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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2014June DaughertyLia GaldeiraTia PresleySEATTLE, WASHINGTON Washington State – 107 THE MODERATOR: We welcome the Washington State Cougars, Coach June Daugherty, Tia Presley, and Lia Galdeira. COACH DAUGHERTY: Great to see so many media here. Want to start out and say what an honor and privilege it has been to coach against Paul and his tenure at Oregon. I've learned so much from him and admire him. I wish him and his staff all the best. I'd also like to salute their entire team, especially their seniors. I can't imagine how tough it was for them to come in here and play with everything that was going on. Ariel Thomas is a phenomenal senior, and she's had a great, great career as well as the rest of their seniors, so I would just like to commend them on handling a very difficult situation. The only other thing I'll add to that is what is truly great for the student‑athlete. Moving on. Great fans here. Great to see so many Cougars in the house cheering us on. This is a fun game. If you can't get excited about women's basketball in the Pac‑12 after seeing what just happened, then I don't know. You have to check your pulse or whatever. But this is an exciting win for us. Really proud of our entire team. Obviously, Lia and Tia had a record‑breaking night together combining for 60‑some points. But I thought it was a total team effort. Shalie Dheensaw had a double‑double against a great front line player with Alleyne. Taylor Edmondson came in and had a stellar game for us as well. I think Dawny Awa never gets the credit. But she's the straw that stirs the drink. There is just no doubt about it. Fun to see her have eight assists and have the kind of game that she had tonight. Q. On Dawny, you said she might be the best passer you've coached, and she can put English on the ball. When she's playing like she did tonight, does that bring this team up another level? COACH DAUGHERTY: Oh, there is no doubt. You have to remember she led her team in high school to three State Championships. Fortunately, her mom is a pretty darn good coach. Her mom and dad are the boys and girls coaches at Konawaena High. She's just so calm. What you see is what you get from Dawny. We could be up 20, we could be down 20, but Dawny is always so calm and in control and running things the way she's done it. But you guys got to see a little bit of it tonight with some of the passes. I don't know how she threaded the passes through the way she did, but it was a lot of fun to watch. Q. To both the players, how fun is it to play in a game like this? Win or go home, high scoring, you've got your fans cheering you on. How fun was it to play in this game tonight? TIA PRESLEY: It was extremely fun. Especially for me, this is my first time playing in a Pac‑12 tournament. So with a crowd like that and team like Oregon, we expected a lot. We had a lot of fun out there. Coming out with the win makes the experience so much better. I know I'm pumped and the rest with my teammates too. LIA GALDEIRA: Same with what Tia said and Coach June, it's a team effort. I give credit to my team, the coaching staff, and everybody that's along for the ride with us. Q. How good was it to have Taylor Edmondson go off for ten points in the second half? COACH DAUGHERTY: Yeah, the kid's had a rough year. Injury, after injury after injury, and she missed so much playing time because of it. Tonight was shades of what we saw in Nebraska when we upset them at their place. When she came off the bench and she was sort of aggressive, and she was just having fun out there. When she's loose like that and as good an athlete and as great a shooter as she is, great things happen. So I'm really proud of Taylor to come in and play the way she did. Q. Coach, is this the type of game that you're comfortable on the sideline? COACH DAUGHERTY: Never, never. I mean, you look at the scoreboard and it's just blowing up. You're in triple digits and you know at any point, Chrishae or somebody is going to hit another three back‑to‑back or get a steal and rush you into something. So never was comfortable the entire game. It's a great system that he plays. Obviously, he's had great success in the NBA, WNBA, Pac‑12, so you're never comfortable with the way they play. Q. Late in the game as you were talking about it it was possession and possession. It seemed you would score, they would score. That one possession, I don't know who got Lia the ball, but she stepped back and hit that three.  