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PAC-12 WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 2, 2018Mark TrakhMinyon MooreJordan AdamsSeattle, Washington Stanford - 69 , USC - 59 MARK TRAKH: Regarding tonight's game, I'm very proud of our players' effort tonight. If you look at the stats, I mean, we had 36 rebounds to their 35, 11 offense to their 7. We hustled. We got after. They shot the ball a lot better than us, and I think that was the difference. But if you look at the stats, down by 10, they hit a half court three-pointer, I think, to end that first quarter. There were some things that just didn't go our way. But they're a great basketball team. They play great defense. I'm just really, you know, I think when we got down early, our kids could have quit and said, oh, we're going to get blown out tonight. But they haven't been blown out all year. Nobody's blown them out all year. Worst conference losses were to UCLA by 14. Both of those, one was an 8-point game in the fourth quarter, and one was a four-point game with four minutes to go. So these kids never quit. We're undersized and don't have a lot of depth, but they don't quit. I thought they played great defense tonight. I thought the coaches made a bone head decision to open in the zone since we are a pretty good player to player team. So we'll take -- I mean, I think we tried to outcoach ourselves because we are such a good player to player team. But I just loved the heart of this team. I mean, that's a great Stanford team. Very deep, very tall, very skilled, very well-coached. I don't know how our kids -- we always shoot the ball really well, but there are games that I'm just amazed, and I think it's all their heart. Today I've got to give a big props to Minyon Moore, when we got down, kept the team together and kept cheering and yelling and played with energy. She got Jordan to do that, and Aliyah Mazyck. Like I said, I'm just very, very proud of the effort. I really hope that we get a shot at the tournament. I think we're one of the top 64 teams, and I think our kids deserve to play another game, if not two. So our RPI is good, our strength of schedule is good, our record is good. We played one of the toughest teams in the conference, and won 10 conference games in one of the toughest conferences in the country. So I'm really hoping that two weeks from now we'll see our name up there on selection Monday. But, like I said, I'm proud. Stanford, all due respect in the world. Tara VanDerveer is a friend and a great coach, and of course, Hall of Fame coach. Got a thousand wins. I don't think I'd get a thousand wins if I lived to be 150, maybe 200. But that's a great feat. Got a lot of respect for her. I hope they go far in the tourney. After we played them at New Mexico State and they beat us in the first round, I said I hope you go all the way to the Final Four, and son of a gun if they didn't go all wait to the Final Four that year. So nothing but a lot of respect for them. Like I said, I'm just really proud of our effort and proud of our kids and proud of our season this year. Q. Jordan, the shot by Carrington, the half court shot, you guys were down, but maybe building a little bit of momentum. It's a first-quarter shot. But in the end, what difference do you think it ended up making, just in terms of you guys feeling like you were getting back in the game? JORDAN ADAMS: I mean, I think sometimes when you play awesome defense or you come down and get a nice bucket and there are 3 seconds left and someone comes down and makes a half court shot, it could kill your momentum. It could kill your energy. But those type of things happen to us all year. I know you guys saw that shot that Lexi Bando hit against us. We didn't falter. We didn't change our energy then; we weren't going to do it today. I'm super proud of my team the way they responded. We got together and just decided to brush that off and let's get into this next quarter. Q. Mark, can you talk about your own team's defense, especially Mazyck on Brittany McPhee? 7 points, I think that's her second lowest total of the season? MARK TRAKH: Well, Mazyck's resumé reads like a who is who in the Pac-12 conference. She did a heck of a job Ionescu the two times we played them. She did a really great job tonight. She's guarded everybody's top player. I think almost everybody's top player under their average. So I think she's one of the best defensive players in the conference. The fact is that we ask her to do a lot. We also want her to be our leading scorer on the offensive end. But I think she's a great defensive player, and look at the people she's guarded this year in the Pac-12. So I can't say enough about her desire. One time they had a fast break, and she's fast. You know, she got back and hustled back and broke up a fast break. So I've got a lot of respect for her. A really, really great all-around player for us this year. Like I said, one of the top, gosh, one of the top three defensive players in the conference this year, so I'm very proud of her. Q. The shooting numbers, can you just sort of summarize as far as the shots that you guys got? Did you feel like you got good shots? When you look at a percentage like that, what do you account for that? MARK TRAKH: For the most part I thought we got good shots. You know, you've got to make some. You've just got to make them, 26%. We forced some shots, but I thought our shot selection wasn't as bad as it was yesterday. But I think they're good shots. You've got to make shots. To shoot 26%, lose the game by 10, you've got to make a shot now and then. Again, the fact that we were in that game says a lot of the kids' heart. But if we get in the tournament, we're going to spend a lot of hours in the gym the next two weeks just shooting the ball. Q. Minyon and Jordan, you were within two or three possessions the entire second half. What do you think it was that kept you from closing that gap all the way? MINYON MOORE: Our team this whole year has fought back and never let deficits get in our head. I think that just a couple more bounces our way would have helped us. But honestly, I feel like we gave it our all. But fatigue played into it a little bit. But we tried, and I can't knock my team for their hard work the whole season, so, yeah. JORDAN ADAMS: Yeah, we had some tips that we could have gotten or some rebounds we could have gotten. I think because defensively Stanford is such a good rebounding team and they run, we had to back up. We had to run back and we didn't get the rebounds we should have. We missed some shots down the stretch. But, I mean, my team played with their entire heart and soul, so I don't think there was any one thing that could have changed that game, it just didn't go our way. Q. You've talked a lot about how this isn't a deep team. So over these next couple weeks while you have a bit of a breather before you find out what happens with tournament seedings and stuff like that, do you give them some break? Are you trying to get their legs fresh? What is the plan? MARK TRAKH: We've been very careful all year, starting back September 1st, to limit our hours, limit contact drills. We kept everybody healthy. Once we started Pac-12 and I looked at the schedule, I said, man, we've got 18 tough games. Can we keep everybody healthy? And knock on wood, we kept everybody healthy. I think it was limiting hours, giving a lot of time off. We're not going to do anything until Wednesday. We've got some kids that are pretty sore right now, so they're going to have a lot of ice bucket baths or whatever that cryogenic thing is. But we're going to get people healed and get them back in the gym. Like I said, keep our fingers crossed for selection Monday. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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