation we just had with our team, I just really talked to them about how proud we are that they put themselves in position to play in the NCAA tournament. Not that we're taking anything for granted, but we think that we've put ourselves in position to have earned that, and there's only 33 teams that do that if you don't win your league outright.  So I just really want them to understand that that's not something easy to do because our program has gone to 17 of these and they're going to 10 straight, and it's not something that should ever be taken for granted. It's hard to earn your way into the NCAA tournament. So I'm really proud of these two juniors. Deanna Ortiz is a senior, and the two sophomores that haven't been playing, Kelsey Reynolds and Jasmine Penny, and our two freshmen, Megan Rogoski and Brittany Hyrnko, for earning their way into the NCAA tournament again. I don't want to be presumptuous by talking this way, but I think that we have earned it with a 20 RPI and a 16 strength of schedule and all the good teams that these guys have beaten. That's at the end of the day. That's at the end of the conversation, and at the beginning of the conversation was just a coach's irritation with a facet of sports that has to be overcome by this group, and we're getting better at it, but when anything happens to keep your wits about you. You have to stay strong. I just thought at the beginning of the second half we were cowarded up. I don't want to say they're cowards. I thought when the score got against us, it's psychologically something you just do. You feel sorry for yourself, and there's people watching you, you don't like to be embarrassed, you don't want to be down. That happens in sports. You know what, we've got to fight. Batters strike out and the Kobes of the world get blown out, and you've got to fight through that. That's the part of the second half that was irritating, that we just didn't fight harder right after the halftime situation. And really those are the two subjects. Notre Dame is a great team. Let's get back to Notre Dame and talk about how great they are. We talk about how great they are all the time. They really are a great basketball team and they're one of the two best teams in the country and they're great for a reason. They've got a Hall of Fame coach and they've got very, very talented basketball players at every position that are hard to guard, and they're hard to guard and they guard you and make it hard to score when they're guarding you. It's a very, very good basketball team that we played against and we knew that we were going to have to‑‑ I don't like that stuff where you have to play a perfect game to win. I really don't kind of believe that. I really think you've got to do all the things you can control, though. You have to do all the controllables to put yourself in position at the end of a game to steal it, and that's what we were trying to do, and we didn't quite get that done. Again, these two young women sitting next to me have been great, great young women to coach, Anna and Katherine, and we're blessed to have them at DePaul. Again, hopefully the rest of the Big East here shows very, very well in the rest of the tournament and in the NCAA tournament. Q. Anna, it seemed that they put seven different defenders on you. What did they do defensively that caused you so much trouble? ANNA MARTIN: Well, Brittany Mallory was guarding me most of the game and she's just a great defender. I felt like anything I did she was right there. Being a junior and being a leader I think I needed to notice that sooner, how she really took me out and Notre Dame really took me out and set up my teammates better. Q. Harry, can you talk a little bit about the match‑up problems that Devereaux presents and what was it like in the lane today? KATHERINE HARRY: Well, Devereaux is a great defender. She got defensive Player of the Year in our league, so she's a great defensive player for a reason. She's really long and she uses her length and she's got great timing on blocking shots and she can alter a lot of shots and gets her hands on a lot of balls, a lot of steals and a lot of defensive rebounds. So it was tough going against that length, just trying to‑‑ I think not go at her early, but try and establish myself against her early. I had success with that, and then I kind of shied away and took myself out of the paint and was settling for more jump shots than I thought. I should have just gone back inside and sat back in the post and played more in the post. But give respect where respect is due; Devereaux is a great player, and she got herself some easy buckets on the offensive end by getting offensive rebounds and that's on me not blocking her out. I'm not very happy with the way I rebounded today because I didn't, and props to her for going and getting those boards and creating problems on the defensive end. DOUG BRUNO: In game 1 when they did a great job of taking Anna out, the post players really had a good game. I think that was very different today. The post players, it was not nearly as easy for our post players today as it was in game 1. Q. The team had zero foul shots today in the game. Is that something as you go forward, I know you like to shoot the three, but do you have to go to the basket a little bit stronger, a little bit more and try and draw some fouls? DOUG BRUNO: I think really it's always a great question. Of course we have to get to the free‑throw line much more, and this is a team that's not gotten to the line very much as a team all year. We've gotten to the line about 14 times a game, which isn't what you're trying to do. The game, though, was a game in which I don't think‑‑ I don't think anybody got to the line for a real long time if I'm not mistaken. So it was one of those games where that's the way it's being called, so some reference of mine to my players on the bench is it's your job to make them call fouls. I'm up here talking to them and I'm tired of talking to them, you've got to make them call fouls. You've got to be tough enough to make them call fouls. I think we drove the ball‑‑ again, I can't say that you're wrong. I agree with you. We've got to get to the free‑throw line. Everybody has got to get to the free‑throw line. But I'm not sure that we didn't maybe earn a little bit more right to go to the free‑throw line than was happening. Q. Notre Dame had 18 offensive boards. They've done the same thing basically all year. What makes them hard to box out? DOUG BRUNO: Rebounding everybody thinks you just box out. Boxing out is a function of triple penetration. It's easy