AMERICAN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 12, 2026

Angie Nelp

Hannah Riddick

Legacy Arena At The BJCC

Tulsa Golden Hurricane

Postgame Press Conference

North Texas 76, Tulsa 73

ANGIE NELP: Well, I think I'll start off and just say how incredibly proud I am of our team and I'm incredibly proud of the heart and the fight and the grit that we showed the whole entire game.

It didn't go our way for us, obviously, and the result wasn't what we wanted. But I couldn't be more proud of the way that they overcame so much in this game.

We've given ourselves a chance there at the very end. Sometimes when you get off to a rough start as a team and you see a lot of teams down the stretch, you've got one of these two directions that you choose to go, and this team continues to choose, time and time again, to stay together, to fight together, to carry each other, and I think that speaks leaps and bounds about who these young women are in our program and how they just hold together to our culture of love and trust and work, and that shines through on the floor every time we take the floor.

Q. Hannah, if you would, talk about the fight. You're down 19 in the third quarter, no quit in this team. Talk about what galvanized you for the comeback?

HANNAH RIDDICK: Yeah, for sure. We as a team, we collectively decided we were going to do everything we could to win this game. We were going to come together. We were going to defend as hard as we could. We were going to try to get rebounds. We're going to try and make points and try and go on a run.

We've had some games in the past where we got down and were able to come back successfully. Maybe today just wasn't our day or we could have started better.

But I'm still proud of me and my teammates for the fight that we showed.

Q. Coach, talk a little bit about, if you would, the difference between the first half and the second half. What was the difference?

ANGIE NELP: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think there were a couple things that allowed us to. I felt like we really let their pressure affect our flow offensively in the first quarter. I felt like it got a little bit better as the game went on for.

That then I felt like defensively we had missed some of our different positioning that we knew we wanted to be in, and I felt like we came out of halftime with a little bit more focus on those details, a little bit more focus in some of those game plan their as that we wanted to improve in.

It probably looked like a completely different team in that first half and second half, but I still felt like in the first half you saw glimpses of what our team was capable of being, and we became more consistent with that in the second half.

I really cannot say enough about our two seniors, Hannah Riddick and Shamaryah Duncan. They were transfers into our program this year and immediately when they came on campus, immediately in June, their belief in what we are doing, the way that they lived out our culture, the way that they cared about other people, it is incredibly impressive what those two young women bring to our team, and we're very, very grateful for both of them.

Q. Not the outcome you wanted, Coach, but can you put a bow on the season and what it means for your program for 25, 26 and going forward?

ANGIE NELP: Yeah, well, certainly every coach who's going to come up here, whether they get the result they want, you're always going to want more and you're always going to wish that continues can continue to be better.

For us and the program and where we are at Tulsa, it is definitely going the right trajectory. You see an upward trajectory. You see how impressive it is even with what these young did this year and the successful season that they had.

I really believe that we're going to continue to have a positive program that's going to continue to compete for championships and continue to bring in young women that are going to impact the world for change.