|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2013Beth BurnsChelsea HopkinsLAS VEGAS, NEVADA San Diego State – 67 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by SanDiego State. Coach, some remarks on today's game. COACH BURNS: Well, first I'd like to congratulate Nevada not only on picking up a tough win the other night where they played really well. I think they had 21 assisted baskets and scored 80, but I really appreciate the competitiveness and spirit of their team and their leader in Coach Albright. They lost so many close games this year. They were in both games with us. I just really respect their spirit. Mimi, I hope I don't say it wrong, Mungedi, her development from January to now, to think of how young she is. All of us up here know that Sharp is just a terrific player and scorer. They certainly will be a force to be reckoned with. Was really pleased with us. One of the things, I think it's a little difficult in some respects to play this game, to start this game. I asked our team to see, you know, Are we going to show people if we're a No.1 seed? I think they answered by the way we opened the game. Was just really proud of how hard we guarded. Then it was almost like, Now what do we do? I think it was a bit of a challenge. We struggled a little bit to play with the lead. I credit that to Nevada, their spirit coming back. But just couldn't be prouder. I think everybody made big contributions. Saw a lot from a couple of our young forwards off the bench to stem the tide when they went at us. Important to put this in the book and move on to whoever wins the next game. THE MODERATOR: We'll now take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Chelsea, can you talk coming out on that 19‑0 run, what the game plan was, how well you executed that. CHELSEA HOPKINS: Well, I think our game plan was just to play fast. That's pretty much when we're at our best, get a lot of transition points. I felt like early on we were really working the ball screen in the top of their zone. They were rotating over and weren't getting backside help. It opened up a lot of opportunities for our post. I felt like Emma, she did a great job just reading the gaps, playing off me in the baseline, and it just resulted in some easy baskets for us. Definitely what we were looking for. We just wanted to be aggressive and it worked in our favor. Q. Chelsea, assists don't always make headlines, regardless of who you are. Players are looking to score. You seemed to be looking almost to pass first every time you're down the court. Talk about that approach, how you take that into a game. CHELSEA HOPKINS: Well, honestly I pride myself on being a pass‑first point guard. But I really pride myself on kind of doing whatever it takes to win. I felt like there were really easy opportunities for my teammates, so I'm not going to force a shot when I could easily have a layup from Amarikwa or Khristina Hunter that were ducking in early. I take whatever the defense gives me. This time it was assists. Tomorrow it could be points. The day after it could be rebounds. That's kind of how I play my game. I don't want to be one‑dimensional. I just want to do whatever it takes to win. Assists was my game today. It worked out. We ended up getting a great win against a great team. Q. Chelsea, were you aware of the school assist record? You came up a little bit short, but at halftime you had a good shot at it. CHELSEA HOPKINS: No, I wasn't aware till I did radio after the game. But came up a little bit short. But 14's kind of cool. I'm happy we got the win overall. So I'll take it. THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions for Coach Burns. Q. Beth, coach was talking about that Chelsea had the 12 assists on 12 baskets in the first half. She said, I don't necessarily know how Beth gets her to buy into that. Is it hard to take a player and have them be so unselfish like that with the ball? COACH BURNS: Well, Beth didn't do anything to get her to buy in to do that. I think she answered it best. The great ones are great when the level of competition is the highest. I've said to this to her on many occasions. If it came down to her last dollar, it was her and her mother, she would say I'm sorry, Mom, but she would take that last dollar if she was competing. She is one of the most competitive, in every facet of life, which is why she's already in graduate school getting her MBA. She competes. She has a special gift. Everybody has different things they bring to the table. She has a special gift, a vision that you can't teach, a level of competitiveness, and she's been coached since she was this big by her dad Tony to know if someone's got a better one, a great point guard will give it to them and we'll all be better in the end. That's the way she plays. We made her score too much in a couple games. We forced her to. We started watching her a little bit. She really worked on her game. She's shooting in the mid 40s from three. She can do lots of things. But she understands to play the game, and for teams to win games, you got to spread it around. So it never surprises me. I'm glad Mark just asked her that question to call out the head coach for not knowing the records we're supposed to know at the time for those. I don't know what the record is. I mean, she's gotten four triple‑doubles, ladies and gentlemen. I've been doing this a long time. I've never known that to happen. Every time she gets one, I'm like, Really? Because she does it every day. Her consistency is probably her most remarkable trait, only behind her competitiveness. Q. It seems like coaches always the night before go through scenarios of how the game is going to play out. Was there any better scenario in your head than a 19‑0 run to start the game? COACH BURNS: I was about to call a wrap at the 13‑minute mark if we could have done that. I mean, no. Every team, like this team, is best when they're aggressive. It took us a long time to get us that aggressive on the defensive end of the floor. If you take it off the glass, you can run. For us to finish and really for us to start with Amarikwa making those first few baskets, that helps. I think the tournament scenario for Chelsea, for Courtney Clements, they've been here. They're going to be comfortable in this environment. I think that almost relaxed our whole team. So I don't know if I could have had a better scenario, no. I would have no problem whatsoever if we continued that start for the next couple. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. COACH BURNS: Thank you, everybody. 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
|