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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2013Meghan HeimstraSam MartinRyun WilliamsLAS VEGAS, NEVADA Wyoming – 60 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Colorado State. Coach, just some general remarks on tonight's game. COACH WILLIAMS: I thought that was a good college basketball game. I thought both teams were pretty gritty, pretty gutty. Nobody wanted to lose that game. I think you saw a lot of kids making winning plays on both ends of the floor. Wyoming made some tough shots. Give them some credit. They had a great second half. We put ourselves in position to beat the 3 seed and just came up a little bit short. I'm really proud of my basketball team. They competed their tails off tonight. THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Sam, even though you lost, was that one of the best games you have played this year? SAM MARTIN: Yeah, I think a lot of people stepped up. We had a lot of people scoring and everyone was hitting shots. We were getting the ball where we wanted it to go. Felt like a real team out there. It's definitely probably one of the best games we played. We played hard. We didn't want to lose, like Coach said that. I think it really showed. We really put all of our heart out there and just came up a little short. Q. Meghan, offensively that first 20, 25 minutes was about the best you ever played. Then you went into nine minutes without a basket. What was the difference there? MEGHAN HEIMSTRA: I'm not really sure. I think we didn't finish around the basket. Some of those finishes that we didn't finish transitioned into just baskets for them. They were scoring pretty well in the second half. Just really important to take every possession seriously and make a basket. We didn't transition as well. So I think that's what kind of caused it. Q. Seemed like they had a couple of fouls during the last possession. Do you think them fouling you guys might have disrupted a little bit of the rhythm you were trying to create? COACH WILLIAMS: No. We had a pretty open look. At the end the little high‑low, it just shortened the clock. We still had eight seconds to execute. It was a pretty quick action. I don't think so. I think our kids showed some pretty good poise all night in almost every situation. They took the lead a couple different times and we answered. I'm proud of how our kids answered and played with some poise down the stretch. Even that last eight seconds. I think we got a pretty good touch. Don't know if we caught it real clean and they dug a little bit, but... Q. Meghan, with all the Wyoming fans, did it almost feel like a road game? MEGHAN HEIMSTRA: No, I don't think so. They have really good fans. But we had a good cheering section, too, with our students right there. We had some really, really good fans as well. I thought it was pretty even. Q. Can you talk about your defense, especially in the first half. MEGHAN HEIMSTRA: Yeah, I feel like that's kind of what we do. We are really good defensively. We have a really good game plan. The coaches always get something really good on the board. We execute pretty well. It's just kind of more on the offensive end. Q. Sam, is it almost harder to end the season on a game you guys were this close than if you had lost by 10 or is this the way you want to go out, fighting with a chance to win? SAM MARTIN: That's a hard one. It's hard to go out on a loss like that. I mean, none of us came in here thinking that this was our last game of the season. We all believed we could do it. I think it did really show. We went out and put everything we had on that court. We can leave knowing we did give it everything we had. That's a good feeling. It hurts. I think I'm going to write 60‑58 above my mirror.  That's motivation for the next year. That's hard. But knowing we gave it everything we had makes it a little easier. Q. What can you say about the way this team has grown during the course of this season? SAM MARTIN: I think we've really come together as a team. We learned what the coaches wanted. They got to know us better. I think we've come a long way from the start of this season. We learned how to score, how to play together, how to stop teams and take away their strengths. I'm really proud of my teammates. I think we did come a long ways this year. It shows a lot about us. Q. Sam, first half, talk about LaDeyah and Alicia. SAM MARTIN: They both really stepped up. They had people digging into the post. Both of them made them pay. They were huge for us. I think they really gave us some momentum and got our team going offensively and defensively. They were very big parts of this game. Q. Meghan, only senior on this team. Talk about your career here at Colorado State and what you see for the future of this program. MEGHAN HEIMSTRA: My career has been interesting, I could say. But this year has definitely been the best year, not just 'cause I'm a senior, but with all the changes and everything that's happened. It's very positive. I mean, as you can see, all we're doing is growing and improving, I mean, from the start of the season till now. I'm excited to see how we're going to do next year. If you look at how we finished now, we're going to keep climbing and keep improving. It's going to be awesome. THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions for Coach Williams. Q. You had that nine‑minute scoreless stretch. You built a 14‑point lead. Then it was like all of a sudden nothing would go in for you. What was happening there and how tough was that to endure? COACH WILLIAMS: I thought Wyoming, they picked up their pressure. They got more physical in the post. That's obviously where we were going. We wanted to own the interior tonight. First half we did. I think we still got some pretty good looks and some touches, we just didn't convert. That's maybe been our Achilles' heel all year, just consistent scoring. We seem to have those droughts often. But we kept competing. Wyoming, again, give them some credit, they made some tough shots to get back in that game. When the momentum was obviously on their side, all that brown and gold got up, our kids showed some poise. Again, I'm really proud of that. I think maybe, Kelly, three weeks ago, we would have panicked, you wouldn't have seen the poise and self‑control. We still made some nice plays and answered. You can't go nine minutes. Wyoming is the leading scoring team in the league. When you get that opportunity up 14, you still got to keep your foot on the gas. Not that we took it off, but you have to score consistently against them. Tough nine minutes obviously. Q. Can you take us through the final two plays from your perspective. COACH WILLIAMS: I thought we were open. I thought we were open. We could have executed it maybe a little better. Landry's finish, she just got by us. She just got by us, made a nice finish. I'm sure we'll look at film and think we maybe should have contained better obviously there. Again, they made the shots. They got us on some inverts the last three or four minutes. They flared Mileto, they flared Woodward. Those kids stuck some big threes. But we went to our strength, which was the interior. Just needed to convert a few more baskets. Q. Your thoughts on your first year here at CSU. COACH WILLIAMS: Yeah, I'm proud of the growth. I'm really proud of the growth. We told the kids in the locker room that we had a number of opportunities, if you would have seen us play earlier, I think you would really know the growth of this basketball team. We had a number of opportunities to maybe just kind of fade and get this thing over with and move on. But what I'm so proud of 'em about is they just kept grinding. They kept grinding, getting better, kept guarding, kept improving offensively. So that shows some great character on our kids' part. We had some good leadership. I thought our leadership was good late. I thought Meghan really helped us grow as a basketball team. I mean, she got better the latter month and a half. I think you saw our basketball team get tougher on both ends of the floor. She went out like a senior should go out: performing well. It's not easy to be a senior. It's easy to push the panic button, Oh, no, I got a few games left. She made the most of every possession she played the last month and a half. She can walk out of this arena really proud and we're really proud of her. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Coach. COACH WILLIAMS: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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