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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2013Caroline DurbinYvonne SanchezDeeva VaughnLAS VEGAS, NEVADA New Mexico – 72 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by New Mexico. Coach, just some general comments on today's game. COACH SANCHEZ: First I'd like to congratulate UNLV and Kathy Olivier. She's done a terrific job here. She really has. Her team was down a little bit, she had some injuries. Trust me, we understand that. She's a terrific coach. She does a great job with this program. I'd like to congratulate her and her program for a solid year. They did a great job. Very proud of my kids. Very proud of my staff, who are excellent. It's not easy guarding Kelli Thompson for 40 minutes and we did it by committee. They did a terrific job. They went in there and played their hearts out. I'm so proud of this group. We lived to see another day. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Down 19‑8 in the first half, what changed midway through the first half? DEEVA VAUGHN: I feel that we came out more aggressive, as the aggressors. I feel we didn't want it to be like the first couple games we played against them. We just put our foot down basically and stopped them defensively. That's when our offense came into play. Q. Second half it seemed like you guys had a little more aggressive drive to the basket. Did they do something differently defensively or did you make a shift at halftime? CAROLINE DURBIN: I think we wore them down a little bit. Like Coach said, they're down with injuries. We have a pretty deep bench. We were able to wear them down. We got rid of the jitters we had. We were able to be aggressive and play our game. Q. You did this last year as an even lower seed against UNLV. Did you think when you came back and took the lead that maybe you had the mental edge at that point, UNLV would get tight? DEEVA VAUGHN: I feel like they definitely brought it up like with their defense in the second half, were more aggressive, you know, towards us than they were in the first half. But overall I feel like it was a really good game. CAROLINE DURBIN: We wanted to make sure, you know, we came back against them last year late. They're capable of doing the same thing. We were able to hold them off, though. Q. Talk a little bit about the variations you were able to give them on who was scoring. CAROLINE DURBIN: Yeah, I mean, Antiesha showed why she's the Sixth Player of the Year. She did great off the bench. Our offense was clicking. We were able to find each other. Everybody was able to find each other. We just rolled from there. DEEVA VAUGHN: Like Caroline said, I felt like we were in flow. Everyone says that we do really good in the conference tournament. I feel like we did that a lot today. Q. End of the first half, you hit two three‑pointers to send it in the halftime. Can you talk about what those two three‑pointers probably meant momentum‑wise for this team. CAROLINE DURBIN: It was really great. I mean, it almost felt like the end of the game. But we had a second half to come play. It just got us on a roll I think for the second half. Gave people confidence to shoot, including myself. Q. What do you think was the key to stopping Kelli Thompson's game today? DEEVA VAUGHN: Definitely face guarding her, locking her down to make sure she got limited touches, was not loose and able to just do what she wanted to do. CAROLINE DURBIN: I think switching off on her, and the posts were able to guard her, which a lot of teams can't do. Our posts are really good defenders. I think for guards, all the breakdowns we do in practice, in guard work, that really helped us to guard here. Q. Antiesha comes off the bench and scores 21 for you to lead the team. She came in halfway through the season. Talk about what she brings differently to the team. CAROLINE DURBIN: Tiesha is always coming in looking to make something happen, to score, get steals, get rebounds. She's a great spark off the bench. Also gives us a good rotation at that 2 or 3 spot. We can keep rotating me, Sara, Tiesh, even Jayme. It's a really good rotation for us at that spot. DEEVA VAUGHN: Based on her having to sit out a year, that's her drive, too, as well. Sitting back having to watch us play, now she's stepping up saying, It's our turn now. Q. You are both vets on the team. She seems to have the same stature on the team as you do. Talk about that a little bit, having that kind of a teammate that's that young. CAROLINE DURBIN: Yeah, I mean, she's been around our team last year, which I think had some good leaders. She was able to learn from them. She has stepped up this year, being someone that the younger players, the freshmen, even others can look to her what to do during the game. DEEVA VAUGHN: Also this is like her first full year or half year of actually playing DI basketball. I feel like this is our breakout, being able to play and contribute to the team. Q. A lot of people have been calling