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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: IOWA CITYMarch 23, 2014Alyssa CharlstonAli FordeJon NewleeIOWA CITY, IOWA Louisville – 88 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Idaho. Coach, if you could make an opening statement. COACH NEWLEE: It's a tough way to end what for us was a great season. We talked about our goals of winning the regular season WAC title, winning the tourney title and getting back‑to‑back in the NCAA tournament. The only goal we didn't achieve was going further in the NCAA tournament that we wanted to do. Like I said, it's a tough way to end your year on a loss, especially a loss that's a little lopsided like this one was tonight. We certainly didn't play our best basketball. Louisville had something to do with that. I think some of that was our own doing. But they're a great basketball team. I said they should be a number one seed. They didn't do anything out there to disprove that. Good luck to them through the rest of the tournament. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. In the very early going you had some things going on. What changed? What did Louisville do to take control of the game? ALI FORDE: They put on a lot of pressure. We handled it really well at the beginning of the game. Drifted away from that towards the middle. ALYSSA CHARLSTON: I think also the fact that they were pushing the ball in transition really well and we weren't stopping it, weren't getting stops we needed. We weren't putting the ball in the basket on the offensive end. We were getting some good looks, and they just weren't dropping. Q. Alyssa, I know it's right after the fact, but can you sum up your career at Idaho. ALYSSA CHARLSTON: It's been the best decision I ever made. It's made me so much stronger. Like coach said, this isn't the way we want to go out. But I've become who I am through the coaches here, my teammates. They pushed me to become a good leader. I mean, it's emotional. Any last game is going to be emotional. But, wow, what a ride it's been. It's been incredible. I know that the girls behind me are going to take this program even higher than when I came here. They've got a powerful coaching staff to do it. I can't say anything bad about this school. Other teams looked away from me in the recruiting process. These coaches saw the potential in me. Definitely I surprised myself with the coaching, people believing in me. It's been incredible and I'm excited to see what they do in the future. ALI FORDE: She's been one heck of a leader. We're really going to miss her, so... Q. Ali, what are you going to take from being here and this experience into your next year? ALI FORDE: This experience is a great experience to have. Next year hopefully will be‑‑ like coach was saying earlier in the locker room, hopefully we'll have a higher seed and be able to come out stronger. Playing a team like Louisville, they're obviously a great team. It makes us better. It allows us to push farther. We know what we need to work on now, so... THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. You thought Louisville was a one seed. Did it get to the point that they had so much that it overwhelmed your team? COACH NEWLEE: They're extremely talented, obviously. They're pretty deep. I think they brought some people in. I thought they shot extremely, extremely well today, too. I think if they're making those shots, those midrange shots, we wanted to run them off the three‑point line if we could, make them take those contested jump shots, they got on that roll and started making those shots. I think our turnovers led to a lot of fast‑break points for them. That was one thing that we definitely needed to avoid if we were going to get in this game, pull an upset. We had to play a lot better on the offensive end than we did tonight. I will say ‑ not making excuses for Stacey Barr ‑ but she got hit in the face with an elbow at the 13‑minute mark in the first half. At one point we thought she had a concussion. I'm not sure how it's going now. Her symptoms got worse as the game was going along. At one point I had to take her out because I'm not sure she was aware where she was. Player of the Year in the WAC, you take her out that early in the contest, it certainly didn't help our cause. Like I said, we don't want to make excuses. That's basketball. That happens. It wasn't intentional. You could see her with the ice bags on every timeout. Sometimes she didn't want to get up and put her hand in the huddle. I think that certainly was a factor in the game getting away from us. Q. Can you give your thoughts on maybe the ball pressure that Louisville presents, how difficult that is to deal with. COACH NEWLEE: The constant pressure in the game, we know that's a part of their game, what they do. Like I said, we handled it pretty good for the first six minutes. They just kept it going, kept it going. They're long and athletic. They do a great job defensively of getting after you, getting after ball‑handlers. It certainly hurt us to not have a backup point guard. She's been out since December, so... Once Connie got tired, and Stacey was out of it, certainly the ball pressure was going to be a bigger factor than it should have been I think going in. It took its toll on us. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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