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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: IOWA CITYMarch 24, 2013Lisa BluderMelissa DixonSamantha LogicIOWA CITY, IOWA IOWA – 69 COACH BLUDER: I'm just really happy for this basketball team. They wanted this win. Our fans were terrific today. They came out and supported us and we really fed off that, especially in the second half. I thought it got very loud in there. Sam Logic, I mean, she really was extraordinary today. Again, there's not many point guard in the country that are going to average double‑double with rebounds and points. Melissa Dixon was a great spark off of the bench for us again in the second half. First half we kind of had some unusual lineups in there with some foul trouble and we withstood that and we also withstood their 25 offensive rebounds, which was kind of tough to swallow. But when you look at how many points they scored off those offensive rebounds, you can see they only scored 17, and we scored 15 points off the offensive rebounds, so in the end it wasn't that much of an advantage for them. Very, very proud of our basketball team and excited to be able to stand and play again on Tuesday night in Carver‑Hawkeye Arena. Q. Sam, after Coach Meier's comments about needing to stop you yesterday, did you feel kind of responsible to take the game into your hands tonight? SAMANTHA LOGIC: I don't think to take it into my own hands, just to be composed and not let whatever they are going to try to throw at me rattle me. Obviously I have a great team around me and they can't just focus on one person, as I said, and it just ended up that it was me tonight‑‑ that you can't stop anyone, and anybody could end up being the leading scorer and it just ended up being me today. Q. Sam, talk about staying composed when they got very helter‑skelter there in the first half and maybe you were the one calming influence. Talk about your role in that, how did you prepare? SAMANTHA LOGIC: That's what the role of a point guard is, just being the coach out on the floor, being the director of everything. When it was going like that, you just had to take a deep breath. We had the home crowd, we were not playing well, we had foul trouble in the first half and only down one. We just really had to stay in the game and pull away at the end. But ending the first half well, like Coach said, different lineups that we are not used to was really big. Q. Melissa, it seemed like your guys really took off when you hit those threes early in the second half. Halftime, you had no points, two fouls and three turnovers and somehow you were able to turn that around. Talk about that stretch, about a minute and a half where the game really changed. MELISSA DIXON: I was really rested going into the second half (laughter) we ran our set plays really well. They switched on a couple of the screens and allowed me to be open and my teammates made some really good passes to me. Q. Talk about that a little. How do you find that‑‑ how did you find it? MELISSA DIXON: You just have to have a short memory and you just have to know the next one is going in and to have that confidence that the next one was going in, and I was able to do that in the second half. And my teammates also had a lot of confidence in me, so that helps a ton. Q. Sam, talk about the confidence this team has facing a team that tries to press you? SAMANTHA LOGIC: Well, it's really helpful, you can't really, again, key in on one person that‑‑ we have Jaime, B and Melissa, we can all bring it up and or when Patricia came in or Kathy came in and played some big minutes in the first half; just to be able to guard that is difficult. Instead of having one person that you rely on to bring the ball up, like we can run and do our offense through anyone, so that's really huge. Q. This is for Sam or Melissa. When you are the home team and you've got the crowd, could you guys feel a little bit that that crowd was waiting for something to happen and maybe when Melissa hits the shots, then they can finally let loose; could you guys sense that? MELISSA DIXON: Definitely, we had the best fans.  Our Hawk fans are incredible and to be able to play on our home court was so huge and they were behind us the whole time so that really helped I think. SAMANTHA LOGIC: Yeah, definitely in the first half, we just tried to get back into it more. When we started off the game, they were great and then we let the lead get away from us a little bit. But going into halftime and coming out in the second half, you really want to start strong and that gives you a little bit of momentum and gets the crowd into it, too. Q. Can you comment on Melissa, her output there, you guys were down seven, did you feel that the game was starting to slip a little bit before she caught fire a little bit? SAMANTHA LOGIC: It was pretty early in the second half still, so it wasn't slipping in our minds. We just knew we had to get our defensive stops. We ran our sets, like Melissa said, really well and we had the utmost confident in her coming in even though not playing a lot in the first half, to do what she does best. Knocked them down definitely got the crowd back into it. It never felt like it was slipping away or anything, especially when you have shooters like her on your team. Q. Sam or Melissa, any preliminary thoughts on your matchup Tuesday with Notre Dame and the challenges going up against them? THE MODERATOR: Sam, we'll start with you. SAMANTHA LOGIC: Yeah, you think about it a little bit, seeing them win before we did. But obviously before the game, we were focused on Miami. Now we get to think about it a little bit more. Again, we have a home game. Hopefully have a great crowd behind us again. But we have no expectations or no pressure on us, I don't think, having a team of that calibre