this the Pit West. Can you talk about the fans, how they were able to motivate you. DEEVA VAUGHN: They're amazing. Like I have been saying, this is like a home away from home when they come and support us. I feel they do help us out tremendously just being there and just cheering us on. CAROLINE DURBIN: I think a lot of them come out that maybe don't usually come out even to the Pit during the regular season, some of the men's fans. To have them come here and be able to watch some of our games is really great. It's a great atmosphere. THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions for Coach Sanchez. Q. First half you have a 10‑minute stretch where you hold them without a field goal after a good start for them. Can you talk about what switched at 19‑8? COACH SANCHEZ: We started out a little jittery. We took Kelli Thompson out. That was our game plan. We were face guarding her. The person on her had no help responsibilities. Their posts were getting loose, they got layups. It was a good start for them. They did a nice job when she was gone. I kept telling our kids, Look, keep running, run your offense, run the fast break, run and run 'em. Our plan was to eventually wear them down. Right around that 10‑minute mark, the jitters were out. Deeva hit two high‑post jump shots right away, got in the scoring column, got right back on track. We were down two, tied for a little bit, up one, down one. Then we just didn't look back. Our defense really stepped it up I thought when we locked down the post a little bit better and they couldn't find Thompson. Q. Coming into this game, obviously you were facing a team that beat you twice in the regular season. I know you had a lot of confidence coming into this game. How does that work? COACH SANCHEZ: Selective memory (smiling). I mean, it's season three. Season three, it's a three‑game race. Even was zero and zero in season three. This is how we started out. Yeah, you learn from it. We watched a lot of film. We make sure that we made the adjustments we made that we didn't do in the second or first game. That's what it's all about. It's really not about changing everything, but it's tweaking a few things. The one thing that was obvious was we took out Thompson. She's been the silent killer against us. She's a fantastic player, one of the best in our conference. Conference leading scorer. She had 29 against us. Had the great O‑board put back at our place. We fouled her. We just wanted to make somebody else beat us. Now, that being said, Vérin is a terrific freshman. They have great players, they're going to be back for a while. We felt our adjustment was to take Thompson out and try to just D up the other players. Q. How important were the two three‑pointers at half? COACH SANCHEZ: There was a one‑ or two‑point advantage either team going into that. Caroline got a little bit of room. We were a little bit stagnant on that possession, if you remember. Caroline turned and faced, they gave her a little room, and she hit a nice three. We go down and get a great defensive stand. We call our last play, it's about eight, nine seconds or less, we run it in practice, they ran it to perfection. They did a very nice job. The key is the person throwing it in. Tiesh threw it in, found Bryce, and Caroline got loose, hit two threes. It was a well‑executed play by our players. Q. Towards the end they get that little bit of a rush on you guys, turning it around maybe. You were able to get into the media timeout. What did you tell the players at that point? COACH SANCHEZ: Just finish the game. They did a nice job on their inbound. We went under the handoff and the kid hit a three. It was 57‑60. It was a three‑point game at that point. We had to finish the game. So you get 'em all in. The momentum is swinging a little bit. But I told them, Look, all you need is a stop, go get a score, then a stop, O‑board putback, then we're going to be shooting free throws. That has been our Achilles' heel, and we shot in the 80s, and I believe it was 84% from the free‑throw line. That was the difference. Traditionally we haven't gotten to the line much, that was this year. I credit our players. 21 for 25 from the free‑throw line. I think that might have been the most free throws we shot in a game. They did a great job of drawing fouls, O‑board putbacks and finishing that. I thought that was the difference in the game. Q. You mentioned taking out Kelli Thompson. You managed to take out Vérin on top of that. How were your players able to handle both responsibilities so well? COACH SANCHEZ: Vérin is very good. She got 19 and 9 on us. She finds a way. Heck of a freshman. I think we have post players that match up a little bit with her. We were able to maybe limit her touches a little bit, keep her off the boards. When it was time for her to play, she played. Getting 19 and 9, I'm not sure we neutralized her much. She's 7‑13, 5‑6 from the line. She's just a heck of a player. Then not having the 1‑2 punch, I think that's what helped