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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2017Doug BrunoBrooke SchulteJaqui GrantChicago, Illinois DePaul - 92, Seton Hall - 60 DOUG BRUNO: I'm just really proud of this basketball team for being able to focus and not have a hangover from their accomplishments from the regular season. They just did so much in the regular season, I think it would have been human nature for them to let down a little bit. And the Seton Hall team that I watched last night and the Seton Hall team that I watched against St. John's last weekend is a much improved team. Coach Bozzella has got these young players playing a lot better as the season goes along here. So I was really concerned that we were going to get a great Seton Hall shot, and I knew that we could deal with it if we came out ready to play, and so I just was really -- I was just really concerned that our players would be ready, and I was really impressed that they were ready. It's hard for young people to walk out before a game and receive the accolades that were so well-deserved and then shut that down right now and go to the jump ball and be focused and ready for the ballgame, and that's what I was really impressed with these players about. Q. Brooke, are you able to talk about the team's strong first-half performance? You started the game off I think with a turnaround jumper and things got better from there. BROOKE SCHULTE: Yes, well, the coaching staff and Coach Bruno always do a phenomenal job each and every game of preparing us, and we came in 110 percent prepared, and I thought as a team we just came out with a spark and ready to play and ready to have our first game. Q. Jaqui, you had an outstanding game, really got it going in the third quarter. What went into that second-half performance? JAQUI GRANT: Definitely sitting on the bench with two fouls is always tough for a player, especially when we just -- everyone wants to be out there. Coming out strong was definitely something at halftime that I definitely thought about and the coaches and teammates both gave me confidence just to play my game. Q. Brooke, what was behind such success with that full-court press you guys were in? BROOKE SCHULTE: I think just coming out with that spark that I talked about and answered earlier. Just being ready to play and just having fun with it. We had our legs there, and we were just coming out and being all over the floor. Q. Can you explain Jessica didn't do much scoring tonight, but assist on assist on assist, what it's meant to have her back in the picture? BROOKE SCHULTE: I speak for myself, but I love it and I'm pretty sure all of our teammates love it, she was such a spark on the bench just cheering us on in such a positive energy and now to have her out on that floor, it's an mazing feeling. Q. Jaqui, can you talk a little about that, as well? JAQUI GRANT: Yeah, one of the things that isn't really on the stat sheet is how she forces those turnovers by the other team, by that pressure defense. Being one-on-one against Jess, I would probably take Jess 10 times out of 10. That's how much confidence we all have in her, and that's how much we just love her on the floor. Nine assists, that's amazing, and she does that all the time like it's nothing. And then two steals, like that's great. Q. How much has the adversity that you guys have gone through this season with the starters you've lost, how much does that help you now in a position like this? BROOKE SCHULTE: I think it prepared us, if anything. We had to constantly change during throughout each season, just changing our lineups and who we had in, and losing people, and we never succumbed to it. We never let it take us over, and we definitely just kept a positive attitude, and the players that were hurt kept a positive attitude and were always there and had our back. I think as a team we just stayed together. JAQUI GRANT: Yeah, Coach definitely threw out that whole adversity, no excuses team, and I think everyone really bought into that, and that was huge from every single player who played or don't play, like every single person bought into that, and I thought that was a really big contributor. Q. Are you able to talk about your bench play tonight, particularly Chante Stonewall? DOUG BRUNO: Well, yeah. I mean, the question that was asked of the student-athletes about playing without Jessica and Ashton and Mart'e, you know, I think those -- the seven players that were in the rotation all regular Big East season got valuable experience. I thought Chante really -- she's coming along as a freshman and she had some great possessions and she had some freshmen-esque possessions, but I think of all the experience that she was able to get while Jess was not in the lineup were huge. Tanita Allen today played with the flu, so it was very -- we didn't know if she was going to go right up until game time, so it was really -- it was just kind of important that the bench did play well and she played well. I was prepared for us to be a seven-player bench again tonight with Jessica being the seventh player instead of Tanita Allen, but as it worked out Tanita got some good minutes in, and hopefully she'll be okay by tomorrow. Q. You had 35 combined points from your freshmen tonight. Can you talk a little bit about how they've contributed to this run down the stretch? DOUG BRUNO: Well, Kelly Campbell is a much-deserved all-freshman Big East player, and she's been playing with us all year long. She's been starting, and what makes Kelly so special is her competitiveness. And then Chante gave us some good offensive lift off the bench tonight, knocked down those two threes in the first half, and really she probably could have had -- she just sometimes gets a little bit ahead of herself offensively, she probably had two or three more that she could have knocked down. So I think it was really important that our freshmen played ball tonight and were ready to play. I think just everything, every one of these players -- I can't have this microphone and not speak to Jess January. We're sitting at halftime and she's got no baskets and eight assists. That's the aspect of the game and our game that I've noticed the most with her presence back on the floor is our traditional DePaul ball assist totals and sharing is just unbelievably different with her out there and her not out there. That was really important. The other thing about the freshmen giving us good minutes was it allowed us to -- Schulte and Jessica January played a lot of minutes in the first half, so they didn't have to play very many minutes at all in the second half. I think that was very important. We had three players with two fouls that had to sit most of the first half, and those players got some minutes and Jaqui got some good third-quarter minutes and Coleman only played three in the first half, so Tanita Allen down, that's why she had to get more minutes and probably would have had her out there, but we had nobody else to put in at that point. Q. Is this the most battle-tested group that you have had? DOUG BRUNO: Yeah, I don't know. We play a traditionally tough schedule every year, so I don't know that it's any more battle-tested than some of the other teams that we've had. I mean, I just -- the non-conference schedule was really, really difficult. It's always difficult. It's difficult by design. And I think you're looking at three No. 1 seeds in our loss column in UConn, Baylor and Notre Dame, and then Marquette here is really, really good. So that's a couple of defeats we had to Marquette, that's a really, really good basketball team in our BIG EAST Conference, as is Creighton. And the two teams that are going to play in this next game are really well-deserving to be in this NCAA Tournament, both of them. Everybody thinks I'm crazy when I say those kinds of things, but some of the football five leagues are not really that strong in the bottom, so there's some of those leagues that people are talking about getting eight teams in and some of them do deserve eight, but some of them have also fattened up on some teams on the bottom of the leagues that have not been that strong. We'll see how this all plays out. St. John's and Villanova are both really, really good ball clubs, so we'll see how the next game plays out, but this is a great league that we play in. And the teams like Seton Hall tonight, that's a really -- they are a strong basketball team. Tony has got young players, so they've had to -- got through some tough experience this year as freshmen and had to play, but they're going to be really, really good down the road. Hilaire is going to be really, really good. Winters is going to be really, really good, Samuels. They've got everybody back, large access back, a large group coming back. Marquette has got great group coming back. Villanova has got everybody coming back. And I'm probably forgetting somebody a that's got a lot of people coming back, but this league is just going to keep getting better and better. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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