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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2016Jim FlaneryJade OwensMC McGroryChicago, Illinois Creighton - 77, Seton Hall - 56 JIM FLANERY: The big thing is we knew we could win. We just played them at their place, and it was a very tight game, down to the wire, and the game in Omaha went down to the last minute. Even though we were 0-2 against them, I felt like our familiarity with them and the fact that we'd been so close twice maybe worked to our advantage. I mean, we just played them last weekend. We made very -- just some really minor adjustments and talked a lot about personnel. But offensively these two especially really just played with great confidence. Winning does that to you I feel like. If you look back at our year, there are a lot of reasons we probably didn't win as many games as we had hoped, but I think the timing of our injuries was kind of crucial, and because we had a really tough stretch right when we lost Marissa and Bree, and to be honest, we lost games and we lost confidence, and I think it's taken us a long time to maybe believe in ourselves at the level that we currently do. These guys can attest, I'm not always great at distributing confidence to them. But I think this is a different team, and I talked yesterday about just the fact that we played really well last weekend at Seton Hall and St. John's, and had a chance to win one and won the other. I think that was huge for us. Today was about believing that -- who cares if we're the 7 and they're the 3. We played the 2 yesterday, and we have good players who have gotten better over the course of a year. We start three sophomores and a freshman. I think when you look past our record and how we got to where we were, at the end of the day, we're a good basketball team, and I think that was reflected today. We're thrilled to have the opportunity in front of us tomorrow night. Q. Coach talked about having confidence after two close losses against this team, but I think it's a little bit different knowing you can compete and beating a team by 21 on your third game in three days. Where did you find the legs, the energy, the push to have a performance like this? JADE OWENS: I'd say Flan has told us a lot. A lot of it's mental. A lot of us were really hyped up because we haven't had this opportunity before, so you don't think about how you're tired and you're not thinking about your legs; you're just thinking about winning and playing your best and really living out the experience and having fun. I think last weekend when we were out at Seton Hall, we kind of felt the momentum going our way with this match-up, so I think that showed with our energy today. MC McGRORY: I think that our team is just a big part of it. Like we all love each other. We're all in this for each other, and it's a lot easier to go out there and have fun and do what you need to do to win a basketball game when everybody is super hyped about it. Q. Flan talked about yesterday this probably isn't necessarily about today's game but maybe the weekend or the stretch you guys have had. He kind of danced around maybe the fact that you guys have turned a corner at some point. Do you know where it was, one practice, that it kind of just clicked for you guys, all the things, small things that were maybe keeping you from winning some of those close games? MC McGRORY: I think going into St. John's and Seton Hall, that weekend, we had really good practices leading up to that, and then I think just playing Seton Hall that close and then getting the win over St. John's just kind of helped build on that. JADE OWENS: Yeah, I'd agree. I'd say throughout the whole Big East season we were close but we had just one more gear that we could kick into, and I'd say the practice before, the week of practice before the Seton Hall, St. John's weekend, we really focused a lot more in practice and really performed well. So I think just how we played those two games, I think that really turned us into a more confident team. Q. Jade, you had a career high in points today, but you also had the ball in your hands a lot down the stretch, especially when Seton Hall was pressing. What was working for you so well today, and how were you able to stay composed and beat that press for pretty much the entire second half? JADE OWENS: I'd say we were kind of familiar with their press, and we talked about it a lot, and also worked with it a lot. We kind of knew what to do and what not to do, so we really focused on that and just taking care of the ball. Q. What are you looking to take from this game into your next game? MC McGRORY: I think just our confidence. I mean, Flan has done a really good job in the last couple of weeks of building us up a little bit more and just realizing that this is the team we've got and that he's going to get the best out of us on any given night, and I think he's done a really good job of doing that. JADE OWENS: I'd say we're going to try to bring the same energy, just a lot of that energy that we played with today. That'll do very well in the next game. Q. Does it feel like you guys are in a Cinderella ride a little bit coming from the No. 7 seed and beating two of the top two seeds now? Reminds me of Connecticut men's basketball team a number of years ago when they were a No. 9 seed, won the Big East Tournament. Does it feel like you're really on a roll right now? JADE OWENS: Yeah, I'd say so. We don't really feel like the underdogs. I'd say we've felt like we could play with anyone in the conference this whole year, and with all three wins that we've had so far in the tournament, Villanova and Seton Hall, we didn't feel like the underdogs, we felt like we could play with those teams and we could beat those teams. We really came out with a lot more confidence, and we're trying