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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2013Karen AstonNneka EnemkpaliImani McGee-StaffordDALLAS, TEXAS KANSAS STATE – 51 THE MODERATOR: Your thoughts about tonight's game and then we'll take questions from the floor. COACH ASTON: Well, first of all, congratulations to k state on extending to another round. You know, I thought that‑‑ I tried to get the players after the game just to take a deep breath and understand that, you know, any time someone wins in the last second, then you start figuring out what happened in that last second and on that last play. But we actually I thought lost the game with the way we played in the first half. We just lacked a sense of urgency in the first half from pretty much every aspect. We were non‑aggressive offensively, and it obviously didn't hurt that these two decided to get into foul trouble the first half. But we weren't very aggressive defensively, didn't communicate very well. Looked a little bit frozen I thought in the first half. But proud of the way we came back and fought in the second half, but you know, they made the plays that they needed to. They made two consecutive plays down the stretch that I thought just kind of caught us ball‑watching, is what I would say, where they went back door on us. But again, I thought the first half was the determining factor in the game. Q. Ten seconds left, time‑out, what were you expecting, because it looked like you played brilliant defense until the shot went in. Was it a surprise, and do you think you played well defensively in that play? IMANI McGEE‑STAFFORD: I'm going to say since they made the basket, we didn't play well defensively. But I think personally a lot of them were playing for the three. We were expecting Chambers to get the ball and expected her to get the three‑‑ something happens, you've got a last‑second shot. We just knew we had to play ten seconds of defense, no foul and we were hoping for overtime. NNEKA ENEMKPALI: Piggybacking off what she said, it was a broken play, and K‑State plays really, really well off the ball. I feel like I just saw a split in our defense, and we were able to find the open player and she sent the play and we converted it. Q. Is it tougher to lose a game like this than any other way, and can you describe the comeback that you made in the second half? IMANI McGEE‑STAFFORD: Yes, very much, it's so tougher to lose a game this way. There are so many things that run through your mind that you could have done personally to combat what happened. The second half, I think we took our time‑‑ I mean, for me, I was rushing my shot. I was kind of nervous in the first half and I was rushing my shots and I couldn't finish and I was getting to myself and I took myself out of the game, I couldn't finish, I was so bad. The second half, my teammates were picking me such, saying you're fine, they are going to fall. We started rebounding in the second half. In the first half we didn't rebound well at all. In the second half, we got the jitters out and we just came to play. NNEKA ENEMKPALI: You don't want to lose, basically, and the fact that this is a loss that ended our season made it even that much harder to take in. I feel, like Coach said, we were not the team that we had been the past couple of games tonight. And since coming out in the second half, we regrouped, and regrouped as a team, individually, and we made it a point to put in all those tippy (ph) shots and play team defense and work on the things that we know that we are capable of doing. Q. Defensively, you're in the huddle, what do you tell them to watch for and were you surprised by what developed in the last second? COACH ASTON: Well, we talked about obviously chambers was taking the ball out‑of‑bounds, so we immediately talked about the fact that she was going to come from out‑of‑bounds and probably run off some screens or get a hand off. I thought we guarded the initial part of their play really, really well. We actually made White pick up her dribble. She was pretty much stuck. And the last thing really that we talked about before we came out of the huddle is, really, I said this because of what they just done the play before, I said, "Don't ball watch." Don't get caught staring at the basketball and that's really exactly what happened. We just kind of stopped when she picked up her dribble and Chambers did what great players do, she went back door while we stopped and they made a play. Q. They had the advantage on fast break points‑‑ do you think the transition defense would have been better, would it have affected the outcome of the game? COACH ASTON: I thought the transition defense was bad in the first half because our energy level got so low. I would attribute that to two things in the first half: One, young players getting really discouraged by the fact that they were missing layups. We were missing point‑blank shots in the first half, so we got discouraged. Any time you get discouraged, you don't go play to play. So we gave up transition buckets in the first half and then I really think the biggest one in the second half was off of a turnover. It was off of that turnover late in the game where they got a layup. But again, the first half, we just got discouraged because of the two things. We missed layups, missed point‑blank shots that they all know they should have made and the foul trouble with Nneka and Imani, we don't have an answer when both of those players get in foul trouble at the same time. We just don't have an answer. Q. Looking at the stats sheet, you out‑rebounded, had more assists, more steals, more blocks. Shooting percentage was the only thing I noticed that was a lot different. Do you think you guys in the second half, I saw you guys slow down on mid‑range jumpshots and started going to the paint more and that changed the game. Do you think that if that was in the first half, the game would be different? And do you think the team got tired just running around in circles‑‑ they are a lot smaller, so the speed and everything, was that something that was an issue? COACH ASTON: Well, I tried to give particular players that were playing significant minutes chasing around smaller players, I tried to give them time, a minute, 30 seconds, that I thought would be couched with the media time‑out, and that's kind of how I've had to do Imani, Nneka, some of those that are playing; Chas, I tried to do that with all three of them and then Celina got in trouble late in the game and that hurt us. We don't have a bench, but they don't either. That's an excuse. If we got tired that's an excuse because they didn't. I think that this has a lot to do with the fact that we had some first tournament jitters for a lot of players. I thought we looked really nervous. Nneka (ph) has been playing so well and she looked a little bit shellshocked in the first half, like a little frozen I guess is the best word I can think, and Imani probably rushed thoughts because it was her first Big12 tournament; Celina has never been in one. I think this regrouping at halftime helped them but it was almost too big of a hole. And like you said, I think the fatigue did set in because we had to dig so hard to try to come back. But I would compliment our players for the steps that they have taken this year and the direction of not getting down. That game a month ago would have been a 20‑point game because we would have said, oh, well, you know, this is not‑‑ we can't do it. But I think that leadership has gotten better as we've gone along and their resilience to fighting back from deficits has gotten so much better. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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