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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 16, 2013Beth BurnsCourtney ClementsChelsea HopkinsLAS VEGAS, NEVADA Fresno State – 76 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by San Diego State. Coach, some comments on tonight's game. COACH BURNS: First I'd like to congratulate Fresno State. I think they'll be terrific representation. I've said this all week long, I think that the top three teams in our league not only could get in but they could get in and they could win. So we wish them the best of luck as they head out into the NCAA tournament. We picked a bad time to have a bad time. I think Fresno State had an awful lot to do with that. We're very much a physical rep team. We work really hard to try to do things the way we want to do 'em. And we just, out of the gate, even though we had a lead, it was very much not San Diego State basketball, it was more Fresno basketball, matching baskets, up and down the floor. I say that because it was more an offensive game going both directions. We really didn't have our normal sense of defensive presence, and frankly, really didn't follow many of the rules that we had aspired to going into the game. We usually start and finish halves really well. That's been a trademark of our team. And obviously what happened to us at the end of the first half, which was just an end result of our lack of defensive composure the majority of the half, really hurt us. With that said, I couldn't be prouder of the five seniors that we have on our team, our entire team. The effort that we showed. You know, at halftime it's more a matter of, all you can do is two at a time, play as hard as you can, shots and stops, shots and stops. I thought we played our guts out to put ourselves in a position to win the game. I would hope, although I'm old enough to know better, that our body of work and what this team has accomplished from January 10th until this point will at least have some value come Monday afternoon. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Courtney, you got off to a fast start, then things changed. What was it that Fresno State did that maybe caught you off guard? COURTNEY CLEMENTS: Well, to credit Fresno State, they didn't miss a shot. I don't think that they missed. When they had an opportunity to knock down an open shot, they took the opportunity. All the credit goes to them. They found the flaws in our defense and they did what they had to do. Q. Obviously this is a surprising result after all that you've accomplished. If you could put it into words right now. COURTNEY CLEMENTS: Well, uhm, how do you answer a question like that? It is disappointing that we lost, but I think we can be proud of the fact that we fought back. We didn't give up. We did everything that we felt that we could to try to get back in the game. We didn't just let them just win the game outright by 20. I think our young kids showed a lot of fight. Desi, Erimma, Kiyana ‑ she's not very young. I think that just goes to show you what kind of team that we have. If we do get the opportunity to get into the NCAA tournament, this is just a lesson learned. You know, better to lose today than if we get the opportunity to lose in the first round. All we can do is learn from this and hopefully get the opportunity next week and take it from there. Q. Chelsea, can you make an argument for you guys to get in based on your whole body of work? CHELSEA HOPKINS: Most definitely. I think what we've done these last couple months is just really special. Not too many teams could say they were on a 17‑game winning streak. Credit to the teams in the Mountain West. I feel like in our defense it's hard to beat the same team over and over again. Fresno State was excellent tonight. They made more plays, that's why they ended up winning the game. Like Courtney said, we never gave up. Third time playing Fresno. We've done great up until this point. I think the NCAA should take that into account. We played good teams. Even teams we lost to early in the season, we played them competitively. I think that shows we belong in the NCAA tournament. Q. Chelsea, there's obviously disappointment. I assume this redoubles your resolve to get this out of your mind as quick as you can? CHELSEA HOPKINS: Most definitely. But it is what it is. At the end of the day, I'm proud of my teammates, what we've been able to accomplish this season. Like Courtney said, hopefully there's bigger things to come for this team. Monday night hopefully the Committee will select us. We can go from there. We can't live in the past, dwell on this game. When we get to SanDiego, we're going to focus on what's ahead. We pray it's the NCAA tournament. But you know what, if it's the NIT, we're going to take that tournament by storm, too. Q. Courtney, was there ever any doubt you could overcome the deficit? COURTNEY CLEMENTS: Not at all. We're a defensive team. We know when you get stops, you find ways to come back. There's no quit in this team. So nobody on that team planned on quitting, whether we would have got down by 20 or 30 or 40. Unfortunately we weren't able to come back. But you can see that we didn't quit. No matter what they did, we still tried to come back. We didn't come back till the clock hit zero. THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions for Coach Burns. Q. You talked a little bit about composure at the end of the half. With a senior‑ladened team, did that surprise you a little bit? Did they get more rattled than you thought they might have? COACH BURNS: Well, we have a lot of talented kids that do what they do well when you put it together. But Chelsea's our Superman. You know, hindsight is 20/20. We can't win this game without her playing this game. We'd been able to, even though we hadn't done much of anything we set out to do, manage a game. And I thought for two minutes we could. But they're a good team. They're a good team. They're an aggressive team. Credit goes to them. But you can't live backwards. You got to live forward. Q. You've been around for a long time so you'll be sweating the next 48 hours to some extent. If you didn't make the NCAAs, what would that do to tarnish or not this season? COACH BURNS: Well, you know, you reflect most on what immediately happens, right or wrong, because, trust me, when you're in the midst of it, the only way you can accomplish it is just to hit the next game. You can't think of it as how many in a row or by how many points or whatever. You know, I said on our initial day at our press conference, no one's happier about our streak than Raegan Pebley and Joe Legerski, because short of an opening loss at Boise for Wyoming, those two teams have been crushing everybody by double‑figure points all season long. But because of the nature of ours, first we lost, then we won, everybody made us out to be this giant killer. I've said from the beginning that I thought all three of us beating each other should have an opportunity to play. So I think Fresno is a really good team. I think there's no shame in losing to Fresno. Today it hurts. Tomorrow it hurts. Monday we won't know. But we won't reflect on the season till a couple weeks from now. This hurts. Conference tournaments, right or wrong ‑ really wrong ‑ are really special. They're really special. Walking up that ladder is really special. I say right or wrong, because it's a heck of a lot harder to go two months and win games than it is three days. We started out a little bit sluggish. I thought Courtney played her tail off with her ankle. The young kids came off the bench, gave us a spark. We'll focus on the positive. But as competitors we can't feel joy tonight. Q. Have you ever seen a stranger stat sheet? It looks like you win this game. COACH BURNS: We've had lots of games where‑‑ I know we've won a lot of games. But we've had a lot of games where we might get out‑rebounded. The one thing we consistently do is we take care of the basketball. We don't turn the ball over. Like in any sport, whether you're shooting well, if you take care of the basketball, even though tonight it looks like we took care of the basketball, those miscues led to offense for Fresno when we already didn't guard well in the first half. Numbers are overrated. The only one at the end of the day that counts is the one on the left. Just like to thank everybody. Thank the Mountain West Conference. Thank the people in Thomas& Mack. This has been a terrific experience for our student‑athletes and I'm sure everybody else's. This has been a first‑class operation and we're proud to be a part of it. Thank you. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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