to box out when you're just standing next to a player and you have inside position. But when you're rotating to help a driver that's penetrating, then the block‑out is not ever, ever just straightforward, and that's really‑‑ they have the ability to penetrate the basketball with the Player of the Year in Skylar, Novosel beats you off the bounce, McBride is really, really good off the bounce. So they're beating you off the bounce an awful lot. They also beat you with pass penetration. So if you're beaten and rotation has to happen, that's where the block‑outs get skewed. We all know we're supposed to block out, but it's a lot easier said than done when the ball is not penetrating, and that's where they make it so tough to block them out and keep them off the glass. Q. Do you know what your plan is for the team going into‑‑ there's going to be about a week and a half, two weeks of rest before the tournament game, assuming you get selected. DOUG BRUNO: Yeah, I have a pretty good idea. We don't ever plan to go home, so I haven't talked to Kathryn Statz and Jeannie Ponsetto, our athletic director and associate athletic director, about what the plan is, but I'm sure we're going to get home sometime tomorrow probably in time with this group to make all their classes tomorrow. We are at crunch time of our quarter. And then they're definitely going to be totally off tomorrow. They'll be totally off on Tuesday, probably practice Wednesday, Thursday with another day off on Friday, maybe practice Saturday, Sunday with a day off, and then the opportunity to play in Chicago. Again, I want to thank our administration for taking on the challenge of hosting. While we're not going to play in McGrath and Joanie Phillips arena‑‑ Joanie is out there by the way. She's the one that bucked up so we could have that arena. That's why it's Joanie Phillips Arena. Thank you, Joanie. Thank you for all you do for DePaul. But because we're not going to be able to play in McGrath Phillips Arena, we know we're going to play at home, so we know we're not going to have to travel, so that's an advantage. So what's going to happen, who we're going to play and all that and who's going to come to our place, we have no idea. But where I need your help, and I need the help of everybody in Chicago, women in Chicago have been playing sports too long to be ignored, and we deserve the right‑‑ we've earned the right‑‑ these women have earned the right to have 17,000 people at Allstate Arena. That might seem like, 17,000, are you crazy, why don't you settle for 8,000 or 9,000. It's not about settling. Katherine talked about settling for jump shots. We're not here to settle. She's right; she should have been in the post. We're not here to settle for 5,000 or 6,000. Why can't we have 17,000? 17,000 showed up for heavyweight fights in the '30s. They showed up for prep football in the '50s. Well, how about starting to show up for women's basketball. These women have really, really put their blood and life and guts, as have a lot of women in our program, so we've got to get some people out there. Now you asked me my plan. What are you going to do to help us? What are you going to do to help us‑‑ that's one of our DePaul guys out there. What are we going to do to help us get those people out there, those 17,000 people out there. It's St.Patrick's Day. They're doing themselves a favor by not starting until after the games. Just think about that. (Laughter.) Q. Can you talk a little bit about Kayla McBride and how you might have the big three from Notre Dame covered but then McBride can cause some problems, too, can't she? DOUG BRUNO: Yes. Both UConn and Notre Dame, and I should‑‑ I really did vote for all five players, and on the UConn side, Kaleena is the sixth man, but we voted for Kaleena as the fifth player on UConn. That's because I believe they're ten of the best players in the league. And McBride is really‑‑ McBride and Mallory both are really, really good, and you talked about the big three, McBride‑‑ it's just not‑‑ those two match‑ups, McBride and Mallory, present major issues because you can't hide somebody on‑‑ it's not like you can take‑‑ because she's a threat and she's a great sized threat because she can play face to the basket very, very efficiently, and then she can also take you inside very, very efficiently. So just a really, really talented player. You talked about the big three, and it's going to be‑‑ well, I guess the big three aren't all leaving, but two of the three are leaving, so it's not going to be the big three next year. I read somewhere Skylar is thinking about going pro. Can you help us encourage her to get a degree in three years? But McBride is really good, and you just can't make Mallory for granted. She sits around on the perimeter, and you leave her alone, she knocks down threes and daggers you. She's terrific on the defensive side of the ball. Three defenders in this league, Kelly Faris, Mallory and Devereaux, and Devereaux gets it because she's in the paint where she can multifacet her defensive abilities. But Mallory and Kelly are really, really good, too. Q. How important is it for you guys going forward to get a second or third consistent scoring option to sort of help Anna out and maybe free her up a little bit more? DOUG BRUNO: We've really had some pretty good balance all year, and Jasmine is averaging 13 points a game in the Big East, and Brittany is averaging 11. You know, we were yesterday three baskets away from having five players in double figures with Anna getting 33. So I think it's huge that we have balance, and that didn't happen today. It did happen‑‑ the big guys got to get‑‑ we've got to get something inside. You just can't rely on shooting threes, and we don't just rely on shooting threes, but we've got to get something going inside. We always have to get Jasmine and Katherine aggressively looking to score inside. So it's very important that we have more than just Anna. And this has never been‑‑ that's never been the Anna show. It's not trying to be the Anna show. She's taken about 15 shots a game, and that's a pretty reasonable number of shots for a scorer. You know, I haven't even looked down because I haven't put my glasses on yet. Maybe she took ten shots, and that's a tribute to Notre Dame, too. It's not like we're trying to skew this thing and turn Anna into the next Jackie Stiles here. It's really about balance, and we're at our best when we're totally balanced. It's the way it's been all season long. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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