on your home floor is just something to gain from. MELISSA DIXON: I think we all think that we don't have anything to lose and we have this incredible opportunity to have Notre Dame come play on our home court. So that helps a lot. Q. Have you ever had a game where you had 53 rebounds on you? COACH BLUDER: Yeah, for us to get out‑rebounded by that margin and still find a way to win, I feel very good‑‑ I don't feel good about the rebounds but I feel good that we found a way to win despite that, even though the heavy rebounding advantage for them. But it is amazing they have 25 offensive rebounds and only have 17 points where we have 14 offensive rebounds and 15 points. So it really did not turn into that much of an advantage for them, even though they were ‑‑ obviously we don't want to give up that many offensive rebounds. Good commercial, Bob, that's on the air right now. Q. What were you doing defensively to disrupt what they wanted to do? COACH BLUDER: Well, I hope we had something to do with it. I think our zone spread it out, getting hot hands, made them make some cross‑court passes that they really didn't want to do and I think it took some time off the clock for them. I'm extremely happy that we have 16 turnovers and they have 24 turnovers. I thought coming in, we kept hearing, defense, defense, and then we kind of turned the table on that as far as the turnover area. Q. What was the big difference in the second half? COACH BLUDER: Well, you know, we got down seven and then Melissa Dixon came to play. You know, she has three threes in a minute and a half, I believe, during that stretch. And then Jaime Printy got one from not far down the time line there. You know, we had an 18‑point swing I believe in six minutes and when we hit some of those threes, it really got us going. I think that's when the crowd did get into it. Somebody asked that earlier, but I think when Melissa hits those threes and we are down seven and all of a sudden she hits two threes and we are down one, I think this place was ready to go and they got behind us and I think then we were just on a roll. Q. Can you talk about winning an NCAA Tournament game on your home floor, does that feel good after five years ago you couldn't do it? COACH BLUDER: Yeah, it feels really good. You know, any time you win a game, it's great. You win at home, it's special. You win in the NCAA Tournament, it's amazing. And it's amazing for our seniors. Those three seniors get to play another game in Carver‑Hawkeye Arena and that means a lot to them. So I'm glad for those three seniors that they get another opportunity to suit up and come out the tunnel in Carver. Q. What about Notre Dame? COACH BLUDER: You know, I have really not looked forward to them. I've always been‑‑ my philosophy, one game at a time, and I have assistants that do that for me and they will have a report for me when I get up there. But I'm not a person that looked ahead so I have not watched any film on them and I am probably the only person in America that has not seen them a whole lot on TV. They have been on TV in the Bluder house, but I have also been doing homework with my children and doing dishes and things like that when they are on, so I really haven't sat and analyzed them. Q. This is kind of off the game, but in this year, prime example, you don't see the upsets early on; why is that? Is it because you're playing on home court? COACH BLUDER: Well, there are 15 home court sites this year, so there are quite a few. But I don't think that's any different than what we've had in the past. We have always had kind of significant home courts. You know, there's not‑‑ you know, there's just not as much parity in women's basketball as there is in men's basketball right now, and that's unfortunate. And you know, until we get the parity‑‑ and it's getting better. Because it used to be, you could talk about three teams that were going to make it to the Final Four and you knew those. Now, hey, we are talking about eight or ten that could possibly make it, and I think that's good. But yeah, we need to get the parity between the ten to 50, would be really nice. Q. A couple times after you got that lead, Miami got it down a little bit. What did you tell the team to keep that going, keep building? COACH BLUDER: I think we got it down to nine at one time after we got a significant lead. We talked about the team, they are going to come out and press and they are going to start changing up the defense and doing some traps in the full court and bring up the intensity on the defense. So just keeping our composure against them and we said three frees, defense, box out and obviously didn't help work too well, but taking care of the ball. Those were the three keys in the last, eight, ten minutes for us and in my opinion was keep playing the defense, keep trying to box out, and let's just take care of the basketball. Q. I know you probably weren't paying too much attention to what else is going ton in the tournament, but that's now six Big Ten teams that are in the second round, about as many men's teams that advanced. The men get a lot of press obviously and talk about how strong they are, but how strong can you speak to is the women's side of the Big Ten? COACH BLUDER: And you're telling me that all six of our Big Ten teams won in the first round for women? That's tremendous. So six teams stand in the Final 32. You know, this year, we were the second‑best rated team in the conference, or in America, and I think this kind of proves that. Obviously we'd like to move it up a notch, but very, very happy with the success. It has to be the best success that we've had in the NCAA Tournament for the Big Ten Conference, that's tremendous. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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