|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 10, 2013KK HouserDrey MingoCourtney MosesSharon VersypHOFFMAN ESTATES, ILLINOIS Purdue – 62 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Head Coach Sharon Versyp, and student‑athletes KK Houser, Drey Mingo, and Courtney Moses. COACH VERSYP: I'm thrilled and very proud of our team and this group. They just have another level. You just saw the switch kind of click when we played Illinois at home our last home game. And then it turned to March. They just had a different mental focus, energy. And February, we knew we struggled a little bit and there's reasons for that. But we came out and we know that we wanted to win the Big Ten championship, and I've never been so proud of a group of young women. THE MODERATOR: Questions for KK, Courtney, and Drey. Q. Drey, a year ago, you stood in street clothes as your teammates won the Big Ten Tournament. At that time you didn't know whether you'd be back or not. Just all things considered, with what you've been through, how sweet is this? DREY MINGO: It feels amazing. I'll never forget, Coach V looked in my face after we won last year and said, we will get back. I'm so happy that we did. I'm elated right now. Q. You gave Sharon a big old hug after your TV interview. Was that part of what she told you last year, just a reminder what she told you? DREY MINGO: Yeah, definitely. And to thank her for giving me this moment and this opportunity. Q. Not only to win the title, but to have the type of game you had, you seemed focussed yesterday when we talked to you about playing in the title game, but to have this type of game, just kind of your emotions of the way you went out in this game. DREY MINGO: Just credit to my teammates. My teammates just kept giving me the ball, and I just tried to finish the best I could for them. But credit to my teammates for it all. Q. KK, can you talk about the job Drey did? Didn't miss a shot, from the inside, really sort of controlled everything. KK HOUSER: Drey was awesome tonight. She just came out with so much fire and energy. And right from the get‑go, we were just feeding her and feeding her and feeding her, and she was unstoppable. I wouldn't want to play against her. I'm speechless. Drey played amazing, and it really fired up our team. Q. Courtney, how you pounded it inside and when the two post players picked up the two fouls, did you feel like you had them on their heels at that point? COURTNEY MOSES: Yeah. The very first play of the game it went straight to Drey, and when Drey scored, I just knew that the posts were going to go off tonight and Drey was going to have an awesome game. We just kept going to the post. That was the game plan. And we executed what the coaches want. And like KK said yesterday during press, when we execute, good things happen. Q. KK, they got it down to nine there in the second half. You guys needed a couple of buckets and found a couple there in a row with Courtney there hitting the back‑to‑back 3s. How big at that point was it to allow you guys to maybe breathe a little bit again in the second half? KK HOUSER: Those are huge buckets for us. We know they're going to make a run. They're a great team. We just wanted to hold them off. Courtney came up so clutch for us. That really got us going, fired us back up to finish the game strong. Q. Courtney, just from where you guys were out in February, two and five in that month, what has changed so dramatically with you guys? COURTNEY MOSES: I would say that during February, we really took a step back and everybody just looked at theirselves in the mirror and said, what could I do better, and stepped up to the challenge. And we know we want to send the three seniors out with an amazing end to the season. Q. Drey, you've had considerable success against Michigan State in all three games this season. What's it about the Spartans that allows you to have such good games? DREY MINGO: I would just say executing the game plan. I think we did a good job pretty much in all those three games, except for the one we lost at home. But I would just say executing the game plan. Q. Courtney, you've watched pretty close as Drey has gone through some things over the last couple years with the sickness and then being out just last year. How nice does it feel to help her to this win? COURTNEY MOSES: It's awesome. I actually didn't realize Drey didn't play last year when we won. So when you guys said that earlier, I was like, KK, Drey wasn't on the court with us? Obviously I'm very excited knowing that, to get her back there. And Drey is just an awesome person and she deserves it. Q. KK, so you guys did bring your Indianapolis magic with you this week? KK HOUSER: Yeah. We walked in. We made it our home. And when we got here, there was no looking back. Q. Just talk about the start, how you guys didn't miss a thing in the first few minutes. Were you surprised? Were you aware that you were in that much of a zone? DREY MINGO: Michigan State is a very great team. They're really aggressive and they're really physical. We knew we would have to dig our feet in and get started early and get off to a great start. So I think that's what we tried to do. Q. Why do you think that Purdue plays so well in this title game? Is it a coincidence? Are you guys lucky? Does Coach Versyp recruit a bunch of gamers. You're always in the title game. You win it a lot. What about this tournament game? COURTNEY MOSES: Since I've been here, I know every year, we've been playing for something bigger than ourselves. Last year we were playing for Drey, and this year we're playing for Coach Kix. