|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: WEST LAFAYETTEMarch 22, 2014Tiffany BiasJim LittellBrittney MartinWEST LAFAYETTE, INDIANA Oklahoma State: 61 THE MODERATOR: We'll ask Coach to make an opening statement and go to questions for Tiffany and Brittney. Coach? COACH LITTELL: I've got about 50 texts on my phone saying "survive and advance" and that's exactly what we did tonight. Very, very good Florida Gulf Coast team. Extremely well coached. That guy can coach with anybody in the country, I promise you that. He has his team well prepared. We knew going into the game that it was a very tough guard for us, and the fact that they spread you out and drive so much, they shoot so many three's. We may have been a little too locked in on guarding the three's, and we really got beat a lot off the dribble drive. I'm just‑‑ I'm happy right now that we advanced. It's one of those games in 36, 37 years of coaching that you kind of look at and go, how did we win that game? But these kids didn't quit. When we were down 10 or 12 in the second half they continued to make plays and just found a way to win at the end and I'm very proud of 'em. Q. Tiffany, I guess they say sometimes you save your best for last. You hadn't made a field goal all day and you had 8 turnovers, but tell me about that‑‑ the game‑winning basket. I think there was 41 seconds to play. Talk me through that play. Did it finally feel good to make one? TIFFANY BIAS: Thank you. Sometimes you have those games you can't do anything about it, you have to keep pushing for your team and 8 turnovers is bad for a point guard. I was playing too fast, I should have played more under control but we won and we're moving to the next game. I think it's one of the things you can't dwell on and you have to look to the next one. Q. I'm talking about the last play‑‑ BRITTNEY MARTIN: The one you went all the way through the middle and made that last bucket? TIFFANY BIAS: Oh! See, I‑‑ COACH LITTELL: You only made one basket! (Chuckles.) TIFFANY BIAS: I know! Um no, I just think its one of those things where you have to attack and get to the free throw line. I think it was more in our minds to go through and get the foul and it was one of those things, it's determination just knowing you're going to make it. Q. Both of you, you went to the line with a chance top kind of‑‑ if the final 5 seconds and missed and Brittney comes away with two steals in two seconds. Talk about the inbounds plays. You know they're going to throw the ball the end of the court and Brittney was able to get the steals and kind of the relief of getting away with a game that you trailed in double digits in second half. BRITTNEY MARTIN: The free throws are something we work on every day. That shouldn't happen. All of us missed a lot of free throws and I should have made the ones at the ending, which would have helped us a lot. We just pulled it out and we wanted to win and we knew what they were going to do at the end, and they were trying to get the ball to 14 and she had the hot hand so I guess we had to just really, I guess, stick to the game plan. TIFFANY BIAS: I agree with Brittney, I think Coach put us in a good position where to guard and to switch on everything and so I think we were in good position for that. Q. Offensively or defensively where do you think FGCU caused you the most trouble? TIFFANY BIAS: I think offensively it was drives. I think we weren't moving our feet and they were getting us off the dribble and I think that's what hurt the most. BRITTNEY MARTIN: I think so, too, I think we focused so much on them not shooting 3‑pointers and I think we played too far up on there them and didn't move our feet so I think our defense really hurt us today. Q. They put a lot of bodies in the paint trying to prevent you guys from throwing the ball in the middle. When you got it in the middle it seemed like you were successful, but can you talk about the struggle it was getting the ball in the middle and Tiffany, how difficult it was to get the ball into Jones and Martin. TIFFANY BIAS: They played great side help defense so that's one of the things we need to adjust to, see the skip. That was their game plan, to closing up the middle. You just kind of have to get it in there any way you can and that opened up our outside shot. Q. Tiffany was there anything they did defensively that led you to getting the 8 turnovers? TIFFANY BIAS: I think I forced it on my own. I think I was moving a little too fast and trying to make things happen that wasn't there. I mean, I blame that more on myself than I do their defense messing me up. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for the stats? Okay, thank you, ladies. Questions for Coach? Q. Coach, was there a point in regulation where you were thinking if they get one more bucket this could get sticky? COACH LITTELL: I was thinking that from the fifteen minute mark on in the second half. They play such good defense if get behind them 10 to 12 points like we did, they're kind of a ball control offense. They're so well coached in the fact that they'll run the clock all the way down to wait for you to make a mistake. So by falling double digits behind it was really tough coming back because they don't shoot the ball in a hurry. They don't make mistakes. They're going to get a good shot at the basket, so it was touch and go for a lot of minutes and it was more than the last four or five minutes. Q. Coach, when you look at the first half and you're up 20‑9, they missed a bunch of layups, now looking back with a 1‑point win how fortunate is it that is the way the ball drops? They missed 12 layups in the first half. COACH LITTELL: I told their coach, I said, you had the shots to win the game and some of their kids just missed wide‑open layups and we're fortunate, we're very fortunate and we realize‑‑ I've been in the game long enough to realize the shots that we gave up and how many shots, and the shots they had and when you do that, I think on top of that, our top scorers, Donna goes 3 for 12, bias 1 for 9 and Martin 4 for 11, those kids go 8 for 32, our top‑three players go 8 for 32, I feel very fortunate to get a win. Q. Coach, you talked about how you thought he could coach at any level. Will that style of play translate to the Big 12 or the other power conferences? COACH LITTELL: I think it will. You know, the one thing that may make a difference in our league on that is you may have trouble rebounding, playing the four guards at times but a lot of the Big 12 has gone to that but where they're different is Whitney Knight is more of a true post, she is a point guard off‑guard than a true post and where they're different is they've got five guards on the floor that can lower their head and put the ball down on the ground and get to the rim and shoot threes. And that's why I saw them on film and said it was a difficult guard for us. Q. Coach, LaShawn went 5 for 5, Kendra 4 for 5, granted they put a lot of bodies in the paint. Were you a little disappointed that you weren't able to take advantage of some of those match‑ups in the middle a little more? COACH LITTELL: Well, they know what they have. They know the size that they have. They've spent all year making sure that the ball doesn't go in the middle. There is a reason they won 26 games. They do the things that they do very well. We tried to go inside. We had some turnovers doing it. I think where we got hurt more is we skipped the ball across to the corner and we missed five, six, seven wide‑open looks. To get 'em out of the paint you've got to skip the ball and make shots to get them out of the paint and we didn't do that so they were able to secure the paint all night long. Q. You mentioned Whitney Knight. Did you do anything defensively either in the last 5 minutes of regulation or overtime? COACH LITTELL: What we did is we told‑‑ when we spread the zone we said for someone to always stay close to her on that and we were going to make some of their other guards hit shots. When she went to the dead corner we brought our 5 all the way out of the hole and matched up to have a fifth person on the perimeter. We got to the corner and a forward replaces the post down low so that was the adjustment that we tried to make. We lost her twice in transition and she hit two quick three's and I think that took the game close to say a 10‑point lead right then and we were just determined not to give her anymore open looks. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|