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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2013Kathy OlivierKelli ThompsonRejane VerinLAS VEGAS, NEVADA New Mexico – 72 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by UNLV. Coach, just some general comments on today's game. COACH OLIVIER: Well, I thought we did a great job the first five or six minutes. We came out. We were ready to play. We had great energy. We were moving the ball, working together, defensively really got after it, got some easy baskets. We hit a little lull there in the first half. They jumped up another level. That's when they pretty much got control of the game. I thought Réjane was amazing in the first half, did so many positive things on the floor. Kelli Thompson did a great job getting her teammates involved. But, again, New Mexico, you got to give it up to New Mexico, they did a really good job defensively on the Mountain West leading scorer. Just kind of made her life miserable today. Double‑teamed and switched off a lot. When you have really eight healthy players, it gets rough when you're going eight against, I don't know how many they have, like 12. But I thought our team showed a lot of character and a lot of fight. THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Réjane, looked like they really collapsed on you after that early start by you. How frustrating was that? And, Kelli, did you feel like once they took Réjane out of the game you had to press and do more things? RÉJANE VÉRIN: Uhm, it wasn't frustrating because obviously if they all on me, somebody is open. Somebody else has to step up. You know, I just had to keep playing, don't worry about the defense I guess. But, you know, Kelli has nice shots. It was a good thing obviously they was collapsing on me, because Dani was open, Kelli was open, Amie got some good baskets so...It was a team effort. KELLI THOMPSON: 'Frustrating' is an understatement for me. Great defense, that's all you can say. I didn't have a clean anything. When I tied my shoes, she bent down with me. The young ones stepped up. This kid had 19 and 9. What freshman do you know gets double‑teamed and ends up with 19 and 9? Amie played awesome, Rmanii played awesome, Danielle took over when she needed to take over and played awesome. As much as I had a bad game, the young ones stepped up just like they've done all year. They played their tails off and that's all I can ask for. Q. Kelli, obviously emotional. Talk about what's going through your mind knowing it's your last game. KELLI THOMPSON: I told the young ones, Season starts tomorrow for them. Wherever I go is wherever I go, if it's WNBA, overseas, wherever my journey may take me, I told them, Be ready for next year. With Mia Bell healthy, with Alana healthy, with Briana healthy, with Ali eligible because she's a transfer, these kids are going to be amazing. They work hard, and I feel like we just reached our peak. When we played New Mexico the second time at the Pit, that's when we finally started gelling. It sucks that it was so late in the year. But they're not kids anymore. You can't use youth as an excuse anymore. Myself, I'm ready for them. Like I told them, get it done and I'll be here for the tournament next year. I gave UNLV my everything. I stayed loyal to my school. Once a Rebel, always a Rebel in my eyes. Q. Two years in a row, you're the higher seed. KELLI THOMPSON: I mean, it's hard to beat any team three times in a row. You could be the Lakers for all I care. You play the first one and fix what happened for the second one. You play the second one, fix what happened for the third. That's what they did. Coach was telling me their press release was if they stop me, they'd be better off. That's what they did. Like I said, the young ones stepped up when they needed to step up, but it wasn't enough. Hats off to New Mexico and their defense tonight. Q. How frustrating or strange is it to play in basically your own building and have that kind of support for the opposing team? KELLI THOMPSON: Strange? I wouldn't say strange.  That's what they do. I'm pretty sure if they played in Alaska, they'd have 4,000 or 5,000 people there. They're a great fan base. This is the Pit West. Loyal fans are everything. When you have a crowd like that, it gives you that energy boost. I'm not saying we didn't have that energy. They're the Lobos. That's what they do. Q. I understand you play normally in the Pavilion as opposed to Thomas& Mack. Was that strange for you guys? KELLI THOMPSON: No. As much as it's home, it's not. We need to get into tournament mode. Pretend that we traveled, pretend that we traveled somewhere so we have that extra umph. I feel like when you say we have home‑court advantage, we are kind of lax and play like this is our home. I wish we would have gave it that much more energy or got into tournament mode faster. Just how the ball rolls. THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions for Coach Olivier. Q. Looked like after Réjane had that incredible start, they collapsed on her. Do you think that put extra pressure on the other players? Kelli started pressing. Never seemed to get in rhythm. Do you think that was really the key? COACH OLIVIER: I thought they definitely picked it up defensively. I didn't really see much of a double. I thought they just got really physical with Réjane, then they were switching off every time. We like to set a lot of on‑ball screens. They switched off every time for Kelli. When you do that, you have to move the ball. We tended to dribble a lot. I think we're a better basketball team when we move the ball. Kelli Thompson has had an incredible career here. Four years of nothing but relentless hard work. Again, like she said, hats off to New Mexico's D. They had a good game plan. They did a job on the No.1 scorer in the conference. She's frustrated. I mean, she wasn't. She didn't get the looks that she likes to get. She didn't get any clean ones. I think she had two or three clean ones, she hit those. Tournament time, game is different. Gets more physical. I think Réjane had a great freshman year. Got after it, was aggressive on the boards. We probably should have maybe ran some more offenses for her. But New Mexico had that defense that kind of took us out of what we wanted to do. Q. So was it mostly the defense denying the pass in to her? COACH OLIVIER: Yeah. That's what I saw. Again, I'm better after I watch the film. But usually we do a lot of screen and rolls. Our guards find a way to get our post players the ball. We didn't really do that today. I thought we looked to attack a little more. We normally get to the free‑throw line a lot more than our opponents. When we did get to the free‑throw line, we didn't make a high percentage. We've been shooting the ball so well from the free‑throw line, over 72% as a team. Today, what were we final, 69% from the line. That hurts a team like us. That's where we score. So they had a good game plan. Yvonne does a good job with this group. They have more seniors than us, deeper than us. We swept them in conference. Come out here, first game of the conference tournament, it's rough, you know, it's hard. They looked very comfortable. We got a little skittish when they picked it up a level. Q. Your first year here you had that great run in the tournament. Ever since then it's been frustration. Anything you can put your finger on? What do you do as far as reversing that trend? COACH OLIVIER: Yeah, I mean, we talked about it all week in practice, just the intensity level needs to go up. We had great leadership. Kelli was talking about it all week. Again, I think we have a basketball team that they want it so bad. When you want it so bad, sometimes you try to do too much. That's not what basketball is about. It's a team game. So you got to make sure that you trust each other, move the ball. When we do that, we're a much better team. We did that when we played them the first time at the Pit. We didn't do it as much this time. Back to the drawing board. This is when it counts the most. Maybe we got to put in some new things come tournament time. But we were down on numbers, so we were fighting that whole thing. We talked about it as a staff. Really we were playing, what, six or seven players, you don't want to do too much. You don't want to change things too much. Again, it's hard to take. Hopefully our team will use this for motivation over the summer. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach. COACH OLIVIER: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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