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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: BATON ROUGEMarch 24, 2013Kevin BorsethSarah EichlerJenny GilbertsonAdrian RitchieBATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA LSU – 75 THE MODERATOR: We're joined now by Kevin Borseth, head coach, Adrian Ritchie, Jenny Gilbertson, and Sarah Eichler. Q. Sarah, I wanted to ask you this first. You guys do go down 18 there, but what did you talk about at that moment, and did you know you still had one more rally left in you guys? SARAH EICHLER: I definitely think we fought as hard as we could. There is nothing you can do at that point when you go down 18, and at that moment you have to ban together, fight, and we did that. Made it a close game, but we just didn't pull it out in the end. Q. A lot of people would have said that you might be pressing them to go at their pace. You guys seemed to do a good job forcing them into some turnovers, and making them make some mistakes. Can you talk about the shift of the press and what made you all so successful in terms of executing that to maybe get yourselves back in it? STUDENT‑ATHLETE: I think it was once the jitters wore off and they realized we were here to play and we realized that we can dictate them instead of being the ones on the other end. So by giving them a little pressure and making them think twice about their passes is what we were trying to do, and make them speed up a little bit more than they wanted to. Q. Throughout most of the first half, you all were staying really tight with them and seemed like you were playing a really aggressive brand of defense. As somebody who hasn't watched you play all year, is that kind of your usual mentality or is that what you try to do to kind of play ball with LSU tonight? SARAH EICHLER: That's something that we practice and preach every day, definitely. It's always been our focus. I think that we did a great job executing in the first half. We talked about the most important time of the game is that first five minutes after halftime, and they came out and went on a huge run, and it gave them a lot of momentum. So I think that that stretch there was hard to come back from. We battled and we fought and we played more defense and we did what we could. Q. You guys look up at 18 with 12 minutes left, you haven't been down that much. What sort of mentality in that sort of situation? Do you look at chipping away at it? Was there anything you could do to make a push there? What was sort of the approach when you're looking at that big of a deficit and that much time left? STUDENT‑ATHLETE: Well, 12 minutes is a lot of time left in a ballgame, and I think we did a good job of rallying together and coming together and saying let's get this done, let's get going, let's get focused, and I think we stepped up and we were fighting really hard for that period of time. Q. Jenny and Sarah, I know we talked about their size and everything. How did you feel you matched up in that capacity, and obviously still being able to hold through, I think you were right there with them for rebounds in this one? STUDENT‑ATHLETE: I think as far as size match‑ups go, I think it's hard to play against someone that is that much taller than you. But Bre and Steph are really long, and they are a couple of inches shorter. But it's all about our help defense. They pass in and we trap to get it out and we rotate from there. So it's more of a fly around kind of thing instead of a one‑on‑one physical match‑up, but I thought that we handled it pretty well. Q. Adrian, I just wanted to ask you, I know it's been a big ride for you in this area with basketball. Just on your career, can you reflect on what this has meant to you and your family coming from De Pere and being able to play in Green Bay? ADRIAN RITCHIE: Yeah, it's meant everything to me. Growing up, watching the program, watch Coach Borseth make Green Bay what it is now. It's the biggest gift to me, to have my family here, I just feel so lucky to be part of this program and to have played four years. It's really hard to go out like this. We won every single first round of our career, so to go out like this is a little bittersweet. It's hard to swallow right now, but still proud of what we've done and of my senior class for sure. Q. I know you guys deal in numbers. So No. 5 came out in the second half and got open looks and hit those early threes. Is that something that LSU did or was that a lapse in your defense at that point? STUDENT‑ATHLETE: I think it was a little bit of both. I think we definitely had some lapses. I got lost and 5 had an easy lay‑up and things like that. That was a little uncharacteristic of us. A lot of it was LSU; they're a great team; they're a 6 seed for a reason. They play on their home court, and everything seemed to be going for them. But I think it was also a little bit of our lapses, and just things went their way. Sometimes that happens. We tried to rally as much as we could, and we fought as hard as we possibly could, because that's who we are. We're not about to fall over because you're in your home court and everything's going your way. That's not who we are, and how we're raised, and how we're raised in the culture of this program, so we tried to do our best. Q. Jenny, I wanted to ask you, coming into today, your career high was 14 and having 15 out there tonight. For you to go out this way is a tough loss. But what did you think about contributing tonight given how much you girls stress being able to have the next girl come up and step up? JENNY GILBERTSON: A career high doesn't really mean anything to me at this point because we lost the game. So I think anybody 1 through 15 on our team would step up if they needed to. I could count on any single one of them, so I don't know. Doesn't really mean a lot right now. Q. Would the rest of you seniors just kind of (Indiscernible). STUDENT‑ATHLETE: Obviously, it's great to play in front of our fans. We've had a great run. We've had a great four years together. We know each other really well. We're like sisters, you know, on and off the floor. It's been a great ride. Our careers have been amazing. To win that many games is more than any student‑athlete can ask for. Anyone who is a competitor, anyone who is an athlete, anyone who has ever been good at anything wants to win. So just that in itself is special and winning is special, and we don't take it for granted. We definitely don't. Looking back on those numbers in a few years, maybe after the hurt goes away a little bit, it will be something that we can be really proud of. Q. Adrian, before the game, you spoke about how 1 through 5, you can all shoot the three or you can shoot from the outside. Did we see that in the second half, the rally you guys made and the barrage of points? ADRIAN RITCHIE: Absolutely. Just like Jenny said. We can trust every single girl who steps on that floor, and Jenny stepped up huge tonight. She's been doing it all year. It's no surprise to us, but I guess it was a