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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 8, 2019Suzy MerchantJenna AllenShay ColleyIndianapolis, Indiana Maryland - 71, Michigan State - 55. SUZY MERCHANT: I just want to know if we can play that third quarter over. Just give Maryland credit. I thought they just definitely had a little more edge to them. I thought the first time we played them and being at our place, I thought we definitely had that kind of edge to us, and give them a lot of credit. I definitely thought that they were consistent in the way they attacked us. It just seemed like there were times when we fought back so hard, I loved our fight in the second quarter. We came out, we scored that quick bucket. It was a one-point game, and then they just kind of got away from us and a lot of late clock situations that could break a back, so I felt like they hit a shot or they got a rebound at that time or we ended up with a foul instead of a stop when it was 3, 2, 1, that kind of thing. They did a great job executing. Give them certainly a lot of credit. It's hard to win games when -- collectively we were 29 percent from the field and 22 from the arc. So that's not typical of how we normally play. But give them credit, too. I thought they were exceptional today, especially on the offensive end. Q. Jenna, could you talk a little bit about you got off to a great start and then it seemed like they kind of focused on you a little bit after halftime. You guys made that run in the second quarter. Do you think that the emphasis of the third quarter was mainly to kind of slow you down a little bit and force you guys to shoot from the perimeter more? JENNA ALLEN: Probably. I thought my teammates did a good job of giving me the ball in the first half. I got hot, and I thought they really did a great job of them putting me in positions to be successful, the coaching staff. Probably, but honestly, I felt like our defense in the third quarter is what really had us struggling. Q. Shay, you guys have played Maryland as good as anybody has in the Big Ten through basically almost seven full quarters. What's your takeaway as a veteran player in the third, just maybe when -- it snowballed on you, and just from an energy perspective, just feeling it in the arena, just wasn't the same from you guys, as you reflect on that? SHAY COLLEY: Yeah, you know, coming out in the third quarter, like Coach said, that first bucket kind of got us going, then after that, we dropped from there, and I think we need to come together as a team to get that confidence back and regroup and know that we can go on a run just like they did. Q. I know you probably don't want to talk about that third, but it's rare that you see one team shoot 81 percent and another team shoot less than 13 -- SUZY MERCHANT: Yeah, it's hard to predict that, yeah. We've had a few instances at times this year where that's happened, and I think what hurts us a little bit on our team is collectively we have a night -- like with four kids in double figures. The go-to guy, I guess, had that. I thought Maryland has that in the Charles kid and they have some other people, too, but you can tell when the game is on the line, that kid wants the ball in her hands and single-handedly can take a game over. We didn't have that this year. We don't have that this year. So on one hand I thought it made us difficult to guard when everybody collectively is part of it, but when things kind of falter a little bit, who do you look to. We needed Taryn today. She was 1 for 8 today, 1 for 7 from the arc. She needs to shoot the ball better for us. And then our bench was something that surprised me, too, because those are veteran kids. They've contributed, Sid, Drek, Nia Hollie, those three in particular played minutes this year, been part of the rotation, and some have even started on and off throughout the year. I felt like if we could just get a little bit more off our bench when those other kids were struggling a little bit, it might have gotten us going. But give Maryland credit. It's hard to predict that. I don't know. I mean, it's the same offense. It's the same kids that cut it to the four-point game, and it was a -- what, it started the third quarter and we scored -- it was our ball, we scored, and it was a one-point game. Then all of a sudden it was like, crash. We didn't change much what we were doing. But give them credit; I thought they had a little more fire in them. I thought those late clock situations, they ended up hitting those shots or getting a foul call, and it just kind of broke our back, our spirit a little bit. Q. Over the season you've had a couple games that you've had the third quarter slump. How are you going to manage to fix it for the next season? SUZY MERCHANT: Well, for the NCAA Tournament. That's what's the next season. Obviously we've got to get to that. I mean, some of it is just leadership and toughness, to be honest. I think we just have to collectively -- when we're clicking on all cylinders, we're certainly a talented team. I think what hurts us is the inconsistency night in and night out on the offensive end, which obviously from my team affects our ability to defend. So how do you fix it? I think you've just got to put yourselves in competitive situations, winners, losers. I think you've got to put yourself when you're down six, down ten, you've got to make a run, that kind of stuff in practice and just keep simulating where things aren't going your way and you've got to keep fighting your way back and fighting your way out of it. Q. You had a couple players struggling shooting. You had Sidney and Taryn struggling to get things going. Do you think it was more your offensive struggles or Maryland playing good defense? SUZY MERCHANT: I don't know, probably both. I think because I watched a few shots that were wide open. Sid had -- I know Sid had a few, and I know Taryn had a few. I also know there were some that were probably heavily guarded, as well. I think that was part of it, and I don't think Shay was herself, either. She got hit pretty hard and her tailbone was really sore playing today, so I don't think she was as good as she could have been today just due to that. But in terms of Taryn, I mean, Taryn for five or six games prior to this was struggling, too, so I don't think it was -- I think it was just a little bit more -- she needs to toe up to the line a little bit more. She takes too deep a shot all the time, and that can't be something we do every shot. She's got to -- I was talking to her a little bit about that, get one more step in, especially like Northwestern, I thought that helped her a little bit. She scored the ball