BIG TEN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 2, 2023

Avery LaBarbera

Marisa Moseley

Julie Pospisilova

Target Center

Wisconsin Badgers

Postgame Press Conference

Purdue - 57, Wisconsin - 55

MARISA MOSELEY: How about that ride in, huh? No, just kidding. "Hangover." That's okay.

That was a crazy game. The first half, I felt really good. We got in some foul trouble, and our scoring came to a halt a bit there. Unbelievable two possessions there at the end of the game. Maty Wilke hits a huge shot. Their kid comes down, hits a huge shot. I think that's really what March is all about. Obviously we'd love to be on the other side of that.

But really proud of this team and our fight. We made a lot of history this year for our program. We made a lot of strides, and we owe a lot to our two seniors. We have a third one in the locker room, who one of the things we talk about, and anyone who's been around our program knows that we talk about one of our pillars is legacy and leaving our place better than we found it. I am eternally grateful to these two and Sara Stapleton to have absolutely left this place better than they found it.

Q. You guys have three seniors this year that's graduating. You guys have a slew of freshmen and sophomores. What do you say to those players as far as experience-wise, as far as getting their feet wet on a big stage going forward? This was an awesome game, nothing to be ashamed of. What do you tell your players going forward, as far as your young ones?

MARISA MOSELEY: What I told them is that time is undefeated. In a short three years they'll be sitting in this same seat as these seniors. They want to make sure that the younger players that come in after them will be advancing in this tournament and won't be sitting in there crying because they lost that game.

And that they have to make sure that they absolutely do everything they can to work on their game to keep getting better because, yeah, you get a taste of it, and there should be a fire burning inside, but you can't be satisfied.

Q. Julie and Avery, congratulations on the season, first of all. I guess I'm wondering if you could share a little bit, share with me the emotions of the moment as you kind of go through this process of the season wrapping up and kind of having a good showing here at the tournament.

JULIE POSPISILOVA: It's definitely bittersweet. I love playing for Wisconsin, especially coming from a different country. They were very welcoming for me.

I'm excited to move on and just like go experience my new chapter in life, but I will always think in a good way about Wisconsin, and I hope I'm going to be able to come back and just cheer for the new generation coming in and making a difference.

AVERY LaBARBERA: I'd also say bittersweet, but I'm a little more emotional than Julie. So these past couple weeks have been great. We won our last 4 out of 5, and I feel like we couldn't have scripted this season any better, at least the ending.

I'm really grateful to Coach Mo and the staff for bringing me along this last year. I'm really proud to say that Julie and I and Sara Stapleton have left this place better than we found it.

Q. Following up with Avery. When the team took that 30-12 lead, it seemed like Purdue was able to tighten up things up defensively. What changed? What maybe were they taking away that made things a little more challenging offensively during those final 2 1/2 quarters?

JULIE POSPISILOVA: I think they were able to speed us up, and we kind of led them to be physical with us, and we didn't respond right away. That basically just didn't allow to score, and we were not able to get ourselves together and just come together and play more confident.

AVERY LaBARBERA: Yeah, I also would say they made an adjustment with the ball screens. They were hard hedging a lot, so we had to make an adjustment with the short roll, and I think it just kind of took us out of our rhythm a little bit.

Like Julie said, they sped us up, and we unfortunately weren't able to execute down the stretch.

Q. I just wanted to say, before Avery and Julie left, I just wanted to thank them for their time this year and congratulate them on their senior season because who knows the next time we'll cross paths. I just want to thank you for your help this year before you went to the locker room. That was all.

AVERY LaBARBERA: Thank you.

JULIE POSPISILOVA: Thank you, Mark.

Q. Any little thing that you can talk about your year, even though it's a disappointing ending, but in terms of just how your kids played for you this year? And then if you could comment a little bit on Lindsay Whalen's resignation that happened today.

MARISA MOSELEY: As far as my team, our job as coaches, the way I see it is to continue to get our players better and try to make them or help them become the best version of themselves, both as basketball players and as women.

I think that my staff and I really worked extremely hard throughout the year to continue to take steps forward every day to do that. We see kind of how we ended the season, but there was a lot of moments of kind of flashes of greatness and exciting times that we had throughout the season, and I think it just planted seeds for where we're going.

And as I said before, you have to go through this part, and it's challenging. Obviously the buzzer beater, that's not -- those are things that just happen, but as far as kind of the ups and downs of the season, you have to go through that as you're continuing to build a program.

But I'm really proud of where we are right now in this process, and I'm excited about the future of Wisconsin women's basketball because I was entrusted to turn this thing around, and I think we've already started to take steps to do that.

As far as Lindsay, she's a great -- obviously a legend in Minnesota. Having been an assistant there, I've had a great relationship and respect for her as a player, then turned into a colleague. Just wish her the best as she continues on. Loved competing against her and honored to have the opportunity to coach against a Hall of Fame player.

Q. When we talked yesterday, you mentioned you wanted to make sure the team cut down on turnovers since the first time you played Purdue, there were quite a few. In the first half, you did. It was great for the offense. What changed by Purdue's defense in the second half that started forcing more turnovers?

MARISA MOSELEY: I don't know that anything really changed. I'll have to go back and watch the film. I don't know that anything really changed with their defense. We had foul trouble, and so then we had people playing out of position, and we're trying to run things kind of mismatched with our -- or mish mosh. I think that's the word. So I think that's really where it started to come undone a bit.

I think we just stopped being strong with it. We tried to force some things inside, or we'd pick up our dribble too soon. And credit to Purdue, they made some big plays there and really took advantage of our foul trouble and cut it to nine at the half.

I said to my staff, it's a three-possession game with Purdue. They're a great three-point shooting team, and we're up 18. Like I don't know that our players necessarily understand how critical, especially this time of the year, a lot of crazy things can happen, and then I guess I was prophetic.

Yeah, I think in the end, a lot of it, similar to the first time we played them, was self-inflicted. To me, that's something that we absolutely will need to address in the future in order for us to really take the steps forward with this program that we want to.

Q. After Purdue, they came all the way back and you were down about four points with about maybe a minute and a half or so left, and your team came back and actually took the lead. Made a handful of plays down the stretch, forced the jump ball. Sara got a tough bucket. Obviously Maty's three. What is that? I assume that's got to be encouraging, despite the final outcome, just how your team was able to kind of, at least for that moment, respond to the charge that Purdue was making against you?

MARISA MOSELEY: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's something that I require and demand of the players that are going to play for me is that we don't have any quit in us, that despite we were up 18 and then go down and the runs and all that in the game, that if you're putting on a Wisconsin jersey, you're going to compete and fight till the very end.

I think our players understood that, and they fully buy into that. They know that we want to be competitors and that we want to try to put ourselves in the best position to win, and in order to do that, you have to keep making game winning plays.