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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2015Larryn BrooksTyra BussTeri MorenHOFFMAN ESTATES, ILLINOIS Rutgers – 63 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Indiana head coach Teri Moren and student‑athletes Larryn Brooks and Tyra Buss. Coach, an opening statement. COACH MOREN: Well, we're disappointed that our season has come to a close here in Hoffman Estates. But I want to give our kids credit. Again, I thought there were moments where we could have easily have given in this afternoon to a team that was probably a little bit more rested, more athletic, bigger. They made a few runs at us, and we had an opportunity to give in. And just didn't feel like our kids were ready to quite give in. So their toughness that they showed‑‑ we just didn't make shots from the outside. We figured we were going to have to have the day we had yesterday, scoring at least, or making at least 10 to 11 3s in order to give ourselves a chance at the game. And we shot it poorly from the outside. We did outrebound them, which was a statistic that we always look at. And we're proud of the fact that we did that. We kept our turnovers low. But at the end of the day we just didn't have enough bullets in the gun to walk out of here with a win. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Tyra, what exactly happened on that play when you went down, and how did it feel coming back? TYRA BUSS: There was a loose ball, I think me and No. 1 fell after it she fell on top me of me, my ankle. I don't know what happened exactly, but it didn't feel good. And I wanted to do whatever I could to get back in the game, because I wanted to do whatever I could to help the team win. So Mr.Rob, our athletic trainer, he really got me, needed‑‑ taped my ankle tighter. I got back in the game. It felt a lot better playing. Q. As the season comes to a close, what are your thoughts overall on the season, when it's been a long season, a lot of close losses, how would you kind of summarize the season? LARRYN BROOKS: First, you never want the season to go over. It really does suck to go out like this, because you do feel like you could have made some different plays out there. But overall, the season, I think we've had a lot of mistakes. And we've just learned from those and we're just going to move on. I mean, last year we didn't have a Big Ten win in the tournament. And then this year we had‑‑ last night we had the win against Penn State. We'll keep on moving forward, and the next step is to try to get into the NCAA. Q. For either of you, you guys couldn't get shots to fall at any point in the game. At that point what was kind of the thought process on how you would try to stay in the game? TYRA BUSS: Just getting high percentage shots. Trying to get into the post. And definitely our shots weren't falling from the outside at first so we were really focused on attacking to the basket. I thought we did a pretty good job attacking and finding an open teammate. Like you said, we didn't knock shots down at first, but I thought we did a better job of attacking and getting to the free‑throw line. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. Coach, first season down as IU head coach. You also often talk about progress. How much progress did you see from when you took over to right now? COACH MOREN: I think we've made incremental progress. And it's probably our takeaways, after about 48 hours of really reflecting and having some conversations with our staff and our players, I think I'll probably have more takeaways. You know, outside of the Ohio State game, and maybe Michigan State, and a poor performance at Michigan, there were three games in the Big Ten that really stick out as poor performances. Other than that, there was some really good moments for a very young team. I reminded them, 98percent of our scoring comes from freshmen and sophomores. So without question, the future is bright. We feel like we have some players that are going to be joining us next year that are going to give us the depth at that 4 and 5 spot we lacked all year. We have great guard play. We have the ability to knock down open shots. But each kid individually, now the challenge becomes getting in the gym and improving your game. And all of us have to self‑evaluate, me included, in what we could have done better, and getting better. And so that will be the challenge moving forward, with every one of us that is part of this staff and team, getting better. Q. Today record shot, I think near 50percent from the floor. I don't have the exact stat. But how much was it your guys' defense and how much was it just them hitting shots? COACH MOREN: I think they hit shots early on. I thought probably the first six or seven minutes of the first half, they didn't really get into any kind of offense, other than they were just downhill, either laying it up or getting short jumpers. So give them credit. We know this is a team that's not going to take a lot of 3‑point shots. They're going to really rely on their athleticism, second‑, third‑chance point opportunities. Putting the ball inside. Transition. And I thought we did an okay job. When you turn it over or you take a 3, and we take a lot of them, long rebounds, long shots, long rebounds, easy run‑outs for them, which lead to layups. And so that was what we were trying to limit as best as we could, just the run‑outs. But Coach Viv does a tremendous job, and she's a Hall of Fame coach. And that's a really good basketball team that we got beat by today. So I don't want to take anything away from the fact that they just made shots. Q. You talk about trying to find the things that were the positives and carry them into next year. If you had to say something, what were some of the main positives you're going to take from this season? COACH MOREN: I just think the experience. We were playing with young kids. Freshmen and sophomores. New system. New coach. New staff. The transition happened late in August. So there were a lot of things that we kind of had to‑‑ a lot of firsts for all of us. And so I think the experience that we all gained from a coaching staff. We got a snapshot of what the Big Ten looks like. Our players, the experience that they got, game in, game out. One of the things we have to do a better job of is in our scheduling next year is our preconference schedule has to be tougher. It has to prepare us for Big Ten play. And moving forward, we want to challenge ourselves, and we want to have to embrace the idea of going up against some of the best in the country, in order to play in this league and be at the top of this league, win a championship and get into the NCAA Tournament. Q. Could you talk a little bit about Tyra's toughness today, just coming back from the ankle injury and getting to the free‑throw line quite a few times? COACH MOREN: She's a basketball player. You know, I mean this kid scored over 4,000 points in her high school career. And she's probably had to experience playing through injury before. And that obviously says a little bit about who she is as a person, as a basketball player. Her character. She was wanting and willing to do anything she could to help her team this afternoon. And I thought that she does a lot of great things. I wish our guards would have‑‑ our other guards would have attacked, similar to the way she was doing. I think that probably would have helped us. Her getting to the free‑throw line was huge. But she did. She showed toughness today that we had to have. So give her a lot of credit, as a freshman, for showing up today. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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