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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 13, 2010

Connie Yori

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

Texas A&M Â– 80
Nebraska - 70

PETER IRWIN: We're now joined by the Huskers from Nebraska, Coach Connie Yori and student-athletes Kelsey Griffin and Dominique Kelley.
CONNIE YORI: A&M are a great team. I've said that all along when they're on top of their game they're about as good as anybody in the country. Preseason poll I picked A&M to win the league. Think they have the most talent. I think they played extremely well. Gary and his staff did a great job of getting 'em ready. Offensively they had it going. We didn't take anything away from them. Obviously, rebounding was a big factor in the game.
And we didn't play our best basketball, but I thought A&M just played very, very well, and they definitely beat us in all facets of the game today.
PETER IRWIN: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Kelsey, obviously the undefeated dream, we talked about it yesterday. Can you just talk about this loss, and is there any kind of silver lining in it to maybe slap you in the face a little bit before the big tournament?
KELSEY ASSARIAN: If you would have told me we would have been 30 and 1 at this point of the year I would have said you're crazy if you asked me that at the beginning of the year. I'm still extremely excited with what we've been able to accomplish, and I know the most exciting part of our year is just going to be starting on Monday. Like coach said, A&M is a great basketball team. Definitely one of the best teams in our league, let alone the country. And it's hard to lose a game.
But to lose to a team that played really great, you know, that's going to happen. For us we know that there's things like rebounding, like coach mentioned, that we need to improve on. When we defensive rebound we can be a really good basketball team. She's been telling us that at the beginning of the year. We know we have to take that to heart. That's something we have to improve on. You have a few days to improve and get back in the gym and make a run for it.

Q. Dominique, could you just talk -- I mean, second half you guys made pushes and they would kind of, I think, a transition, try to take advantage. How deflating was that, and could you talk about that and talk about their ability to get easy buckets in the second half.
DOMINIQUE KELLEY: Again, they were rebounding, their guards were getting rebounds in, because of that they were able to attack us in transition. It's nothing complicated. Our coach tells us the same thing when our guards rebound, we can push the ball and we can be more aggressive in transition. So I thought they did a really good job of that.

Q. You talk about their match-up zone, it was pretty effective for them. And also if you talk just how frustrating the foul trouble was, did you feel like you just weren't quite yourself in this game?
KELSEY ASSARIAN: Yeah, I mean definitely, when you get in foul trouble it's really hard to get in a flow, and I need to be smarter as a senior coming in and playing with knowing my foul trouble, and I need to be a little smarter. But I'm kind of an aggressive player and it's hard to back down a little bit. But so definitely that's a little bit. I have full confidence in my teammates. I know they can play with or without me. But it was frustrating.
As far as their match-up zone went, it was very effective, but we're also a lot better shooting team than we've shown at this tournament. I know that my teammates can knock down those shots throughout. You can go down the list.
I know they can. They've spent hours in the gym in the offseason shooting, hours in the gym shooting this season. We're a much better shooting team than we showed.
We know it. We're going to have confidence. And we'll knock down those shots and it will be harder for teams to play things like match-up zones against us.

Q. This is a Kansas City question. I know you guys a round between now and the Midwest regional final, but the path would be to come back here. If you do come back here, is there a little comfort knowing that you know the neighborhood, it's a different gym but you saw it media day. Could you talk about if you do come back here in two weeks.
KELSEY ASSARIAN: Definitely, that would be great. But really we're just going to take it one game at a time. That's how we've gotten to where we are. That's how we've gotten to be as successful as we have this year. So I think to stray away from that would be crazy.
Of course, we'd want to come back here, but there's a lot of practices and games between now and that time and we don't want to overlook anybody.
PETER IRWIN: Thank you. Questions for coach.

Q. Could you follow up on that? You had a lot of fans here. Wouldn't that be important to have 4- or 5,000 people here next week too?
CONNIE YORI: Obviously we're going to find out on Monday night where we're headed. And ideally would love to be in Minneapolis and hopefully that will lead us back here. And if we can find a way to win two games. But our fans are awesome. It was great to see so many Husker fans come out, and I'm sure the Big 12 would like to have us win the game today so there would have been a lot more Husker fans tomorrow. But I thank the fans for coming out and supporting us.
But obviously staying in the Midwest is huge. And fans always make a difference for us.

Q. How was your team's mood after the game? What did you say to them?
CONNIE YORI: Well, I mean, Kelsey mentioned it. I mean, I think there were several factors in the game. First of all, we didn't rebound the ball well and that's a credit to A&M. And also, I said since the very beginning of our practices, if we can rebound and compete on the boards we can compete with anybody. I think we're good enough offensively. We didn't do a good job rebounding. I think the other thing, too, that -- I didn't tell our team this, but I think another thing that factored in the game today we've been a great preparation team. We've been a great practicing team.
When you have to play back-to-back, I think by no means A&M was in the same boat, but I think that's been one of our strengths this year is that we've been great in practice. Our players are smart. They pick things up. And we didn't have that opportunity to get out on the court and work on those things.
But mainly what I told them was that we just need to keep doing what we've done, and we can't let one loss -- we can't lose the confidence with one loss. That's a really good basketball team we lost to.
Very talented. I think they're going to make a great run if they continue to play like that, they'll make a run at the NCAA tournament. We've got to get back on the horse, find out who we play and get excited. The best part of the season is ahead of us.

Q. Is there anything in particular you could see that was an issue in terms of your 3-point shooting, because you struggled so much yesterday and then today?
CONNIE YORI: Well, 3-point shooting has a tendency to be a little contagious, and we obviously shot it so poorly yesterday, and that became -- that becomes contagious. I think free throw shooting has a tendency to be the same way. And you start questioning yourself a little bit. But like Kelsey said, we're a lot better 3-point shooting team than we showed.
And, you know, 3-point shooting has a tendency to be a little streaky and hopefully we can get back in the gym and get our confidence back.

Q. Connie, talk about Kelsey's attitude. Because through this whole season she's just kind of had this we're just out here playing and having fun sort of attitude. And we've seen players that losing a streak like this, losing in the semifinals of a conference tournament could have really brought them down and she still seems to have kind of a positive attitude, we're just going to go out and play the games and have fun with it. And talk about how important that is for the rest of your team that she's taken that attitude toward the whole thing.
CONNIE YORI: I think all of our players are of the same mold that way. I think Kelsey is the leader of them. We focus so much on being a good practicing team and so much on -- the number one goal for us from the very beginning of our season has been we're going to be a great practicing team. And we're going to prepare well.
One game is not going to change our season. And obviously now at this point now it comes down to a loss will knock you out. But one game is not going to change our season. We'll keep doing what we're doing and focus on who we are and trying to get better and preparing well for our next opponent. But Kelsey has really bought into that. But all of our players have.

Q. Coach Blair was saying, Connie, that the major basketball powers the Tennessees and UCONNs were looking at this game to see which of the teams were real. Do you think with today's loss you'll have to have a strong showing maybe in the first two rounds to remind them that this is a team that can still compete for a national title?
CONNIE YORI: Well, I don't think anybody from the get-go, when we opened the season, we were picked sixth in the league. I think people kind of forget that. And we're just going to -- we don't have a national title focus right now. Our focus is our next practice.
And it's real simple. And we can't worry about winning the national championship. Our focus is let's take care of what we're doing here and whoever we're playing in the first round, we're going to try to beat them. And then we'll take it from there, if we're able to win.
PETER IRWIN: Congratulations, coach. Thank you.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297

BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 13, 2010

Kelsey Assarian

Dominique Kelley

Connie Yori