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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2014Niya ButtsCarissa CrutchfieldKama GriffittsSEATTLE, WASHINGTON USC – 59 THE MODERATOR: Coach, an opening remark, and then we'll take questions. COACH BUTTS: All right. First of all, thank you guys for allowing me to speak. I want to first start off by saying how proud I am of our group for the way they battled today. I thought we played extremely hard. I think we probably ran out of gas a little bit in combination with our foul troubles. But we fought, battled to the end. These two young ladies sitting next to me played their hearts out and we just came up a little short. Q. You got behind early, but you battled back, the casual observer would have thought it was a lopsided game. What enabled you to get as close as you did? COACH BUTTS: Well, again, all the credit goes to the team. They played hard. They played hard even though we've been shorthanded most of the season, but today we came in and we fought. We were physical. We met aggression with aggression. I thought they never quit. They never quit. We played every play, and we played for 40 minutes. We just came up short. Those are the ones that hurt the most because you know you gave it all you had and you came up short. Q. Coach, can you talk about the play of Kama in the first half? COACH BUTTS: I thought it was outstanding. She was knocking down shots, shooting the ball with confidence. The rest of the team was feeding off that energy. I thought we were flying around on the defensive end, getting to some balls. I thought she sparked it especially in that first half. Q. (No Microphone)? COACH BUTTS: We gave up some offensive rebounds there, some key shots. And we stopped moving. Fatigue started in a little bit. But overall, I still think we kept the game pretty tight. Buzz basketball is a game of runs, so people are going to make runs on you and they made one. We answered it, but we just could not get over that hump again. Q. You both talked about Pac‑12 basketball and to play with this level with 7 players is almost unheard of. How did you guys maintain and stay in this game? CARISSA CRUTCHFIELD: We got pretty tired, but we kept fighting. As a senior, you don't want your last game to end, so I just know as a captain, I wanted to go out there and just play. It was pretty good. We got pretty tired, but we had to keep fighting. KAMA GRIFFITTS: That's something I think we got used to. We didn't let that bother us, yeah, we had 7, but we still played hard. Q. Coach, were you worried? COACH BUTTS: I thought maybe I'd come in, but I was reminded that my eligibility was up. Q. (No Microphone)? COACH BUTTS: Yeah, the officials want me to be a little slower, I think. They told me I was entering their space. But certainly you start to worry about fouls, but you can't coach entirely scared to get those fouls, because then you take away the aggressive nature and the aggressive play. I thought that was the reason why we stayed in the basketball game. So we've been in that situation so often this season that, you know, this time around I was pretty confident that we could play through it. Q. Congratulations. That was a great effort. COACH BUTTS: Thank you, I really appreciate that. Q. Just for background, 7 players, was that due to injuries? COACH BUTTS: There are a lot of factors, but certainly a lot due to injuries. Those are things you can't control. You have to just roll with the punches, so to speak again, the team battled. I want to continue to say that our team fought today and I'm proud of them for that. Q. (No Microphone)? COACH BUTTS: Yeah, you know, sometimes things don't work out with other players. But it's mostly injuries, to be honest with you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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