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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: IOWA CITYMarch 23, 2013Lisa BluderMorgan JohnsonSamantha LogicJaime PrintyIOWA CITY, IOWA COACH BLUDER: Well, it's great to be at home. Obviously this time of year, still in the NCAA Tournament but to be at home is pretty special. This afternoon was kind of weird, I'm at home cleaning my kitchen, not sure if that's what most coaches are doing at NCAA Tournament time. That's what I was doing. The team is coming over tonight for dinner. Unusual day for us, as far as NCAA Tournament goes, the day preceding those. We are really looking forward to having the opportunity to host and have this tournament on our home court. I think it's a great privilege for us to be able to host. I want to thank our administrators for doing all the extra work that has going in to putting on a tournament like this, securing the bid and then also all the work that they have done in putting on a first‑class tournament. I think the fans, the Hawkeye fans that come out are going to see some great basketball and they are going to enjoy this national tournament here in Iowa City. Q. The seniors want to leave a legacy and now that you're in NCAA Tournament time, advancing past the first round, what does winning a game mean to maybe how you guys want to end your career? JAIME PRINTY: Since I've been here we've only won one NCAA Tournament game, and that was my freshman year. Being able to play at home and in front of our own fans and on our home court is a huge advantage for us and we are all really excited. Just hope we come out and win this first one so we have a chance to play again at home. MORGAN JOHNSON: It's just an amazing opportunity, any opportunity to get to play here on this stage in March Madness is really extremely awesome. We are excited to play that game and as seniors we want to go out of this building‑‑ one at a time, but we are excited for them both. Q. What have you seen from their center, pretty solid player. MORGAN JOHNSON: She's really tall. She's 6‑6 and she moves her feet well, gets up‑and‑down on the floor really well so transitioning is going to be key against her. She also likes to turn and get this quick shot. She's a good shooter and just being able to pressure her is going to be really important. Q. Their coach kind of talked about, she thought the way to shut down the Iowa offense is to keep you from distributing the ball. Have you had teams do that? How do you counter? SAMANTHA LOGIC: Well, I think you can't really focus too much on one player on our team. We just have so many different weapons, so many different games, that I don't think a team can really completely stop our team stopping one player. You definitely just have to use the tools that I have around me to get our offense going and keep everything under control. So they can try to; but, it's not just one player on our team obviously. Q. They are a pretty good offensive team, what are you going to have to do to counter that? JAIME PRINTY: I think we just need to play the style of basketball we like to play and get each other involved and really have a variety in our offense. They also like to press a lot and we have been working on that a lot this week, breaking the press with confidence and taking care of the ball. I think that will be huge this game. SAMANTHA LOGIC: I agree, I think we do a good job moving the ball‑‑ if we keep moving well and break their press (inaudible). Q. Having these tournament games here at home, does that seem to increase the amount of time when you guys are out and about on campus or at the grocery store, whatever? Do people mention this? Does it strike you as more of a local happening? JAIME PRINTY: Yeah, I've been, I mean, out and about and a lot of people have told me they are really excited to watch you go and how excited they are that we get to play at home; that they are going to not have to travel to come watch us play. That's exciting and hopefully we'll get great support from our fan base. SAMANTHA LOGIC: It's nice to have it close to home and also for a lot of us, not a far drive for families, and that helps out a lot, too. But our fan base is great all the time and having a national tournament hosting it, definitely hope will increase that. MORGAN JOHNSON: We all went to the men's game last night and we got a big standing ovation. You just can tell that the Hawk fans are really here to support athletics, whether it's men or women's basketball. They have been supporting us this whole time, whether it's Tweets or on Facebook. They have done a great job showing us they are here to support us all the way through. Q. It's been 16 days since you're last game, and I know Coach has been against a long layoff; the Miami people said they embraced the break, gotten a lot better. What in your mind‑‑ SAMANTHA LOGIC: Well, I think we have focused on what was hurting us a lot, especially against Nebraska, Big Ten Tournament. Just boxing out, which we'll really need to focus on tomorrow. You know, and just going through all of our stuff and everything like again. But on the defensive end, especially, I think we have been focusing on improving ourselves in that aspect. MORGAN JOHNSON: A lot of what Sam said; we worked on, everything, back to basics a little bit. We just continued to grow with the program, go back to those basic fundamentals and work on those every day. That's been really good. JAIME PRINTY: A lot of times during the season we don't have time to work on yourself because you're always getting ready for the next opponent. That we can we had where we didn't know who we were going to play yet, we focused on ourselves and worked on things that could make a difference in these upcoming games, so I'm pretty thankful for that. Q. At the men's game, you were wearing‑‑ MORGAN JOHNSON: Yeah, everything's completely fine. It's just totally precautionary. Everything's good. Q. Before the end of the season, you lost five straight, you beat Indiana, Northwestern and you beat Northwestern again. In that win streak there, did you start to see what we had seen from the team earlier this season? Because it looked like with the struggles that was not looking good for your tournament hopes at that point. COACH BLUDER: Well, it's all how you look at it. I look at we won four of our last five; I look at it the other way around. In our last four‑game stretch, we had two games against Top‑25 teams and we had three games that were on the road, and we went 3‑1 in that series. I think that's a really good. And so I think at the end of the year, we got things together, we played very well, we ended up winning four of those five games, so I think things are good. Q. So much of what any season comes down to is what is done in March. How much do you talk about that? Like Jaime said, you had the one victory when she was a sophomore. How much do you talk about that; hey, let's make a run or what do we do to make a run? COACH BLUDER: No, we don't talk about making a run. We talk about winning one game at a time and that's all that really matters is the next game that we have ahead of us. We are just happy to be playing at home. Yes, we'd like to play two games at home, but right now it's all about one game at a time. Q. What's on the menu? You said the team was coming over for dinner tonight. COACH BLUDER: Well, you know, some of the favorites. I'll give you a hint: I'm not cooking, so they will like it, and they probably won't get sick, so that's good. A little lasagna, a little chicken, good stuff. Q. You've had time to kind of spend a week on Miami, what's the scouting report on them, without giving too much away. COACH BLUDER: Well, excellent defensive team as you know, just by looking at their numbers. Excellent defensive and rebounding team. Their center is very good. She's been playing really well, especially in the last few games. Her numbers have really went up. She has been shooting the ball very well on the paint. So then, you know, their press is something that we have got to be thinking of because it's something they have done a lot of, and we have seen it on and off during the year, but not consistently. Q. There's a number of coaches who have kind of proposed the idea of playing the first couple of rounds‑‑ home court situation. Why is it important for a team to have the opportunity to host games? COACH BLUDER: Well, everybody complains that there's not enough parity in women's basketball, and this is the only way we are going to develop more parity is by having more home sites and not just the same 16 sites every year. If we do that, that's the way it used to be and we went away from that because it wasn't good for our sport, so I don't know why we would go back to that and it wasn't good and we went away from it. I think we want to continue to grow our game. We have to grow parity, and that means improving the teams that are 16‑100 or 16‑50, and those are some of those people that get to host now. And the Top‑16 are definitely getting their share of host opportunities, as well. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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