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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 10, 2013Doug BrunoAnna MartinHARTFORD, CONNECTICUT UConn: 94. THE MODERATOR: Joining us from DePaul is Coach Doug Bruno and senior guard Anna Martin. Coach? COACH BRUNO: Thanks for staying, just met the rest of the media on the way out so thanks for sticking around. I thought our players did a much more competitive job tonight than we did a couple of weeks ago at Storrs, and it's hard to say that when the score is what the score is, and it's difficult for our players when their coach plays a fast‑style game, which we do, and I've done this long enough where I've tried to slow things down when you have a team that plays one way and then you think you can slow 'em down for a single game and it doesn't work. This is a hard team to play fast with and that's one of the places where I put our players in a tough position because we play, like they play, except they play it better than we play it, and when you try to‑‑ not trying to go up and down with them but at the same time it's difficult to put reigns and harnesses on our players where‑‑ that's one place where I think I personally victimized our own players yet in the long run it's going to pay dividends. I thought they were better today than they were in Storrs a couple of weeks ago, February10th. The other silver lining is that you try to find in games like this are the second half we did have a lead and we were trying to win the second half and we got this thing to where we were up by a point and then we took a couple of tough shots and lost the second half by 6 or 7 points. We're not‑‑ we didn't come here to win a half but once the game gets out of hand you have to play the games within the game to try to get something accomplished within the game. The player sitting next to me and Katherine Harry, two seniors are two great young people in our program, and I want to publically thank them for everything they have done and I think will continue to do in the NCAA Tournament. I trust we have earned our way in. Somehow something got written that maybe we had to beat UConn in order to get in, but I didn't mean that yesterday. I made the point that you never belive you are in until you see your name, but I really do belive this team has earned their way into the NCAA Tournament with a 24, 25 RPI this morning, strength of schedule is 12, 13 this morning, and that's going to be now 8 or 9 before it's over with. But Anna and Katherine are two seniors that I wanted to thank for their efforts and what they have given to DePaul University. I thought Brit Hrynko in the second half, I had to tell her, "You're being taken out by a good defense. You have to be a facilitator here. You can't take shots you can't make," and I think she settled down in the second half and began taking some shots‑‑ or becoming more of a distributor, and I think that was really a growth process. That's only going to help us down the line. I think it's important when you have a good defense such as this and they're taking you out you can't play in this game 1‑on‑5, and I think we got that a little bit‑‑ another game within the game that we were working on. Again, I want to thank the seniors; they've been great. Q. Coach, final game in the Big East Conference Tournament before you move on to the Catholic Seven. Can you talk about your experience in terms of the past and what you expect for the level of play and the competition in the future? COACH BRUNO: I think it was said by somebody, maybe it was Geno, that the league got stronger when the league restructured with all of us entering in 2005 and '6 so‑‑ and we helped the Big East get stronger, and it's been a great conference for DePaul Women's Basketball, and I think we have held our own and finished as high as second place once and been in a good, strong competitive mix throughout, so I think it's been a mutually beneficial eight years. I really do want to thank all the people that went before us that set up the Big East, which is Dave and Mike and John, for all that they have done, and I think Geno deserves credit for some‑‑ he set a standard, a gold standard here that helped bring in order in order and all the rest of us up, and I think he deserves some credit for that, and I think Muffet also deserves credit and those of us who joined in league eight years ago, Louisville and ourselves and Marquette, we have done some good things for this league. It has been a great eight years, it's going to be‑‑ it gets a little bit nostalgic now that it's over, the competition is over, so it starts to really sink in that this is the last tournament, but we will move on in the Catholic Seven, it's not going to be called the Catholic Seven, but the new league is going to be a great league in its own right. I think the challenge in the new league is for someone ‑‑ and I expect it to be DePaul University to step up and make ourselves‑‑ take what we have learned from this league and make ourselves a UConn. That's what our goal is, to take ourselves to the next level. We've been a nice little 15 to 25 to 30‑place team in the country, and I think somebody has to step up and do what they do and I think that's the challenge in the new league with the new teams. Q. Anna, can you discuss the challenge today? They had 46 points in the point and 12 three‑pointers. You can't defend everything. ANNA MARTIN: They're UConn. That's the reason they are one of the best. They're just hard to guard, every position is so talented and they move the ball well, and they're great in transition, too. I thought we competed today, but obviously was not happy about the score. Q. You coached with Geno over the summer on the Olympic Team and Geno was saying with a balanced offense, how tough is this team when they sub and they don't lose a lot, and when others substitute they might lose a level of play. COACH BRUNO: I think this team