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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS & FINALS: OKLAHOMA CITYMarch 29, 2009Epiphanny PrinceC. Vivian StringerKia VaughnOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA Purdue – 67 THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by Rutgers Coach Stringer, we have Brittany Ray, Kia Vaughn and Epiphanny Prince. Coach, your thoughts? COACH STRINGER: I thought that Purdue came on sharp, hot, they understand that they were looking to attack, I thought they rebounded extremely well. It took us quite a bit of time to adjust. And Freeman knocked down two or three shots before we got it together, and that's disappointing because we would expect Hylton, Howell, Rayburn to do that, but it was clearly Freeman. And of course we know that in big-time games, big-time people step up on the big stage, simple as that. Unfortunately, we had to have -- the rebounding had to be key for us, and it just didn't happen, it just didn't happen. We needed to have -- and unfortunately we don't have big people other than Kia, so we needed to have rebounding coming from the guards, we were not effective in our 55. Why, because the little guard was quick, and the 4 was able to handle the ball well enough so it didn't allow us to get into that trap situation, we were wasting time. When we can't score off the defense, we've got to score other ways. One of those ways is getting to the line, to see if we can get it done that way. I don't think we could have done anything differently in terms of man-to-man defense, but credit to Purdue, they did a great job and credit to our team, given where we started and how we proceeded throughout the vast majority of the season. You know, we're pleased that we were able to get here, but unhappy because we know that we could have done some different things. Q. Kia, as you guys closed the gap, did you start believing "yeah, we're going to actually do this?" KIA VAUGHN: Throughout the game there was no doubt in my mind that it wasn't incapable of us to get the game done. Little by little, at the end when they went to the free-throw line, it dawned on me that it wasn't in my hands anymore. We just tried to stick it out. Q. Kia, looking at where you're sitting right now, can you take any consolation in that? KIA VAUGHN: I'm proud of my teammates and how far we've come. We've fought so long to get to where we are now. We started off really, really sluggish in the beginning of the season and not knowing roles or what we were capable of doing. We had the skills and the talent to do anything we wanted, but it seemed like it was locked in a chest and no one knew where the key was. Coach kept telling us we were hot and cold and we had to keep working hard to find it, and we finally did at the end of the season, it's just that today it didn't work in our favor. Q. Kia, Epiphanny, that last pass when you pulled down that rebound and you threw the outlet to Epiphanny, what were you thinking there, or was there a miscommunication of some kind? KIA VAUGHN: I just overthrew the pass. I seen her going in for the fast break. And I just overthrew the pass, that's all it was. EPIPHANNY PRINCE: I didn't know how hard she was going to throw it, so... Q. Coach, when you look at where this team came from and how it got here, how do you feel about it going forward for next season, the freshmen that didn't play as much as you probably expected, but over all? COACH STRINGER: Tell you the truth, I don't know, because we are losing a huge -- we're losing the battery that is Kia and Heather, they are connected. Heather and Kia read each other extremely well. Obviously I haven't been too impressed with our freshmen in terms of them handling this kind of a situation. I heard someone make a statement that Tennessee had all of these freshmen, and we had all these freshmen, and we were able to get something done. But I think you would be fooled into thinking that because our freshmen did not play a significant role in any of the game, any significant amount of time. We've seen bits and pieces, but as an example, the Tennessee freshmen played far more games and logged more minutes. However, the biggest issue with our freshmen is for them to buy into and understand that there is a way to win the game. This game started off today with, you know, you think that we know how to play the team game. But for whatever reason, we began to take a shot with one or two passes, we began to take a quick out, and what we know is that anytime we've shot over 14 three's, we've lost the game. We start shooting quickly with one or two passes, that ball was rebounding long and they were going back to the other end of the floor. I thought that Dee gathered herself a little later, she is a freshman and she needed to calm down and know how to attack, because while they were much bigger, they couldn't be bigger and quicker, so when she began to attack, we got to the free-throw line. That's what we needed from Epiphanny Prince, she goes to the free-throw one time, there is something wrong with that picture, which means she is shooting over 6-1, 6-2, 6-3s, which is unusual, because we knew we needed to balance this out without going to the free-throw