MOUNTAIN WEST WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 7, 2026

Wesley Brooks

Jamisyn Heaton

Elise Livingston

Thomas & Mack Center

Utah State Aggies

Postgame Press Conference

Grand Canyon 75, Utah State 58

THE MODERATOR: For Utah state we have student-athletes Elise Livingston, Jamisyn Heaton, Coach Wesley Brooks. Your thoughts on tonight's game, Coach?

WESLEY BROOKS: It's been a rough year overall. Injuries really derailed us. I really thought this team would be a high ceiling. Obviously that ceiling didn't go the way we wanted, but injuries really played a major part in our season.

Tonight it showed up again. I thought we got off to a good start, but then foul trouble came. Once we got into foul trouble, we had to move some pieces around, distorted the continuity of what we were trying to do. Just couldn't answer and just had droughts and runs.

Then obviously when Rachel got into foul trouble, we got really small. Jamisyn and Macie fight their tails off, but 6'3" and 6'2" against our 5'11" and 5'10", the size is going to win out all the time.

But proud of our girls. Proud of our fight. I thought we came out, executed the game plan, but at the end of the day, we ran out of gas.

Credit to Grand Canyon. Very talented team. Coach Winston does a good job. They're going to make a run, and we needed to answer and we just didn't have enough in the gas tank to answer. That's kind of been the story of our season.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for our student-athletes.

Q. Jamisyn, you actually surpassed 1,000 career points tonight. I'm just wondering, despite the loss, how does it feel to reach that accomplishment?

JAMISYN HEATON: I feel like every student-athlete ever wants to complete that goal, so I told Coach at the beginning of the year in my meeting that that's a goal that I wanted to hit. So it's a cool feeling. It's so surreal, and I wouldn't have done it without anyone around me and the confidence in my coach.

I'll be proud of myself, but I hope I can make my team proud and my family proud, so it's just a surreal experience.

Q. This is for both of you two. What's it like from the player's perspective? You came out with a really hot start. You were really ready. Coach Brooks talked about some of the adversity. What's it like from you guys' perspective having so many players, so many of your teammates not here to come out with that start?

ELISE LIVINGSTON: Yeah, I feel like it's hard, especially when they kind of punched us the face. And we started so good. We just need to do stay more composed and stop the run better.

But I was proud of how we responded in the second half, and I thought we fought hard the whole game.

JAMISYN HEATON: I could agree with that. I feel like even throughout the whole year, especially with injuries and everything, having to battle through all of that and figure out different lineups and different situations with different people, it's been hard. You don't really experience that with any other programs. It's just not normal.

So having to go through that and having to kind of do something that's not -- or that's out of the ordinary is something that I feel like we handled great, and we still persevered and we battled today, and we had those moments that we couldn't pull through, but I was still proud of my team and everyone who had competed today.

Q. This question is for you, Elise. Tonight you had an excellent game. You played all 40 minutes, which is quite the accomplishment. You had nearly double your season average in points tonight, and you started the game 4 for 4 from three. I'm just wondering how you were feeling throughout the game tonight with a hot start like that?

ELISE LIVINGSTON: Yeah, I just try to keep, like a steady attitude at all times, and just when my opportunity comes, be ready for my shot. Coach Wes does a good job at getting me looks early so I can get going and get my rhythm, and also the whole team has to execute the plays and get me those looks.

So I thought we did really well at that.

Q. This is for both of you. Both of you were on the team last year here in the same tournament. Similar result, losing in the first round. How does this season, this result -- didn't meet some of the goals, but how does this compare or contrast to last year's end result?

JAMISYN HEATON: Comparing it to last year, it's definitely a different season. I feel like we had girls who wanted to persevere through all the injuries and all of the adversity with he had gone through, so the fight every single day and just the dedication we had in the gym. Every single girl would come to the gym every single day and shoot at least 100 shots every single day.

And so we never gave up or kind of backed down. Having that it just drove everybody. Even though we had lost every game, we still battled and still held those moments.

It might not show it in the wins and losses, but we still battled. I'm proud of our team, and I feel like that didn't really affect us that much. Like I said, like the wins and losses kind of shows, but we still battled and worked hard.

So I think the future of Aggie basketball has a bright future with all the girls coming in and all the dedication. We just got to stay healthy.

ELISE LIVINGSTON: I agree with that.

Q. Elise, with that future that Jamisyn was talking about, Jamo is leaving, she's graduating; what does that future look like for you? You've talked about it a little bit, but what's your vision and what's your plan now?

ELISE LIVINGSTON: Yeah, I would just say everyone coming back and hopefully everyone that comes in is ready to grind and just push through this, and hopefully next year we can get everyone together and work together and just find some more wins.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. Questions for Coach.

Q. Similar question to what I asked the players. You talked a lot about some of the goals that you guys didn't get this season. What can you look at this season versus last season and the progress that you've made in your second year as coach?

WESLEY BROOKS: I think every season is different, but I think we had moments and we had flashes. You had a moment tonight. You had a moment -- we've showed a moment in every game. Just didn't have the energy to sustain it. You've got to have bullets and we ran out of bullets, and that's the bottom line.

You got to be able to have personnel, and we didn't have enough personnel. But I will say this, and I've been very candid, we have a commitment now to personnel and there wasn't a commitment to personnel before.

So with the commitment to personnel that we have, it will look drastically different.

Also, I would be remiss to not congratulate Jerrod Calhoun and the Aggie men on being Mountain West Champions. They are inspiration to us, and we aspire to be him. We want to be a basketball school. So we need to catch up to the men. With the commitment that Cam gave us, we are going to catch up to the men. That's the bottom line.

Q. You talked about the team has faced a lot of adversity this season. How from a coaching standpoint are you able to help the team enter the Mountain West Tournament despite how the regular season turned out and enter the tournament and take this as a fresh start going forward?

WESLEY BROOKS: That's what it's all about. It's about competing for pride. It's about playing for pride. We we represent Utah State University. We represent the Aggies. Aggies work hard. Aggies have pride in their community. Aggies take care of one another.

So for us to come out and not play hard, it's disrespect to the university, to Utah State University. We're always going to play hard. We're always going to compete. We play for the name on the front of the jersey. We play for our families, the name on the back of the jersey. We play for our community. It's the right thing to do.

Our number one core value is always the right time to do what is right. So you play as hard as you can because you got a scholarship to play Division I basketball, and so that's what it's all about.

Q. My last question for you is, now the season is over. We're looking forward to next year. How do you rebuild after a season like this?

WESLEY BROOKS: Yeah, I mean -- well, first of all, we got a commitment from Cam. I'm excited to get going recruiting. That's a big deal.

Before Utah State has never really committed to women's basketball in the way that our AD Cam is committing. I think that's a bright future for us. When I first took over two years ago, I knew what I was getting into. It's not easy to rebuild, but we've laid foundation over the last two years with culture.

I think the reason why we're playing like this and we played like this, because our culture is the way it is. We have a good culture. We just don't have wins to show for it. Now we have to go get wins to show for it. It's a bottom line business. We need to win games, but you have to have the personnel to do it, and you have to have a commitment.

Honestly I think the structure and the foundation of what we're doing is excellent, but now we have a commitment from our administration, because at the end of the day, administrations win championships. Wherever they put the resources, that's how you win the championships, and now we finally got that.

So I'm happy with what we laid culture-wise, but now with our commitment from Cam, who has been tremendous -- I think we have the best AD in the country. So we got to go with that commitment and go push and get the Aggie women where the Aggie men are.