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BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 10, 2013Harry PerrettaRachel RobertsHARTFORD, CONNECTICUT Syracuse: 61 THE MODERATOR: Joining us now from Villanova we have Coach Harry Perretta and senior guard Rachel Roberts, Coach? COACH PERRETTA: I thought we played well in the second half, like later in the game, we kept playing which I was happy about and we were down 12 or 13 at one point and, you know, we stayed in it, we kept playing. We made a little adjustment in our offense, probably about 8 minutes to go, maybe, we made adjustment and we started to get better shots. We made a couple of threes and were able to get ourselves back in the game. I thought it was a good game, I think we played‑‑ not as well as we could have under the circumstances but I thought Syracuse is a very, very good team so I was happy we were able to get back in the game. Q. Rachel, unless you guys get seated for the regional tournament this is possibly the last time you play competitively in Connecticut. Can you talk about everything you do at Mercy and coming back here tonight. Can you talk about how it feels to go out like that despite the result? RACHEL ROBERTS: Obviously it's bitter sweet. It's been fun, Connecticut is a great state, born and raised. I love that my whole family got to come and see this game. My high school coach was here, my AAU coach was here. It was good to get a last competitive game out of our team. It would have ended differently if Sweeney had been playing and we hadn't had that run in the second half where we kind of‑‑ not gave up but let them get some easy baskets and not getting our shots, but it's been fun and I'm blessed to be here. Q. Coach, Kayla Alexander had a big night for Syracuse. She had a big night against you a week ago, why is it such a match‑up problem? COACH PERRETTA: Because she is very good and big and strong inside. That's what we're not. We're not a big, physical team but what we do is make a conscious decision not to let her score but you have to stop‑‑ you can't try to stop her and not stop her and let the other kids score, too, so what we tried to do in the first two games we played was to double down a little bit and she was going to get enough shots and the other kids we were able to hold down and that's why we were able to win the first two games. Today, I think the major reason we didn't win today is we didn't score enough points today. In the other games we were able to get into the 60s, today we were not, and we were able to make the 3‑point shots in the other games which we were not able to do today. But to answer your question point blank, she is very talented. What I learned is when you try to stop her by doubling, she is going to get points and you're going to allow somebody else to score so try to play her honest as you can and try to stop others from scoring. That's what we tried to do. Q. Coach, going into the next season with the conference shake‑up, can you touch a little bit‑‑ you've been in the Big East your entire career. Can you talk about what it's been like to be in this conference and what you expect competitivewise and going into the future? COACH PERRETTA: Being in the conference was wonderful, it helps everybody even though Connecticut was the dominant team now Notre Dame is up there with them. Even though those teams were dominant it helped the other teams because we were able to get recruits who wanted to come and play against those teams so it helped us that way. Now, the new league will help us in a couple of different ways. The schools are evenly‑‑ I don't want to say evenly matched but if you look at the schools they're similar academically, everything about them is similar, enrollment, facilities, things like that. In that league you may get players because now you're going to be in a much more competitive environment in terms of being able to compete for a championship, so it's different in both. Both help you but it's the way that college basketball has developed so there is nothing I can do about it but try to deal with it. Q. Is there the hope that possibly down the road you can still play teams like Connecticut and Notre Dame? COACH PERRETTA: Sure, yeah. We're going to try to schedule a tough, nonconference schedule as best as we can. But probably it will be at least another year away or two years away because the shake‑up happened so fast. We have a contract for teams for two years so once those run out we can start playing old rivals. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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