better, instead of shooting a 26, 28, 30-footer when you don't need to, you're open at the three-point line. For her sometimes she needs to get a little more disciplined in that. With Sid, I'm not sure what goes on sometimes. I thought she had some nice turnaround jump shot looks that just didn't fall. She had a couple nice jumpers that normally she hits. Drekia didn't score the ball like she can. Nia Hollie is kind of more of a hustle guy that sometimes you're just not sure what you're going to get out of her, but I thought she had some good looks and played hard, and the ball just didn't go in. Q. You mentioned that you thought Maryland maybe had the edge this game whereas earlier in the season you guys had that. What growth from their team have you seen specifically or what were they doing particularly well today? SUZY MERCHANT: Well, I think moving the Charles kid around a little bit, she started today at the 4. That's a tough match-up. She's a tough match-up at the 3, too. But when we played them the first time, she definitely played mostly 3. Her pull-up jumper is as good as anybody. It's a really hard thing to get to, and she's powerful on the drive. I think they're pressing a little bit more, changing their defenses up, that kind of thing. So I thought they had a little bit of that going for them, and I think that helped them some. I'm trying to think of what else I saw. I think they played more downhill, I guess. When we played them the first time we did a good job of cutting off their drives from the high post, and today we didn't do a good job. I think their gift is they can really get downhill at the rails. And then you put Charles in there, who you can move around a little bit. Then you gotta worry about Mikesell who is coming off double stag after double stag and she's a quick shooter. So they have really nice pieces around them. There's no question. I thought they played a little harder, too, quite frankly, from the first time we played them to now. They definitely had a different mentality. I'm sure they were mad we beat them the first time and disappointed in how they played and wanted to prove something. But they were edgier for sure, and I think attacking the basket in the offensive rebounds were the two things that we noticed the most in this game compared to the last game. Q. You mentioned something before the NCAA Tournament, fixing is something intangible, not like you're working on a specific shot. How much does that have to come from veterans on the team and people who have been in the tournament before? SUZY MERCHANT: Yeah, I mean, definitely it has to come from them for sure. I think Jenna is our only senior, so I thought she was really good today. I thought she played hard, 19.7 rebounds. She got to the free-throw line. We just need more kids to get in her camp a little bit. Even our juniors and sophomores, who have been here, or redshirt sophomores, those kids just need to be better, quite frankly. I thought if you look at our season, probably the most consistent kid we've had on our team all year long in terms of night in and night out you know what you're going to get has been our freshman Nia Clouden who made the (Big Ten) all-freshman team. Does she make mistakes? Yes. Does she struggle at different things? For sure. But kind of night-in and night-out, she plays the same way. She hasn't had too many nights where she's kind of been "0 for." I think she's had one bad game out of 18, which is pretty impressive when you're playing the point guard position in this league. She's an exciting kid to kind of look forward to. But you're right, postseason is veterans, and we didn't really get enough of our veterans to kind of step up and answer the call today, but that's something we can learn from and get better and move forward for the next game and the next postseason, I guess, the NCAA Tournament. Q. After today's performance, do you feel that the team can play at a higher level in the NCAA Tournament? SUZY MERCHANT: Well, yeah, I think so. That's what your goal is. I know we've seen it before. To me we've demonstrated the ability to do it. There's no question about it. We've just got to kind of continue to move forward, get a little bit of a rest here, give our kids a chance to kind of mentally get rested, physically get rested and then just go back to work next week and start preparing for what may come and continue to keep making sure we're in shape, we take care of our injuries. I'm playing two kids with torn meniscus and they're out there hobbling around trying to play and all kinds of things, just like everybody else has their issues. To me this time is about refresh, regroup, get them healthy, and then roll up our sleeves and what can we do about that third quarter, what can we do about that inconsistency at times. We can really catch fire any time. I really felt we were going to perform better today. I felt good about this game. I felt our kids were really mentally focused. And I loved our fight, and we got right back where we needed to be. But then all of a sudden -- it's hard for me to predict what happens. I don't know. And it's happened to us a few times this year, three or four times, and it's always a quarter, and it's -- we got to 10 points this time. Normally we only get to six. I guess we had four more points in this quarter than we normally do, which I know sounds pathetic. But we're a better team than that, and that's where our leaders and toughness have to come out for sure. Q. How much do you feel fatigue may have factored in from last night's game and that great first half -- SUZY MERCHANT: I don't know, these are 18 to 22 year old kids. I don't ever remember being tired at game time, practice. That was never a reason for me. I don't know, maybe it is for them now. I know we're banged up a little bit and they're a different mentality sometimes, these kids. But it's game time. You have to step up. I thought we had some good minutes and some good quarters. We just didn't play four quarters, and against Maryland you've got to play four good quarters. And when we did, the last time we played them, we beat them. We did that against Oregon, we did it against Iowa. We just haven't always done it night in and night out. We've got to look at that a little more. We've tried. We've tried to predict it, called timeouts and kind of tried to regroup them a little bit. But if you keep getting the same results, we've got to figure out what it is that we can do to manage that storm a little bit better, I think, so that we can stay in the game and make sure we're in firing distance. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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