I want you to talk about that play, and I want Lia to talk about what it was like to be part of that play? COACH DAUGHERTY: Well, Dawny was at the controls at the time, and here we go. I heard‑‑ all I saw was Dawny was starting to penetrate and there were so many bodies in there for Oregon. I heard Lia say, sis, which is what she calls Dawny, and she found her somehow. And that was, if I was ever comfortable during the game I thought we've got a chance for this to be over now with the big three, but Lia will have to explain it, I don't know. She could see it better than I could. LIA GALDEIRA: Kind of like in high school, it's how we played. I knew the passes were coming before they had been. Dawn, she's crazy. It took a whole year, and now everyone's comfortable and knows the ball is coming at times. But I just saw her driving, and I mean, six, three, four girls started to come on her, and she just threw it without looking and I stepped back. I didn't want to take the two, so I guess I just shot the three. Q. Dheensaw struggled with foul trouble last week. Was there a different approach? Did you talk to her ahead of this big night? COACH DAUGHERTY: Yeah, she's really disappointed in her weekend. The great thing about Shalie with her maturation process, she looks forward to the next challenge. You know, it was very concerning early that she didn't pick up early fouls like last weekend against Alleyne in particular, and Danielle Love, they're a great front line. But she's really stepped up her game this year, and to have a double‑double. We're doubling down. We've forced some turnovers. We've forced some travels. But Jillian's such a load. She's one of the premier players not only in the Pac‑12 but in the country. So. I'm really proud of Shalie to bounce back the way she did tonight. But even though you look down and you see how much she scored against her, she stayed solid and just kept fighting for position and fighting for rebounds. I thought her rebounding was a big key for us tonight. Q. Tia and Lia, I wonder if you could talk ‑‑ I was amazed. I didn't realize until I saw the stat sheet, only eight turnovers against that nutcase game. How do you explain that? That is pretty impressive. TIA PRESLEY: Yeah, that's extremely impressive against a team like Oregon that is so intense on defense, and you're turnover prone. So for us to be able to handle the ball under that pressure is really impressive. If you don't turn the ball over against them and you can get to the basket, you have a really good chance of winning. So I think the turnovers really helped us. LIA GALDEIRA: I agree with what Tia said, being strong with the ball, taking care of the ball. Before getting trapped, breaking that is a big thing. Just not panicking under pressure. Q. Not to look too far ahead, but a run‑and‑gun game like this, are you concerned about energy for tomorrow? COACH DAUGHERTY: It's March Madness, so no. Our kids practice hard. They're in great shape. We've got a lot of talented kids. I think some of our front line kids didn't play a lot of minutes tonight because of foul trouble, that will be fresh. We can rest all spring and summer. Q. You guys had a tough loss against Cal a week ago. What are you looking to improve on going into the game tomorrow? TIA PRESLEY: I think we just want to finish. We went into an overtime game with them and came out short. That's always hard and you don't want to lose that way. So I think we're going to come out fired up and ready to play. You have to play confident at this point in the season and you have to be ready every night. So we just need to come out and be prepared for a war with Cal, because they're not going to back down. LIA GALDEIRA: Same with what Tia said. Finish free throws, finish the easy shots. Q. Second half you go into halftime shooting 46.5%, you come out and miss three or four of the first shots. June, what did you feel like? Players, how did you guys turn that around? COACH DAUGHERTY: I just felt like we just had to get our focus back on our defense in transition. That's where they get so many or the great majority of their scoring and make sure we're back on the game plan. We talked about that in the one timeout. Always confident that shots are going to fall. With this group, why wouldn't I be? You see how talented these two are and Taylor. I think Romberg, Dheensaw and Edmondson, we've got a lot of weapons. These guys aren't getting it done, put somebody else in. But I've got great confidence in all of our team. Q. You promised before the start of the season you'd go to postseason. Now you're guaranteed to be eligible for the WNIT. Have you even thought about that? Do you think you deserve to go to the WNIT? COACH DAUGHERTY: Of course I've thought about it. Of course I've thought about it. You know, I think it's something that at the end of this tournament that we can talk about. But right now we've got to get ready for Cal. It's an exciting time for us. We just had a tough battle in the Bay last week; and, as Tia said, we didn't finish our business. We're really looking forward to the challenge of playing them tomorrow night. As far as postseason, we can talk about that another time. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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