us. If you watch film, you've seen them a bunch, Thompson/Vérin, a good 1‑2 punch. Miller will take a couple threes and hit 'em. The point guard will take a couple threes and hit 'em. They're very good at that. We took the greater of two evils in Thompson. She's a heck of a player. I think she'll be playing at the next level. We took our chance at that, adjusted. Everyone else is one‑on‑one, we got to score more points. Q. Antiesha Brown comes in mid‑season. She meshed really well with the team immediately. Obviously tonight she was a big factor. How much of that is her and how much is it just having the year under her belt playing with the girls off the court? COACH SANCHEZ: Right, having the year really helped. When she transferred, she transferred mid‑season. But she was with our kids all the time. She practiced with our kids all the time. December couldn't have come soon enough for her. She's a terrific, high energy kid. She's a New Mexico kid. It's great to have her on our side, it really is. Having two more years now, finishing this season off, she's terrific. She brings a lot of spirit. She brings a lot of enthusiasm. Her defense was terrific. Everybody will see the 21 points. But for the most part with her in there, her responsibility was to guard Thompson. To be your leading scorer and guard the opponent's leading scorer is not easy to do. She did a terrific job with us, as well as the rest of the committee that switched off on her. Q. Talk about the opportunity to bring her to New Mexico. COACH SANCHEZ: It was a great opportunity because we recruited her early on. She chose Tech. We got an opportunity to get her the second time around. She's a terrific kid. She's a very good student. She brings all the intangibles. The opportunity she saw in New Mexico was as good for her as it was for us. We had a need for her. She had a need to want to get on the court. It's just worked out well for us. Q. The Pit West question for you and the fans. COACH SANCHEZ: I mean, this is my 13th year coming to the Mountain West tournament. You get goosebumps every single time. I never get tired of it. I never take it for granted. You never just say, Oh, ho‑hum, we have 5,000 fans. It's just unbelievable. I get goosebumps with our fans. They are the most loyal fans I believe, I mean, anywhere. You can't describe it. Being from New Mexico, watching the Lobos play my entire life it seems like, especially on the men's side, there's nothing like it. There's just absolutely nothing like it. Steve and I are very good friends. We're each other's biggest fans. I mean, I love New Mexico. I love being part of this program. I mean, you couldn't drag me away if you tried. You couldn't. It's a pride more than anything else. I'm so fortunate. I thank God every day that I'm a part of this program. Q. You talked about the free throws earlier. You said you struggled at the line all season. What was it like to get a performance like that? COACH SANCHEZ: It was terrific. That shows the grit of our kids. We shoot free throws every day. We don't harp on, Don't miss, don't miss. It's muscle memory. It's repetition. It's saying good things to yourself. It's being positive. You got to continue to do that. You miss the first one, get off the line, say good things to yourself. Basketball is such a quick game, you can't dwell on what happened two seconds ago. They did a nice job of that. They were very, very focused today. That has to continue for tomorrow's performance because obviously SanDiego State is not too bad. But it's a good performance and it's a good focus for our kids. Q. Can you talk about the matchup against SanDiego State. What do you have to do to have a chance? COACH SANCHEZ: You know, we have to limit our turnovers. We can't let our turnovers or even our shots create fast break opportunities for them. Hopkins doesn't have to score, and she's about as good of a point guard as you'll see. She started at Duke. Didn't work out there. Came to SanDiego State. She's incredible. Clements is a great 1‑2 punch for them. Erimma is playing very, very well. So are their other bigs. But, again, we got to get in there and be physical and be tough, take it at 'em, limit our mistakes and not play on our heels. There's no tomorrow. Our kids are excited to be part of this. Our kids are focused for the next task at hand. It's not easy, but nothing good comes easy. We're going to get there tomorrow and give it our best shot. Q. You said a couple weeks back it would have been nice to be at the Pit. How satisfying was this victory? COACH SANCHEZ: Every victory is satisfying. Victories in this conference or in this profession don't come easy. They just don't. We have great coaches. Kathy is one of them in this league. Just to get a victory against a conference opponent, everyone is satisfied. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach. COACH SANCHEZ: Thank you, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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