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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: IOWA CITYMarch 26, 2013Lisa BluderBethany DoolittleSamantha LogicIOWA CITY, IOWA NOTRE DAME – 74 THE MODERATOR: Coach, an opening statement, and then questions for the student‑athletes. COACH BLUDER: I guess I want to thank our fans for supporting us in this championship. For them to come out tonight, 8:40 at night tip, and for them to come out and support us really means a lot. I'm appreciative of our administration also for putting on this tournament and giving us the opportunity to play at home again. Tough to say goodbye to three really good seniors. Just a tremendous group of women, great leaders. That's probably the hardest thing about tonight. It's not really the losing; it's just that the season is over, and you don't ever get to coach them again, so that's kind of tough. We struggled to score tonight. Which the first half we scored okay; second half we couldn't buy a bucket. For us to go 0 from the three‑point line is pretty unusual. Turned the ball over too many times, gave up too many offensive rebounds, and you have to expect almost a near perfect night to beat a team like Notre Dame, and we just didn't have it tonight. Q. Samantha or Bethany, it seemed in the first half you were able to keep pace with them. But it seemed every time they needed to answer, they had an answer, and then it was a little overwhelming. What was it they were doing that allowed them to do that? BETHANY DOOLITTLE: I think they're just a really good team. Obviously, we were looking to stop their runs and go on runs of our own. But some of the time we couldn't do that as well as we could have or should have, and they capitalized on that. Q. Samantha, can you talk a little bit about what a challenge it was to try to run the team and on one hand, scoring, rebounding, assists all those categories were there. But you had a tough time with the turnovers as a team and personally. What did they do defensively that made that part of the challenge? SAMANTHA LOGIC: I think that trap gave me a lot of trouble. I didn't give us a chance. In a lot of those situations, I didn't handle them the right way. But they had pretty good ball pressure, and I let it disrupt me too much. That's pretty much what it was. I wasn't composed enough, and we, as a team, at some points weren't composed enough. We turned the ball over, and our time for opportunities to kind of chip into the lead a little bit and then let them score again. So it was a defensive effort along with the turnovers. Q. Can you talk about where you build from this and how do you look ahead in the next couple of years? SAMANTHA LOGIC: I think we have a good core coming back. Obviously, losing our three seniors is a huge hit to us. Two starters with names like Morgan Johnson, Jaime Printy, that's not going to be easy to fill, but I think we really have some good people to come back and build off of, a lot of experience still coming back, and we're a team that's willing to work really hard. We work really hard all the time: Preseason, postseason, during the season, in the summer. So we just have to keep that attitude and build on what we have. Q. Lisa, can you talk a little bit about how much potential Samantha has over the next two years to grow as a player? COACH BLUDER: Well, she's had the advantage of being able to come in here and be a starter since her freshman year, and I think that's a real advantage to just have that experience to come in here and play. She's been able to play in three NCAA Tournament games now, I think that's going to be tremendous for her. This year I think her leadership, she deferred a little bit off of the floor, and rightfully so, to our seniors, and next year she's going to have to pick up some of the slack there, become more of an off‑court leader, a vocal leader, as well as an on‑floor leader. So I think the future‑‑ and I know Sam turned the ball over too many times tonight, but I love having her lead our team, and I have full confidence in her leading our team the next two years. Q. We talked about how balanced Notre Dame was. But just talk about how tough it was to guard someone like Kayla McBride? It seemed when you guys got a run, she always had an answer. And it just seemed that you cut it to six or you cut it to eight, she would hit a couple of big three‑pointers at the end? COACH BLUDER: In the first half, that was the case. She had 24 points in the first half. We held her to four in the second half. So a little bit better job there. So, yeah, she got loose for too many shots, especially in the zone. She had three threes in the zone, once again Player in the first half. And she wasn't shooting that great from three‑point range coming into this game, but we proved to everybody that she certainly is somebody that needs to be reckoned with outside there. Yeah, every time we kind of got it close in the first half, she'd come up with a big score in the second half. Got stagnant, and then they scored from the free‑throw line way too much in the second half for us. Q. Now that you've spent a long weekend with Notre Dame and seen them up close twice. I wonder if you could assess their National Championship chances? COACH BLUDER: I think they're tremendous. That's what I told the team after the game is that it was a great season for us. Don't hang your head about this loss. Everybody seems to always remember your last game. It's not right sometimes to always remember your whole season by one game. But I told them, we lost to a great team out there today, a team that's probably going to be playing in the National Championship game. They have such great balance. They have really good teamwork. They pass the ball really well, and probably don't get enough credit for their defense. I think their defense really bothered us, especially their pressing. They kind of set the tone with that. Their ball pressure was very good. Their help side defense was very good. They're not that tall, but they do a good job fronting and providing help side. So I think that they have a great team that plays well together and they have all the components. Don't have that huge center, but they make up for it. Q. What did you say to the seniors as they came out? COACH BLUDER: There is not a lot of time when they're coming to the bench there. I told Jaime not to cry. She started to do that. But I just feel appreciative of everything they've done for us in the last four years. Q. What is your view of the Iowa future after this tournament and this season? COACH BLUDER: You certainly hate to lose those three seniors. Two of them are starters for us. But at the same time, Bethany played really well for us tonight. I think she showed signs of what she can do on a consistent basis. That's when you go to Bethany. She's had these sporadic performances, but we need consistent play out of Bethany. And hopefully we'll get that out of her this summer and next year, because I think she's got a lot of ability. Sam at point guard, great experience there, so I feel good. We're sitting good at the point and the center position. Theairra had a nice game for us at times, takes the ball hard for us and doesn't back down from anybody. So we returned three starters, but you could almost say four starters with Melissa Dixon coming back as well. So I feel good about what we have returning. Q. What was different about Bethany's play tonight? Was it just confidence? Was she more open? What did she do differently to get you guys the big buckets there? COACH BLUDER: Bethany has been like that most of the year. It's like she can have some really, really good games, and then kind of hide for the next five games. I think Bethany understood that we needed her tonight. She gets some confidence. She hits a couple of those short corner shots and gets confidence, and it's amazing what confidence can do for a kid. That's how you get on a roll offensively. We just couldn't get Melissa on a roll tonight, and couldn't build the confidence there. So I'm really happy with Bethany having the game that she did tonight. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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