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BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 5, 2020

Amy Williams

Indianapolis, Indiana

Michigan - 81, Nebraska - 75

Q. Talk about the way your bench responded to foul trouble by Kate Cain immediately at the start of the game.
AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah, I thought Izzy Bourne really came in and gave us a major spark in the first half there when we had to play without Kate, and kind of our team rallied behind that surge and kind of additional production from that freshman off the bench. We had some really good contributions, I thought, off the bench.

Q. Talk about how important it was also in the first half after Kate got in foul trouble, just a few minutes later and Naz Hillmon got in foul trouble for Michigan and how your team took advantage.
AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think it really just kind of counterbalanced having both of those two good bigs in foul trouble at the same time. It just allowed that to kind of really contradict each other and kind of counterbalance the foul trouble for Kate Cain, which then forced, I guess, other people to really get involved offensively. I thought both teams found ways to find other people to step up.

I thought Michigan, Amy Dilk really stepped up for them and carried some of the scoring load, and on our side Leigha Brown and Izzy Bourne really stepped up to help.

Q. You go to the second half with a lead in the second half. Michigan comes out on the attack. They're at full strength, and they start cutting the lead right away and you struggle to score. All the points that you had for your team in the third quarter were by your posts and you didn't get guard scoring. Was there anything Michigan did well to prevent your guards from contributing?
AMY WILLIAMS: I just thought they played more physical. They got a lot more physical in the second half and really got up and really trapped and were aggressive and guarded our ball-screen action very aggressively, and just the more physical they got, the less production we got.

Q. In the fourth quarter after Michigan takes the lead, they come out and really you didn't get a stop really in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter, but your offense got rolling again. How important was it for Michigan to not turn the ball over in the first 15 minutes of that second half?
AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah, I mean, I thought that they did a good job of really kind of taking care of the ball. We were trying to do some things to kind of scramble around. We tried some zone defense. We tried some trapping. We tried to mix things up a little bit just to try to force something kind of defensively. I thought they did a great job of kind of handling things, being in control, and unfortunately we were just trading baskets there in the fourth quarter and dug ourselves a hole there in the third quarter, and then just traded baskets with them there in the fourth.

Q. Michigan got a double-digit lead midway through the fourth but your team didn't go away; got it back to a five-point game late in the fourth. Did you still feel like you had the ability to finish off those final two minutes once you got it to that point?
AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah, I mean, I think that our team was confident that we could make some comebacks because we've done that at some times this year. So I think they were going to scratch and claw until the very end, but down the stretch we knew it was going to be a foul game, and we were going to have to hope for them to miss some free throws and to be able to come and get some quick attacks, and down the stretch they made what they needed to.

Q. Leigha Brown gave you a big lift in the fourth quarter when you were cutting the lead, and she was also strong first half. How big was Leigha in this game for you keeping you in the ballpark?
AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah, Leigha was good, and she's been good really all year, just she's competitive and she finds different ways. I thought they did a nice job kind of early just being physical with her. Akienreh Johnson kind of got up in her and was very physical and caused some problems maybe early, but once Leigha settled in, she found ways to contribute for our team, and she's done that quite a bit this year and had some success from behind the arc, and then that becomes more difficult to guard her off the dribble. And so she did some nice things out there today.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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