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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2017Jim FlaneryAudrey FaberSydney LambertyChicago, Illinois Creighton - 64, Butler 55 THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Audrey, Sydney, I guess it looks like you guys hadn't played a basketball game for a week. Did it feel like you were stuck in the mud there to start? Did you kind of have to get the instincts going again? AUDREY FABER: Yeah, we were playing kind of fast, actually. We were really anxious coming into the game. Just needed to slow down. We blamed it on nerves at halftime, so second half, it was a little more comfortable. Q. It probably helps that you guys have played games like that throughout the season where the offense has kind of gone through lulls and you've had to rely on getting stops to stay in games and keep from kind of getting blown out early. Was that kind of what you guys kept telling yourselves in that first quarter and the first half? SYDNEY LAMBERTY: I mean, whenever offense isn't working, we turn to defense, and that's what we were doing today. If we can't score off offense, we might as well try to get something off of defense, whether that's fast breaks or getting stops. Q. How do you explain the third quarters? I looked at the numbers against Butler, it was 16-4, and 22-12, and today it was 22-13. How do you explain that? AUDREY FABER: I don't know, honestly. It's been a trend all season. I don't know how to explain it. SYDNEY LAMBERTY: We always make jokes that we're a third quarter team. I don't know if this time we were like, all right, we need to pull it together. AUDREY FABER: Talking things out at halftime. I don't know what it is. Q. Looking ahead, I guess obviously Marquette, which the game last time was unbelievable or Georgetown. Can you talk about each potential team tomorrow? SYDNEY LAMBERTY: I mean, both of them are good teams and quick teams and they like to fast break a lot. So, I mean, we're going to have to play good defense to win against them, and whoever we play, we'll just have to focus on defense. Q. I guess you guys didn't really double Schickel as much as you guys have in the past, and, Audrey, you got caught a few times on some switches. What were you trying to do when you were isolated on her to make things difficult for her? AUDREY FABER: Just trying to push her out as far as we could so we didn't get pinned necessarily, especially me. But then just not fouling, staying straight up, and only giving her one look. Boxing out and not giving her second chances. Q. For the players, I'll ask Flanery this, he doesn't lack for motivating you guys. But it's a unique position for you that you for all intents and purposes have kind of locked up and you have a little consolation prize if you don't play well this weekend. How do you keep your edge and playing well this weekend and still trying to play for something, even though you know it's not do or die? SYDNEY LAMBERTY: I don't think we've really thought about that. Over the whole entire season we haven't really talked about the NCAA Tournament. That's always been the goal and that's the end goal for us, but, I mean, winning this is a really big goal for us too, and it has been from the start. So I don't think that's really in the back of our minds right now, especially after last year too. AUDREY FABER: Especially after last year too. We lost in the championship game, so we want to get back there and win it this time. Q. Flan, what went behind the decision to not double so much on Schickel? I mean, that usually seems to be the game plan for Butler is to make other people beat you, but it seemed like you were okay with Bri and Audrey guarding her one-on-one at times today? JIM FLANERY: Yeah, well, the kids that we kind of felt like we could help off of made more threes than we wanted them to make. Bailey made one, Buford made two, Brey made one, so once we got ahead, I felt like we needed to be a little bit more three-point conscious. Plus, the other thing, Schickel played 37 minutes yesterday, so there is a little bit -- in my opinion or in my head, there was a little bit of kind of willingness to make sure that she was going to make everything before we doubled her as much as we thought we maybe needed to last weekend. I think, you know, that's the advantage. I think of them having played, gotten off the court at 6:00 o'clock last night. So I thought that definitely played into my mind as far as how much we were going to double. Q. You find yourselves down 14-5, I guess, kind of late in that first quarter. You call timeout, and it seemed like you were more concerned that it was more than just missing shots at that point. What did you say to the team to get them to relax or refocus or to kind of get them back to playing well? JIM FLANERY: You know I never get my team to relax, because I'm the least relaxed person out there. But I just say get the ball. My frustration was with the turnovers. I felt like Marissa forced some passes, Syd forced one. I said, Get the ball up on the rim. We talked about coming off ball screens and shooting a 15-footer, because Schickel's not going to come out and defend that. I felt like we kept forcing the ball to the post off of ball screens and we got hurt. We had a harder time guarding them in transition. They got probably three lay-ups in the first half off of turnovers. So I said, you know, I always feel comfortable that at some point we're going to make some shots. We've got too many shooters, and I think we're harder to guard as the game goes on and teams get a little more fatigued. We have to make them have to communicate as much as we have to make teams communicate. So it was mostly about taking care of the ball and mid to late shot clock, taking a shot rather than forcing the pass. I felt like that was the stretch where I became the most frustrated was the overpassing. Q. With Audrey getting going there, it seemed like she was the only one for a while that was hitting any shots. I know with the motion that it's possible for everybody to get a touch without necessarily being specific. But was there a point in that first half there where you made a conscious effort to kind of get Audrey into some scoring positions, considering she got hot there? JIM FLANERY: Yeah, we felt like we talked a lot about setting flair screens for both Audrey and Jaylyn. Because they're less likely to switch on four players. They're less likely to switch on those. So that was a big part of the game plan, was to set flair screens for Audrey and Jaylyn. You know, but they also had to read it, and the pass has to be on time. But typically, again, we don't always read it well, the flair, and we don't always get the ball there on time. But when we did, I thought she had good looks. And that was a big part of the game plan, was to set flairs for those two specifically. But, even for Lauren, a big part -- the other part was just getting Schickel away from the basket. That hurt us early in the game. I felt like Bri was hesitant to shoot the ball from 15, and she hit the line in the second. You know, we talked about it. We need to be shot ready, five players from 15 to 17 because the more we can draw Schickel away from the basket, the more the basket area's going to open up. We felt like against a team with young guards, you know, we needed to open up the basket area so that when they miss communicate on switches, the basket area's open. So that was the other thing where we weren't where we needed to be early is we just weren't shot ready with our fives. Q. Jaylyn played a fantastic game, obviously scoring great bursts with the way she plays. But also defensively she got on the weak side a little defensively for you guys. Talk about her success there? JIM FLANERY: Yeah, she's been -- she's been just playing her more throughout the year, the more we played her, the more productive she's been. To your point, she did a great job on Weaver. Weaver, whether they put shooters on the floor and they've got Schickel out there, Weaver's tough to stay in front of. But Jaylyn's length, I thought, really bothered her. So I thought defensively she made an impact, and I just like her confidence offensively. If she's open from the three, she's going to take the shot. Then she's good. You saw in movement. We finally got them to miscommunicate a little more late. She got some wide-open shots. But just moving without the ball even earlier, I thought she and Lauren, I think, put a lot of pressure on defenses because of the way they move without the ball. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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