	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 7, 2007

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by UNLV head coach Regina Miller, student-athletes Kameca Simmons and Sequoia Holmes.
Coach, if you want to begin with some opening remarks on the game.
COACH MILLER: Well, New Mexico, I thought, came out firing on all cylinders. They jumped on us right away from the beginning of the game, hit a lot of shots out the gate. We were not able to finish some plays offensively. Got down early.
But I thought we were okay at that point. You know, like I say, I think they hit their first five out of six shots. All we needed to do was turn up our defense and try to make some plays offensively. But they continued to do that for 40 minutes.
It was difficult because I felt like we never really got in the fight today.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Sequoia, what do you think was the big difference in today's game as opposed to when you beat them last week?
SEQUOIA HOLMES: I think our defensive intensity wasn't as good as it was the day we played them here at home in the Cox. I also didn't think we made plays well offensively.

Q. It seems like you girls couldn't get into any offensive rhythm today. Could you talk about that? What was the biggest issue today?
KAMECA SIMMONS: Seems like we couldn't really get into a rhythm with our offense. We kind of really didn't set and use our screens to get each other open and to get shots, to get easy shots. So that kind of had a lot to do with our offense not going well.
We didn't get the shots that we needed. We didn't finish baskets. We didn't get and use -- set new screens. That's a big part of our offense. That's how we get most of our shots out of our main offense, so we didn't execute that well.

Q. Kameca, probably not the game you wanted to finish your career on. Could you reflect on your feelings about your career coming to an end today with this game.
KAMECA SIMMONS: Well, I never looked at it coming to an end from this game here. I don't know, I just wish that -- if I could change and turn back the hands of time that, you know, I could have been healthy enough to be here for my team when they needed me most in the beginning of the season so it could have just carried over right now.
I'm just, you know, overall I wish I could have been here for my team. Injuries limited me. And tonight it was just an overall -- I felt like I tried, but I didn't give enough effort.

Q. Sequoia, No. 41 was face guarding you. Did that kind of make it hard for you to get into any kind of rhythm offensively?
SEQUOIA HOLMES: Well, Brandi Kimble is a good defender. She's about my same height. She's long. It's hard to get open when you got somebody face guarding you. Like Kameca said, we needed to set new screens. I felt like it would have been easier for me to get open had we done that better.
But I feel like if you got somebody at that athleticism, it's going to bother you somewhat. So, I mean, she did a good job.

Q. Were you bothered at all or did it surprise you at all that it was kind of as if new Mexico had the home court advantage with all their fans here? Almost like an away game?
KAMECA SIMMONS: The way I looked at it, all I saw was red in the stands, so it kind of took effect that that could have been our fans. So it kind of really didn't bother us. Personally for me it didn't bother me. Kind of just looked at it like they were our fans.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. Questions for Coach Miller.

Q. Could you sum up the season now that it's over, how it went for you, the season as a whole.
COACH MILLER: Did you say evaluate the season?

Q. Sum it up, how it went for you.
COACH MILLER: About five games ago we kind of had a little mini season. Our goal was to have seven games. We were going to take one at a time. I thought we were well on our way to reaching our goal when we pulled off four wins in a row.
This was the fifth game. If we could have gotten two more it would have been a great season, considering that we've dealt with quite a bit of adversity this season. Physically, as Kameca alluded to earlier, with some of the injuries earlier. A lot of the returning players that we expected to be contributors really didn't start out with this team.
The positive for us is, if you noticed tonight on the court, at the end of the game I had all freshmen, sophomores and Sequoia Holmes. Basically that's what we played the majority of this season with.
Overall I guess I'm really proud of this team from the standpoint of being a young team, the leadership, basically has been in our freshman/sophomore class, our junior class some with Sequoia Holmes. We were at a point where we could have gave in when we lost four games in a row during the middle of conference play.
We dug our heels in the dirt and we won four games. So that showed me that this team is well on our way to developing into becoming a very competitive team with any of our teams in the league, with the returning players we have.
You know, I look at it, no one likes to lose. You learn a lot from losing. This is the most we've lost since I've been here. Sometimes you have to sacrifice to get to where you want to be. For us this season obviously has been in the win/loss record. I think that certainly can turn around in a year.
It's kind of interesting. I look at the year that even our men's team, they were left out of the post-season tournament last year. Over the summer they made sure they worked real hard to get themselves in a position that they're having a great year. So that's certainly some incentive for the Lady Rebels.

Q. Do you think the result would have been different if you had Shamela Hampton in there today? How much of a factor was that?
COACH MILLER: I'm huge at not using excuses because we always look to make adjustments. But I will have to admit not having Shamela in the middle did make a difference. It changed a lot of what we like to do and what we have done. She is a post player that's played a lot of minutes.
That's another young player on this team that went from playing very little to 35 minutes a game. So I felt like we made a pretty good adjustment fairly quickly to go over and beat Colorado State. But then to come back and -- I mean, New Mexico's got depth. They shoot the three, spread you out with the three-point shot, then they have Dionne Marsh in the middle. You have to pay attention to her.
Our goal today was to try to defend that three well, as well as we could, and not give up the -- give up the two a little bit, but not uncontested. Today we gave up a lot of uncontested everything.
Again, not having Shamela in the middle, it was probably too big of an adjustment not having her to play against players like Marsh and some of the depth they have on their team in the post. Having to move Sequoia from a guard spot into the post area, you know, we were just really undersized. We played three guards and two forwards most of the time.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach.
COACH MILLER: Thanks, guys.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297