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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2020Joe TartamellaLeilani CorreaChicago, Illinois Marquette - 78, St. John's - 55 JOE TARTAMELLA: Obviously a difficult game for us today. Hasn't been an easy match-up for us all year, which we knew, but obviously credit to Marquette and to Megan, who I've had the pleasure of watching her grow as a first-time assistant with us and now watching her now at Marquette. Pretty cool. Yeah, I don't think we really ever got in the flow. I felt pretty good at half after we made a good run to make a comeback there to cut it to five, but we looked gassed. We didn't really have the energy level I thought we needed to be able to win a game of this magnitude. So I'm really proud of our kids, proud of our team for the way that we finished the year, and obviously we've got to wait and see where we'll be. Obviously we hope that our resume will be good enough for the NCAA Tournament, but at the same time we're just continuing to grow as a team, and we'll get ready for whatever games are ahead of us. Q. You had a good showing here at the tournament. What's going to be your biggest takeaway from this? LEILANI CORREA: My biggest takeaway? Just always pushing through no matter the adversity or whatever is going on around you, just always finish strong. Obviously upsetting that we didn't get to the championship, but like Coach said, I'm very proud of us. I'm very proud of my teammates for pushing to get as far as we did. Q. What was Marquette doing defensively that made it difficult for you guys? LEILANI CORREA: Pressuring us. We really just couldn't score. Not a lot was going in for us tonight. You know, they were just getting up, relentless on the ball, off the ball. They were just all over the place. They're long, so it was very difficult to get around them. Q. A team of that size, how do you play against that when you're not as big as them? LEILANI CORREA: I mean, I really -- obviously it's about size, but it's really not about size, it's about setting screens the right way or driving or being faster or quicker than your opponent. We're a very, very quick team, so the plays that we did score were off of being faster than them. But no, just not a lot was going in. Q. It seemed like the first couple games were kind of contrasting, you had a high scoring game the first game, then the second one was a little lower scoring, but you guys fell behind a little bit early with Creighton last night, but even though they led the whole way you guys did a good job of hanging around. What makes it difficult against them when you're trying to come back and you fall behind like you do early in a game against a team like Marquette? JOE TARTAMELLA: Well, listen, at the end of the day, we do lack size. We do have speed. We were minus-5, I think, on the glass at half, and the finish, whatever that is, 16 at the game. So the difficult task with them is they can play multiple speeds. They've got experience. They've got players that have played in meaningful games. People forget that, I think, sometimes. And at any moment they can go get the ball. So to be able to play a lineup like that that they have, where they've got the length, they can always get a rebound, they can get loose balls and get deflections they're beating you to 50/50 balls, and we just didn't do a good enough job of staying connected and keeping them from getting to those things. You can make a run. You can have a couple things go your way, but they're experienced enough to make the right play at the right time, and they made big shots. Spingola has been doing it since she got there. Lott has obviously got a lot of experience, and I think even their younger kids that didn't play, even look at Anderson, she just didn't play a lot the last couple years, and I think she's had a pretty good season for them. It was something that we knew we were going to have to try to counteract, and we just weren't able to do enough here to be able to kind of keep it close to have a chance at the end, unfortunately. Q. You had two relatively close games against them during the regular season. Tonight was different. Did they do anything dramatically different than you had expected? JOE TARTAMELLA: No, I don't think they did anything different. They played with energy. They played with their length, and they went to the things that they're good at, and we allowed them to too many times in the game. I think Leilani was trying to say it, but we just didn't make shots. At the end of the day we didn't make any shots. We were 3-for-16 from three and were 8-for-whatever it is, 14 from the line, and that's not a recipe you want, for us at least. We've got to be able to make shots from the outside. I felt we had to probably make at least eight or nine today to feel good, and they just did -- we just didn't put them in. Q. What made it hard to stop Marquette during their runs throughout the game? JOE TARTAMELLA: Again, their size. 50 points in the paint. When you're allowing players to get deep or to be able to make moves that they're accustomed to and you're not taking things away that they do well, it's going to be hard. I thought we -- again, I think regardless of the game the night before and the physicality, everybody feels that way this time of year, so it's nothing that you can say that other people aren't feeling. And the difference with teams that win, they get through that. They did a good job. They pounded it inside when they had to, they made shots from the outside when they had to, so obviously credit to them. Q. Coming out of (indiscernible) the conference, your best-case scenario? JOE TARTAMELLA: Listen, our body of work I think is there. When you look at our league, to have five teams that were 11-7 I think shows the strength. I don't know if it's for me to argue in this case. That's for other people to look at, I guess, but we challenge ourselves every year in the non-conference. We've done that. We've beaten teams in our league like Creighton three times, and I think our RPI is somewhere in the 50s, and I think our strength of schedule is top 60. It depends on who you're in the pool with. I've been doing it long enough to know that. And so these kids, we put ourselves in the conversation right now, and that's what we've got to hope for, and I think that we certainly would be a fun team to watch. Q. My question is about Leilani: What do you see from her as far as maturity? JOE TARTAMELLA: Yeah, I'm not sure I've had a freshman even be in this room, so I think that says enough. To watch what she did and to get her the experience she had and to see her step up on the stage, because you're not really sure ever how kids will react when you've got this type of kind of win or go home magnitude of a game. I thought she played great. The future is bright for her, for us. She never stops playing. You can't really tell what she's thinking, which is not bad, but she was tired today, too, and I could tell that. But she played hard. Yesterday you got to see what she really can do, and today I thought she really battled. But she's a special kid, and like I said, I don't know that we've ever had a freshman in this room even being able to be getting asked questions like that after her performances, so that's pretty fun. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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