is one of the great three in the country, they have one of the best chances to win a national championship, and what makes them great is their talent and it's difficult to have to play against this level of player and they are deep. They're starting to get Stewart playing and that's huge, Moriah Jefferson plays today and Kelly Faris is nursing an injury and it's nice to have the luxury to be able to not‑‑ just to be able to go as deep as they go so I think it's going to be a great national championship and it's going to be difficult for anybody to do but I think it can be done, it's a special UConn group, it really is. I didn't watch the UConn, Notre Dame game until last night, I didn't have a chance to look at it until last night. It was a great drama game but it wasn't necessarily a great played game for the talent on the floor but these are two special basketball teams along with Baylor. Q. Coach, it was a 3‑point game and then UConn reeled off a number of points in a number of seconds. How difficult is it to play under the type of pressure knowing that one or two bad possessions could let them run away with the game quickly? COACH BRUNO: Like I said, you're not a coach that's going to run the ball around the gym with a shot clock, Nova uses a shot clock in practice they're going to be playing defense with their offense and that's not how we play and it's not how we can play. Then you have to control the second shots, which we didn't. They just went right over us to get the second shots, so it's one thing when you're making stops and it's another thing when you're making stops and they jump over you and go get the board. I know we can block out, I would like to have seen us‑‑ but that's what coaches beef about, block out, block out, block out, it's just a function of people moving and you have to be able to find people to block out and they're bigger and stronger and they get the second shot factor. And we're not good at guarding them off the bounce, and now they start shooting the ball very, very well and they throw two in off the backboard in the first half, six 3‑point shots and neither one of them was intended to be off the backboard, and one of them was right in front of us off the glass and tucked in from straight ahead and this basketball is a combination of offense and defense. Offense feeds defense and defense feeds offense. When you're good offensively you're good defensively and when you're good defensively, you're good offensively and I got them in a place where we're not getting shots easy, and I have to take the blame for that. I think we got in the place of getting good shots‑‑ never easy against UConn and the reason you don't get good shots against UConn is because they're a good defensive basketball team and when they are good defensively they're a special team, back to Doug's question, when they're focused and guarding you, they are really, really good defensively. So it's not that easy to get good looks and you start taking shots that don't have a chance to go in, that's what qualifies as a bad shot and that's the same as a turnover so you start feeding into it and it becomes give it up at one end and give it back on the other end, you've giving it up at two ends and that takes the score in an opposite direction fast. Q. Anna, I wanted to ask you about the concept of conferences as an elite player. Four years ago when you were trying to decide where you wanted to go to college, how important was it that DePaul was in the Big East? Is conference affiliation important to you, or is the institution more important than the affiliation? ANNA MARTIN: I came to DePaul for many reasons and the Big East of one of them, but I can't say. I love DePaul for the coaches, the team, the administration, and I love the team so I can't really say. Q. (No microphone.) ANNA MARTIN: I guess you can't predict that. I guess we'll see what happens next year, but I'm a senior, so I'm lucky I don't have to make that decision. COACH BRUNO: John, we had a Sweet 16 team coming in in 2006 and that was with the conference USA League, and we're not going away. With the Big East as it was, or with the Big East as it's going to be we're not going away. We will find people that can play competitive basketball and I can guarantee you that. Q. Anna, you have missed a lot of time this year, can you assess the chemistry. You guys are 4‑6 in the last 10 games and what do you need to improve on in terms of chemistry going into the NCAA Tournament? ANNA MARTIN: I think we have not reached our potential yet, and that's exciting going into the NCAA Tournament because you want to be your best, going into the NCAA Tournament. But I think with me coming back, like Coach said, one person coming in changes everything so I think we have to play together and stay close as a group and I think our best is yet to come. COACH BRUNO: Usually it's hard during this time of year to have two weeks off before you play again and with this group I'm looking forward to it for them to get their rest, we're going to finish finals before the first game of the NCAA Tournament so we will get finals out of the way and get some rest and have a chance to retool and try to fix some of the things that have been very difficult to fix through the year because we have not had the team whole all year. It's been a constant lose one, get one back, lose one, get one back, and you have to overcome injuries but this has been more difficult than last year, for instance, because last year Jan 15th, we knew the seven kids that were going to play the rest of the year and they did and this year it's this one is in, this one is out, these two are in, these two are out and that's what Anna is referencing, and I think we have a chance to play our best basketball. I don't think we have come close to playing our best basketball. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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