line. It wasn't for us as a group -- we seemed slow, maybe somewhat intimidated, shocked -- I won't say intimidated, I think we were shocked with the size when we really -- a lot of times sizes aren't inflated because they were the size that they were and they were skilled. So I thought they were a little cautious and we started doing things that told me that we weren't playing together as a team. When we did begin to play together as a team, as someone asked, did we believe, and I do believe that we did believe. Because we reverted to survival, self-survival, which is -- has been our nemesis and that's what killed us at the beginning of the year. So our time outs had to do more with, wait a minute, this is the exact same thing that we've done in more than half the games, so why are we going crazy now? We don't have the direction, we're rushing things, can we slow it down and become the team that believes and demonstrates trust and faith? But in a game of this magnitude, it only takes about a good five minutes and that's basically what it was, we lost a good five minutes. And then while we attempted to go back, playing team basketball and doing what we needed to do to come back, my conversation with April Sykes, for example, was do you understand what I meant by taking the drive instead of the outside shot? In games like this you're always going to get a 3-point shot, we don't need a savior, we didn't need to go one or two passes and shoot. And so they settled down and they were like, "okay, we're going to do the right thing" and then it was better. There was major miscommunication when there was a girl standing there at the basket, we knew that we were taking switches. For whatever reason, Piphanny and Dee, Dee did the right thing, she was taking the switch, Piphanny knew she had four fouls and did not want to take the switch, she would rather play the perimeter player and not be put in the post position, I understand that, but they didn't trust. Because at that moment Dee said "switch" and Piphanny said "no, I've got to stay," and in between that the girl was left free under the basket. When you think about a game that could have been easily decided with one or two points, that's what it is. She's got to come in sharp off the bench, Dee, but you have to be 30 seconds sharp. We had watched that player at the high-post position do that step through and backdoor hit a thousand times. Why would we get anxious? The only reason I took Kia out is because I didn't want her to kick up a foul with 23 seconds left. We couldn't give up the points and it's all the little things that make a big difference. Each player knows their strengths and whatever the patterns are, if you drive better to the right rather than to the left, everything we were calling were isolations. We needed to come even, or once we did go ahead and once we did, we thought we would have control of Purdue. I thought we did everything down for those few seconds, yes, the turnover was crucial, those things will happen, but we just got a little anxious and Purdue was a better team today. Q. Coach, your team seemed to do better when they were able to run the ball, drive and penetrate. Very often they seemed tentative, willing to stay out, settle for a half-court game, pass the ball around and take those outside shots. Was that part of the game plan or -- COACH STRINGER: No, no, no, no, that's right. That's why you don't see any tears in my eyes, I'm upset, more than hurt, I'm disappointed because we knew what we had to do and we went out there and got foolish. Trust me when I tell you that, why would we stand out there and try to execute when we're dealing with people that are giants, basically. Our advantage was to get the ball off, pass the ball, like we did before, make the pass, all of the sudden we got real -- all of the sudden we were going to stand out there and try to execute and see what's going on and if there was -- several times we took 4-point shots! You know? But I'm not too surprised, I'm upset, because didn't we know? Didn't we lose like that doing the same thing? So there is a lot of things about us that, as I share with the team, it is at the end as it was at the beginning, the first day, the exact same things. It's behaviors, and I'm thinking, why are we here. So, no, ma'am, absolutely not. You should have asked the question to them, what were you supposed to do? And they would tell you, it was supposed to be drives. When we started doing that, we would stop the clock -- they couldn't stop us on the drives but we couldn't figure that out until late, and we wouldn't handle it on the 55, which is surprising. And I think if we had a little more energy, a little sharper, we probably would have been able to handle a 55 but it forsaked us today. But we didn't then become smart with the other things that we needed to do. It's very obvious if you look at the stats, Prince, for example, is an 87% free-throw shooter, and there is nobody that can stop her. If she comes near a screen, they're not shopping her, they're going to foul her, so how do we think? We just didn't play very smart. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much. End of FastScripts |
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