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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2013Scott RueckMollee SchweglerSEATTLE, WASHINGTON OREGON STATE – 57 SCOTT RUECK: Just really proud of our team. Congratulations to USC for playing a great game and getting the win. I'm proud of our team for battling, just like they've been all year. We finished playing the best basketball of the season, went toe to toe with everybody, had opportunities to beat two ranked teams, but unfortunately didn't have enough to finish today, but couldn't be prouder of our group. Q. Could you have done a better job of getting to the rack today? SCOTT RUECK: That's been somehow our Achilles heel all year. It's new territory for me; my teams are always opposite. Only one out of my last ten years being a head coach we were at a differential where we're in the lesser half. So this year it was just strange, to be honest with you. But the game summed up our season, not being able to get there, and somehow we haven't been able to keep our opponents from getting there. Q. You had one good spurt in the middle of the first half, but then in the second half three different offensive spurts. Why were you able to have more success in the second half? MOLLEE SCHWEGLER: I think we just came out more confident and just came out trying to knock down shots and just willing the ball into the hoop, playing better defense, getting stops and making it easier for our shots to fall. Q. Was there anything you figured out first half, though? Were you able to get better looks or anything like that that helped your confidence the second half? MOLLEE SCHWEGLER: Well, in the first half we were kind of sloppy and we weren't very fluid on offense, and in the second half we just cleaned that up and it made for better looks and easier to make shots. Q. Coach, do you have any thoughts on that? SCOTT RUECK: Yeah, I thought she did a great job pushing the ball the second half. We got out in the open court a little bit more and that created some good looks for us early in the shot clock, got them on their heels a little bit. I thought our post did a great job freeing up Jamie. Jamie was able to get some more looks and be a creator a little bit more in the second half. I thought the team really executed well, saw the floor and played with just a different level of urgency on the offensive end. Q. Coach, you mentioned that this is kind of typical for your season. How do you take this and try to get over the hump and go forward for next year? SCOTT RUECK: Well, we're young overall. We have a few seniors that have done a great job for us, but this group in large part is freshmen, sophomores, and those are the players getting a lot of experience. In the offseason it's important that those players continue to develop their game and their confidence so that they can be closers for us. And you need that player in a tight game, and that's what we've been missing a little bit this year. I see it evolving, though, and I think this team early in the year, the defense was really our issue, and we finished‑‑ they shot 29 percent today and somehow beat us. We've been really turned into a lockdown defensive team down the stretch, which I'm really proud of them for. Now, it's going to be exciting to watch the improvement in our young kids as they come back next year with a year under their belt of experience, with the confidence to close and the game to close, and I see that happening. Q. You talked about the leadership of this team. The way Mollee stepped up and nailed some of those threes today, what happened there? SCOTT RUECK: It was so fun to watch. You know, you don't see a lot of 5'6" players in the Pac‑12, and this is a big‑time success story sitting next to me, and I'm so proud of her. I can relate in a lot of ways to Mollee. Here she is in the limelight, playing at the highest level that there is besides professional. Finally, in my opinion, just believing that she truly belongs. Night in and night out she had to get over the hurdle of believing she could defend at this level, and so she's learned to survive that and that's allowed her to be on the court, and she's certainly our best playmaker. And when she's going, she's got the ability to knock down big shots from deep. This is an outstanding basketball player I'm sitting next to. So fun to watch her over the past month. It's really just been hard work and just a consistency that have allowed her to be this confident, and I know these experiences over the past month she's going to carry with her for the rest of her life, and I'm so proud of her for that. Q. For much of the game it seemed like Cassie Harberts was really kind of controlling things. SCOTT RUECK: Well, she's great. She's got, how many free throws? 18 free throw attempts. The first time we played them, 20. To be honest, I thought we did a good job on her. She's tough to defend. We sent a couple people at her and she still found a way to get there. Yeah, 3 for 9 from the field and finishes with 16. I don't know, I thought we did a good job, and that's what great players do, they find a way. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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