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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2014Lisa BluderAlly DisterhoftSamantha LogicINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Nebraska 72 THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student‑athletes. COACH LISA BLUDER: Just want to congratulate Nebraska on their victory. Proud of my kids. I'm proud of their effort. I thought we battled. We had to go through some tough situations with some foul trouble. It was free throws, team shots, 36 free throws to your 14 and then the box outs. So we gave up way too many offensive rebounds, hard to win a game with those type of numbers. So unfortunate, but again, I'm proud of my team that we hung in there, especially in the first half when things were‑‑ we had the severe foul trouble, hung in there and made it a contest at the end. THE MODERATOR: Take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. What led to such a poor start for you guys? SAMANTHA LOGIC: I think what coach said. It was, they got to the free throw line 18 times, tough to be out scored by 11 at the free throw line in the first half. Even in the first half we were shooting better than them, just they got put on the line, we put them on the line 18 times. That's tough, obviously. With Dixon in foul trouble, you know, to even be in the game where Thea's play's 18 minutes is huge, she's been leading us this whole tournament, so that was unfortunate, but we battled. Like coach said, could have definitely hung it up and so to only lose by seven in those situations is pretty impressive by our team, I think. Q. For Allie, talk about how frustrating it is when a team takes two and three shots. They had a big offensive rebound night. Talk about how frustrating that is. ALLY DISTERHOFT: Obviously, it's extremely frustrating. To get out‑rebounded like that, that's all on us. That's on our shoulders. Something we're going to definitely work on in upcoming weeks to shore up but obviously, that's a very frustrating part. But we were happy with how we handled a lot of adversity out there. We handled a lot of adversity. We never gave up. Q. Sam, in the second half, Theriot really seemed to look for her shot. Did you notice anything different from what she was trying to do in the second half? SAMANTHA LOGIC: She was just taking her shots. They were setting a lot more screens for her on the top of that zone. Some of them were tough to get around. So, she was looking for her shots there and a couple of them were, I mean, you're going to let her take a couple of those. She knocked down a couple of those tough shots, a couple runners that you're going to live with her making. Obviously, she's playing really well for them right now and a couple of those are just, just tough, tough shots. And some of them were over screens, but that's what good players do. Q. How‑‑ today, you got pretty significant contributions from Reynolds and Peschel, how crucial is that for you guys moving forward as you go forward? SAMANTHA LOGIC: It's huge. Claire has played a lot this tournament. Kali has played some solid minutes, Kas played monumental minutes yesterday. But the minutes she played was great. But it's huge just knowing that we have confidence and we can hang with anybody, even when we had some foul trouble, but a couple players, three starters in the first half sitting out the last part there, it was huge. We have so much confidence in them and it shows you why today. THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you, ladies. Good luck in the tournament. We'll continue for Coach Bluder. Q. You touched on it, but why the disparity in rebounds and the inability to keep them off the offensive glass? COACH LISA BLUDER: We need to watch the film and check that. But we kept talking about going to make contact on the weak side and I think we'll find that they were just more aggressive going after the ball on the weak side than we were. Offensively, you do have the advantage that you know when the shot going to go up a lot of times and you can anticipate it and start crashing almost before the shot. But at the same time we just, we need to be stronger in that situation and go out. And there was a lot of long rebounds and in that situation you got to go out and get farther away from the basket and make that contact and we just didn't get it done. We talked about it at halftime and we didn't get it done. Q. Can you take us through the technical foul there. COACH LISA BLUDER: Yeah, I stamped my foot and that was why I got my technical foot. Because I stomped my foot. Now I stomp my foot at my kids, kind of a habit I do all the time and I've never gotten a technical for stomping my foot, but today I did. And I don't think I had had one in 10 years, I don't remember the last one I had. Seems lake a crazy time to get one and I take full responsibility for that. It was a bad time to get it, and I apologized to the team immediately for that. Wish I could have taken it back, but it's almost a reflex. Q. They got out to the early lead, how tough is that for you guys when you're playing your fourth game in four days to just exude that much energy to get back in the game? COACH LISA BLUDER: No, I thought our ‑‑ you know, they got out to the lead and we had the foul trouble. Maybe we committed all those fouls because we were a little more tired. Possible. But I hate to use that as an excuse. I thought our reserves came in and cut hard and did a great job of battling. I mean Claire and Kali and Kathryn that first half, I thought they played so hard and got a little spark back into us that we took into halftime. And we got in halftime and we said hey, we're only down eight. With this many fouls, this many, this much disparity in the rebounds and at the free throw line, and we felt like that was good. We felt like that was‑‑ that we were going to win the second half. We really did feel like we were going to win the second half because we thought it should be a lot worse than that. Q. Your bench play, is there anything particular Claire did or just confidence and maybe comfort in Claire out there? COACH LISA BLUDER: Her confidence has grown throughout this tournament. Claire's always been a really good rebounder for us, for her minutes played she does an excellent job on the boards. Hitting that three, I think, was a really special moment for her. She hit one at Purdue, she doesn't hit a lot of them. It was a huge moment for her. You think that gave her a lot of confidence too. But it's definitely something we can keep rolling with. I think with all of those guys. Q. Looking ahead to the NCAA tournament, what kind of seed do you feel your team earned and what do you, for lack of a better phrase, feel the strength of your resume is? COACH LISA BLUDER: I think the strength of our resume is excellence. We have great quality wins, we have a win at Penn State, a Top‑10 team. We have a win over Purdue that was a top eight RPI. We have a win over USC that is playing in the title game of the PAC 12 right now. I could probably go on and on. We got a win over Boston College. I'm probably missing some right now. But I think we have an excellent ‑‑ we really don't have any bad losses either. Our only bad loss right now on paper is Colorado but that's because they got hurt. We lost a couple point game at their place when they were healthy and then they got a lot of injuries. So, I think we have a excellent resume and I hate to predict seeds and those type of things, but our RPI was about 23 or something like coming into this and I know that's not the only factor, but it's a significant factor. And it only could have gone up since we have been here. So I think we deserve a high seed. A very high seed. I think we deserve a four or five seed. I think that's really legitimate. Q. Do you think what your team kind of showed in this tournament and what they showed during the regular season that this could kind of be the year that you go deep in the tournament? COACH LISA BLUDER: That's what we plan to do. We're planning to be around for a long time. We have home court advantage, we're going to use it. That's the goal. That is the goal. THE MODERATOR: All right thank you, Lisa. Good luck in the NCAAs. COACH LISA BLUDER: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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