to show that we're not a 7 seed. MC McGRORY: I don't know, we're just having a lot of fun, and I guess probably got one more top seed to beat. Q. Jade, the way you've seen MC play this weekend, and she's had these performances before, but on this stage does it feel like she's kind of turning into a player that you guys can rely on in any situation? JADE OWENS: Definitely. I'd say MC is just playing with a whole new level of toughness. That can describe exactly how she's playing. She's playing through anything. She's not thinking about being tired, injury, anything. She's just really fighting through everything, and we're really feeding off of her energy, as well. Q. Tomorrow night you're going to play for a chance to go to the NCAA Tournament in front of your home crowd. Considering the ups and downs you've had this year, first of all, could you have imagined being in this spot in some of those down moments, and how is it going to feel to strap it up in front of the hometown fans for a chance to go to the NCAA Tournament? JADE OWENS: I'd say this was a goal from the beginning of the season. I'd say when we had not a lot of confidence, kind of losing some close games, we didn't really think this far ahead, but this is exactly where we wanted to be and where we saw ourselves being at the beginning of the season. It's kind of incredible to us, and we really want to fight for that championship tomorrow. Q. Flan, in your career I think now you're 7-1 in games where you've played a team that swept you during the season in the conference tournament, and you've won six of those games in a row since 2007. Did you tell the team about any of those experiences? Did you look back to any of them? I guess what were the keys to making it seven out of eight today? JIM FLANERY: No, you're pointing out something to me that I had no idea. You know, I think two things are in play here. One, we'd won three games in a row. I think that's -- and winning at St. John's, who is hopefully in the NCAA Tournament, and beating Villanova, who finished second in our league, those are really quality wins, and our confidence is different. And then the fact that we'd played Seton Hall so close and we played them so recently and been in a position where, but for kind of a game-changing run about a four-minute, five-minute stretch in the second quarter, where I think they were -- it was an 18-0 run, and we had the ball down one with four minutes to go despite that. So I think those two things are in play. Just the momentum of having won three games in a row and then just familiarity with having played them so recently and having been in a position to win and having been in position to win the first time. You know, the other thing that we've done is we've shortened our rotation. We're playing seven. We've played seven, and it's a little bit intentional and sometimes unintentional, but we just -- I kind of decided in the Providence game that we were going to shorten the bench, even though if you look long-term and your goal is to win four games in four days, shortening your rotation doesn't help you, or at least that would be theoretically what you'd think. But you know, I think we've -- that group has played really well together. We played a lot of small ball today with Audrey at the 5, but I think that's another thing that's probably in play is that we haven't really extended our rotation, and in hindsight, maybe I should have shortened it a little bit earlier. But that's 20/20 hindsight. Q. You're off to the championship game. You're playing DePaul or St. John's and obviously during the season, I remember doing a game with you guys at Xavier, and it was really -- at that point in time just about getting better one game at a time and not really looking too far ahead. But now as you look back, as you're in the championship game, was this truly and honestly a realistic goal for you guys even after Janning went down? JIM FLANERY: It has been about the process. We certainly went into the year thinking we could go to the NCAA Tournament. I think losing Marissa and Bree for eight weeks, just because of how much we struggled to be consistent throughout the next month, then it became just, hey, we've got to get better, we've got to get better, and probably postseason anything was a goal, because I think an at-large NCAA Tournament bid at some point in January kind of went out the window. Like I said, we struggled because we're a younger team and we just hadn't gotten better in -- I love the fight of our team, but we hadn't gotten better in practice as much as I felt like we could, and that's part of coaching a younger team is you've got younger players who don't always grab the importance of practice every day. But I never felt like we weren't a fighting team and that we couldn't get to this point, because I do think the league is really balanced. You know, DePaul won the league by four games and beat us badly twice, but other than that, we've been in the game with every team -- at the four-minute mark, we've had a chance to win every other game, so of our 10 league losses, eight of them we had a chance to win with four minutes to go. I never felt like we couldn't play with anybody in the league. But in terms of what our goals were and what they became, at the point where we kind of struggled and had lost those two kids, we didn't really talk as much about goals other than just the process and trying to get better week to week. Q. If it is DePaul tomorrow in the title game, what are some of the things you guys are going to have to address having played them twice now and knowing what they're about and knowing what they do? JIM FLANERY: Well, we're going to hope they don't play as well as they did when we just played them in Omaha, because I thought they were fabulous. We weren't great. We probably weren't