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. I think Drey maybe squeezed some life out of you there after that TV interview. But just your emotions of watching her do what she did tonight, get the MOP and then especially after last year being in street clothes. COACH VERSYP: When she went through her incident, she never thought she'd play ball again. I looked her in the eye and I said, I'm not sure if you'll play ball, but you'll still going to be a doctor and you're still going to be fine. She became‑‑ she was able to play. I said, your dreams aren't going to die. And then last year when she was part of the Big Ten Championship, I looked her dead in the eye, I said, we will be back and you will play well and you will lead us to a championship. And she didn't suck the life out of me. She put more life into me, because she just‑‑ she's a walking miracle. She's an inspiration, and I'm just so happy that things worked out the way it did for her and our team. Q. Your ability offensively in the first 15 minutes to really pound them inside and get them in foul trouble. That was the whole game right there after you were able to hang on. COACH VERSYP: Yeah. We put a couple of new wrinkles in, but how they played defense, they're really on the high side, down low, so we tried to attack the baseline with a pass. DeeDee fed the post and Drey real well in the beginning, and we were trying to spread them out and attack them. When we executed, we set screens, we just scored. And when our players do those things and they score, then it just builds confidence. So we keep going back to it, and we got those two in foul trouble, which obviously helped us immensely. Q. In the last game in West Lafayette, you had little runs where you couldn't score to end the halves, and then to start this game, you had the perfect eight for eight or eight for nine start, how important was it to know the caliber of defensive team Michigan State is? COACH VERSYP: I wasn't surprised because they're playing really well. And when we execute‑‑ I think Nebraska is a great team. When we executed, we did some good things inside, outside. So I felt if they were going to stop us one way, we were able to score another way. And we had lulled ourselves to sleep a bit and they were coming back, and then we were able to knock two 3s, which were the big change. Both teams are exhausted, so it was just whoever was going to get out to a great start and able to finish shots, i think, was the one who was going to control the tempo. Q. What's this title mean knowing everything you've gone through with Terry and the season‑long situation with her. But to cut down nets and have a championship, what does that mean? COACH VERSYP: I mean, it's extremely emotional at a very high level. And these players stepped up to another level. And like Courtney said, they're constantly looking over. And when Terry was there, it's the best time. When she's not there, then they worry. And for her to be here this weekend, couldn't have asked for any better celebration and exclamation point to win the tournament and for her being here for these three days. Q. Why was Drey able to be so successful against Michigan State in all three games, really? COACH VERSYP: I think when she's posting up, she does a pretty good job of being able to shoot with her left hand or right hand. But I think her positioning is very good. And so we feel that there's a mismatch sometime when we have Taylor in and Drey's at the 4 spot. We feel that we have a mismatch. So we feel that she can post up and be stronger and more effective. So I mean it's more or less trying to see those matches. And then once a kid is in the zone, it kind of just keeps going, and she definitely played incredible tonight. Q. Coach Merchant mentioned yesterday that she texted you saying her son was in the hotel room, saying, boiler up. What was your reaction to that and did it seem like an omen, I guess? COACH VERSYP: I don't know. Suzy and I are very close friends. We have a great friendship. She wished me luck, and I wished her luck. Now my boy is turning into a‑‑ converted himself to a boilermaker rather than a Spartan. I guess he just likes the boiler up thing. I think it's nice when you have colleagueship like that. And Suzy did a phenomenal job with her team, and her son can come out and boiler up with me any day. Q. We talked last week about bringing the Indianapolis magic up here, but KK alluded to it, but do you like how they made this place their home and felt‑‑ they looked comfortable and you feel like they played comfortable all weekend? COACH VERSYP: As soon as we stepped on the court, I said, look at the court. I do a lot of team building, a lot of mental imagery. And the first day we stepped on the court to practice from 8:00 to 8:30. We were here early and we stood around the circle and said this is like home. This is in Indianapolis. The same court. Close your eyes and envision the WNBA Championship that we all were a part of. And that we're going to win a championship and it's collective here, and just kind of mental imagery all of that. And then each day, we always talked about it, step one, step two, step three. So we made it our home in our brain, and physically it came to fruition. 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
|