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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2014Kelsey ConyersUju UgokaDennis WolffGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA Clemson – 69 COACH DENNIS WOLFF: I'd like to congratulate Clemson, first, I think that they had a better approach to the game. It's disappointing on our end, but I thought their team rebounded from what happened last week and came after the game the right way. So congratulations to them. Secondly, we picked a bad time to play our bad game. And it would be tough for me to sit down and look at it from a basketball standpoint. There were things that were done the way we normally could do them. I'm proud of our seniors, proud of Uju and Monet, they carried themselves great. I'm disappointed. Q. After winning against Clemson so decisively last week, how surprised are you to have the exact opposite to lose so decisively in the rematch today, and how do you explain that turnaround? UJU UGOKA: Definitely we were not prepared tonight. We didn't come out with the right effort like they did. KELSEY CONYERS: I don't think that necessarily that was the reason for the outcome of the game. Coach warned us all weekend that we were going to have to come in forgetting that and play as hard as we did. So I don't think that's the reason for the outcome at all. I think that all of us came in knowing that they're a good team. They've had some good wins. But we just didn't carry out our offense or defensive principles as well as we should have. Q. How do you explain from last week to this week, the big turnaround in scores? COACH DENNIS WOLFF: Well, you know, I think that there's always going to be a little advantage to the team, if the teams are relatively close, there's going to be a little advantage on a game like that. And I thought they would be able to focus their team a little bit better. So I want to credit Audra, again, for what she did. I'm just disappointed. We had a bad start to the game, and that really hurt us. We got in foul trouble. We missed open shots. And that got us to lose our composure. So I did the best job I could, but I didn't probably do a good enough job of trying to impress on the kids that this could happen if we didn't approach it the right way. Q. Dennis, you outscored them from the field. I wonder if you feel you sent them to line too much, you fouled too much or is that just a reflection of fouling at the end? COACH DENNIS WOLFF: No, I think we were fouling them way too much during the game. I think that we didn't ‑‑ we put ourselves in some bad positions. They're not a great outside shooting team. So we didn't manage the ball screens the right way. And then we didn't rebound the ball. The first game they got five or six offensive rebounds, and it says they got nine, I thought the first half they got way too many second chances. We fouled them. It's not like we could say we didn't foul them. We gave them an opportunity to get points that way, which is not a good thing for any team. Q. Uju picked up those two quick fouls and went to the bench. And by the time she went back in the game they were up 21‑6. How much of that, not having Uju in the game, early in the game like that, how much does that change the whole outcome of the game? COACH DENNIS WOLFF: Well, obviously we needed Uju in the game. My coaching philosophy throughout my career is you want to manage the fouls the best you can in the first half. So historically for me when somebody has two fouls I end up taking them out. We've gone against that a few times this year. We got out of the first half without Uju having a third foul. But having a third foul, we're not, as a team, constituted well enough to not have any one of these kids available. If we're having to sit somebody for a long time we end up finding ourselves in a bad position. Q. For everyone, did they defend you any differently this time around than last week? What made it a tough shooting game for you guys? KELSEY CONYERS: No, I think they guarded us, for the most part, the same during the match‑up. They did play a little bit more out on us, taking away a lot of the outside shots, and they played a little bit more man than their match‑up zone, but overall it was similar to the other game. UJU UGOKA: Same thing, it was similar to the other game. They were just more aggressive. And it was like more aggressive, but they played us the same way. Q. What was the effect of their defense today? COACH DENNIS WOLFF: I think it's half and half. I think that they played good defense, I don't want to take anything away from them, but we had a lot of open shots. And this kind of mirrored Sunday at Maryland, where we missed shots that appeared to be open. And it really rattled our confidence in some of the girls. I think more than it should. Q. Here you are one and done again. How surprising or frustrating is it to once again be going home on the first day? COACH DENNIS WOLFF: I don't want to say it's surprising. It's disappointing. We're disappointed. The girls ‑‑ this is Uju's second ACC tournament, Kelsey was hurt last year, so the history of it for them is just ‑‑ but for the program, there's no question we're disappointed today. I have to kind of think about where we're at. Because I told the girls in the locker room I thought for the most part they worked extremely hard throughout the season. They gave us a lot of really good games. And we just picked the worst day to play arguably our worst game. I'm going to take full responsibility for that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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