even good, but they were really good. They exposed us a lot. You've got to take care of the ball because their pressure really makes it tough for us to really move the ball. We struggled to move the ball against them. And offensively we kind of changed our philosophy the second time we played them, and it didn't work from the first time. The other thing is they're a spurty team. They're a very confident offensive team, and to me the thing that they do better than anybody in the league is they run a 10-0 run -- they put a 10-0 run together better than anybody in the league, and we've got to stay away from those and maybe try to slow the game down just a little bit, which I think we can. You know, I think the personnel thing becomes a little bit easier the third time you play somebody. You've played them twice. I thought that was a factor today. I feel like we -- it's been longer since we've played DePaul, but I just think -- we talked to our kids about it, it's got to be about -- we've got to win the concentration battle in terms of personnel, and that'll be -- I thought we were better today than we were a week ago against Seton Hall, and we were better against Villanova than the last time we played them, and those were important, and we'll have to be better tomorrow. If we play DePaul, we'll have to know January better, we'll have to know Jenkins better, we'll have to know Schulte -- all those kids, Podkowa. But at the same time, I expect a really good, competitive game. St. John's has played DePaul to a six-point game here, and so -- but in terms of if we do face DePaul, I think just composure is going to be important. But again, our confidence is hopefully on a different level than it was. Q. Going into tomorrow's game, how much of your game plan is going to be X's and O's and how much is going to be letting your players play and building off of this momentum that you've been creating throughout the tournament? JIM FLANERY: Yeah, I think it depends on who we play, to be honest. I feel like DePaul kind of forces you to play a certain way, which is intriguing for me. I watch them -- to me when we first got in the league, it was DePaul at this end of the spectrum and Villanova at this end of the spectrum, and they both make you play their style, and they're completely different. So that part has been interesting. Whereas St. John's I feel like scheme is probably -- we're a little bit -- I think we're able to control our scheme defensively a little bit more and even offensively, whereas I feel like DePaul it's -- and I think Marquette is kind of trending that way, where they're going to play up and down. And the first time I played them, I think we got -- the only time we've beaten them, we were down like 26-8, and it took me like four minutes into the game to say, well, we can't really -- we're just going to have to play because they don't let you run sets. Whereas I think St. John's is definitely somebody that you can scheme differently. Not that we can't -- obviously we have to try to control some things schematically against DePaul, but I think that's more -- you've just got to show up and play because similar to Villanova at the other end of the spectrum, they kind of force their style of play on you. Q. You've had some pretty spectacular individual performances in conference tournaments that have kind of carried you on. Where does today's from MC kind of rank in those as far as when you just put a team on your back and make plays for a stretch? JIM FLANERY: Yeah, and she actually got kicked or something in the leg yesterday and had like a little -- swelled up as she was sitting watching the Marquette-Seton Hall game. It swelled up and she was limping around last night and we had some stim on her. She's a tough kid. She's just a competitor. I was saying before the game that the neat thing about her is that she has understood how important it is for her to be a leader on this team, and Lauren may not be able to speak to this because I don't know what the age difference is, but yeah -- but when we recruited her, I couldn't get her to talk on the phone, and I didn't like calling her because I'm like, I can't get five minutes out of that kid. So even when she committed and signed, I'm like, am I going to like coaching this kid, because she's so introverted. But that introvert has become our best leader, and when Marissa got hurt, her leadership just kept building, and she committed even more to it. To me leadership and productivity, you try to talk to your kids, like hey, if you can get outside yourself and be a really good leader, you're probably going to be less focused on production, and sometimes being less focused on production makes you more productive because you're not thinking, oh, I just missed a shot. So I think with her, it's like -- she doesn't worry that I just missed a shot or two or whether this is a -- she's about getting a good shot. And if I'm making a good shot, I'm not worried about whether it goes in or not. And I think that's a tough place for a 20 or 21 year old to get to is to be like, I'm going to make the right play, I'm going to have the right level of aggression to try to make this play here, and I'm going to live with the results, and I think she's freed her mind up to do that. And part of that is because she feels great about her leadership role. She isn't just about what my productivity is. I think with younger players, it's all about my productivity because that's what's going to get me on the floor or not. But I think mature players who are older, they have -- who buy into leadership as much as she does, they don't get hung up on productivity, and I think it frees them up to play better, and I think that's where she is right now. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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