surprise to LSU because they weren't guarding her and she hit those shots. That's what we're all about. It's about everyone can make three‑point shots, but it's about taking that role if you're called upon, and it's why it made it so special. It's hard for other teams to find one player to stop, because then Jenny is going to step up and make two threes, you know what I mean? So it's something that we pride ourselves on, and we're quite happy that we can deliver the ball in many different ways. Q. Just your overall thoughts of the game, and how your girls battled and how proud of them you are? COACH BORSETH: Yeah, we got down to the last possession, really. Our goal was to get a stop against one of the best defensive teams in the country. Our goal was to get a stop at the end of the game, and they did. They got the stop. They blocked out, but was a little too small to grab the rebound. If she did, that gave us an opportunity to get a three on that. But that's how our kids battled to start the second half, first half we turned the ball over too many times and the game came down to points off turnovers. That was really key. To start the second half, they had some shots. Had a deep one, banked one, 32 hit her second three of the year. 3 was two for two from the arc in the second half. So they turned up pretty good three‑point shooters having not shot one all year long, you know? I thought our kids really rallied. They came back in the second half and really rallied, got it down to one possession. Didn't look like we were going to get it there, but we got it there, and we had an opportunity. So I was very proud. Q. You called that timeout. What did you talk to the girls about at that point to try to get that thing turned around? COACH BORSETH: The key was to try to get stops, but we just couldn't get any. Every time we got to the end of the shot clock, they made it. Then we tried to get out and spread a little bit, but they didn't want to speed up. Not much we could do to speed them up. We kind of just had to play at that pace and hope that they would get misses. They made shots. To their credit, they had to make them and they did. They hit a couple at the end of the shot clock and banked one of them. As it was, we got to the other end of the court, and what we did on the offensive end at that point, I don't know if we missed shots. We had a couple of them blocked. They played really well in a stretch that I thought was the determining factor in the game. Q. Your offense was so perimeter oriented, but you had a lot of success inside. Were you at all surprised and frustrated that you didn't get to it sooner? COACH BORSETH: To be able to score it inside there? We did, but we dropped it. The first half we turned the ball over three, four times in the post. We got down there the first half the same way we got there in the second half. And two times we dropped it and lost it. The other time we threw it out of there and got deflected going out of there, and Megan had one blocked. But we had it down inside of there. Second half we told the kids, when they drive, step to the short court, catch it and take it to the rim immediately. Don't think about it. Even in the first half, we hesitated a little bit and didn't take it there. Good observation. They are pretty big though around that basket. Q. When the girls do lose Adrian there and getting fouled out, what did you think of how they responded at that time? Lot of different girls stepping up right there? COACH BORSETH: Yeah, Jenny Gilbertson is probably one of the best shooters that we have, period. So for her to make shots certainly didn't surprise us. Key for us the whole game was to try to find rhythm. I thought we did a pretty good job. Other than the end of the first half where we dropped a few balls, had some turnovers, and, again, that was the key. I thought we played well. Scored 43 points in the second half, gave up 40. Q. Going off that, the game got really physical in the second half. You had two players foul out, four for LSU. Was that kind of a way or planned as a way to get back into the game? COACH BORSETH: We didn't have a choice. We couldn't just sit back. We had to battle. Our kids were battling. They were going after loose balls and taking gambles. That's just part of the game. You know, we didn't have‑‑ yeah, we had to be physical. We had to go after it. We had to try to get after the ball, dive on the floor, try to deflect something or anything we could to get that ball deflected and get neutral. I thought our kids did a pretty good job of doing that. That really helped us. Q. Would you touch on the senior class for us? COACH BORSETH: Pretty special. Yeah, how well they've done. They really are a remarkable bunch of young ladies. They say you make a living by what you get, you make a life by what you give, and those kids got a lot. They got a lot. But I think they gave a lot more than anything. They gave to the University, they gave to the city of Green Bay, they gave to the little kids in the area, gave them something to look up to. They gave to each other. You know, that's pretty big; it really is. I'm very proud of them, and they should be very proud of themselves. Left a very lasting mark on Green Bay women's basketball, and it will be very hard to duplicate for anybody. Q. Just a follow‑up to that. As you look to reestablish your brand of basketball at Green Bay, how much did that senior class help you kind of get what you want going forward with your foundation? COACH BORSETH: I hope they were paying attention because next year those five seniors are gone and it's almost like you're starting over again. To some regards you are because you have the players that have least experienced that type of desire and that type of drive and that type of togetherness. You know? We're hoping that that carries over. Those kids sat there and watched and learned a lot. They are really great leaders in their own ways. We've had a lot of those over the course of time where our senior leadership is really‑‑ our younger kids have fed off senior leadership, and that's been going on for a long time. We're hoping to continue that streak as we move forward. Q. Coach, seemed like you guys coming into this tonight know if you wanted to get an open floor game with them. But it seemed down the stretch that benefited you going into the press. It seemed they showed a little bit of youth there? COACH BORSETH: Yeah, but they just spread it and wouldn't let us speed them up. So the clock kept getting away, and late in the shot clock, they hit something. We tried to speed them up. Of course we tried to go after them and double them and do whatever we could to create as fast a shot as we possibly could, but it worked. We had some shots and had some misses on them. We tried to shoot more threes. That was our goal tonight to get them to shoot threes because we thought that would help us on the offensive glass. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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