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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2014Miquelle AskewGordy PresnellDeanna WeaverLAS VEGAS, NEVADA Wyoming – 61 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Boise State. Coach, if you could give some general comments about tonight's game. COACH PRESNELL: I thought Wyoming played a great game. They were very aggressive. They penetrated the ball on us pretty much at will. I thought that we competed. I thought we got ourselves back into it, showed the heart of our team. We had a struggle with energy that first half. That was a telltale toll. The two things that stand out mostly, 24 field goals to their 20. Offensive rebounding and free throws. In today's game free throws come from driving the ball and offensive rebounds. We did not stay in front of them and we did not keep them from offensive rebounding. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Miquelle, could you talk about the rebounding advantage they had. MIQUELLE ASKEW: I don't know. I don't think they had an advantage. They worked harder for them than we did. I think that we're still struggling to, like, play 40 minutes. That comes into play, when we don't rebound and let them get three offensive rebounds in one play. Q. Second half when they went on the spurt and went ahead, what did you see there? MIQUELLE ASKEW: We just got to keep making it so we can make our own energy. We usually fuel our energy off offense. If that's not coming, we have to make sure we can fuel it off getting a stop, getting a rebound. Just making sure we play our game and not letting how we're playing affect. Q. How hard was it to stop Dent? MIQUELLE ASKEW: Yeah, we just need to have better help side. She beat us off the dribble anytime she wanted to. That's a weakness we need to fix. Q. Deanna, could you talk about the way the team came back. You got it within two. What were you able to do toward the end that worked so well? What were you not able to do to finish it off? DEANNA WEAVER: I think we just played harder at that moment. We realized we didn't have a lot of time left. We waited too long to realize it was now coming to an end. We needed to get up. We realized that. We just wanted it. We played hard and we made the stops we needed to. Q. What are your thoughts right now after losing this game, when you look at the season, losing in the first round? MIQUELLE ASKEW: I'm disappointed. I really thought we could have taken the whole thing. We just have to play together. We have to play with energy. We have to play for a full 40 minutes and we didn't do that today. Q. Deanna, looking at this team going forward, obviously pretty much everyone is supposed to come back. What do you think about the potential? DEANNA WEAVER: I'm excited for that. Yeah, we'll have everybody back. We had a lot of freshmen this year, underclassmen. I think we'll be able to make a lot of improvements. Next year will be a really good year. THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. How tough was Dent in the second half? COACH PRESNELL: She was really active. She was that way at our place, too. We felt like the shots she took, obviously they didn't fall as well. It kept Woodward from shooting the ball. We knew she was going to attack us, but we'd rather have her shooting than Woodward. She was 3 for 17 and Dent goes 9 for 20. Q. I know they did have 16 offensive rebounds to your five. How much of a difference was that tonight? COACH PRESNELL: I thought they were aggressive early. Offensive rebounding, like I said, is absolutely the key to rebounding‑‑ key to free throws in the post area. Traditional posts don't go to the foul line like they used to. But rebounding is the key. You get an offensive rebound, there's going to be some contact. I thought they were very active, very aggressive, did a great job. They really kicked us in that area of the game, that's for sure. Q. Foul trouble really sort of bit you tonight. How were you planning on managing that? Did you foresee that being an issue? COACH PRESNELL: That's what Dent really hurt us with, was Jai [CK] got two fouls right off the game. We decided right at the moment, if we can keep the game within three to five, we wouldn't put her in for a third. We got it down to one or two at half. We thought she would get rolling. She struggled with energy at the beginning of the second half. Then I thought we kind of picked it up a little bit and hit a couple shots. We need to get our momentum out of defense a little bit more, maybe not so much hitting shots, that sort of thing. I'm really frustrated, I'm hurt for our team. Also we have four or five freshmen, four or five sophomore and one junior. We get three kids back that are hurt. I feel very positive about our season, our conference season, the maturity of our kids. I think we'll have a very, very good program for sure. Q. Fouls, 18 to 8. Was that them getting more contact? COACH PRESNELL: At the end of the game, the last probably seven, eight minutes, we just went motion and tried to attack them. That's the nature of the game. But we should have done that a little bit sooner, a little bit earlier. But I thought they really attacked us off the dribble every chance they got. That's a change of pace for them over the course of the last few years. We have a traditional post in Miquelle, so it's hard to run that drill drive all the time. Q. Toward the end of the game, you're down 10, less than three minutes left, you have a chance to tie it, your thoughts on that stretch. The key play was the steal, hitting the three. COACH PRESNELL: Dee was fatigued a little bit. We put Brit in there. She's really active, she's a lot more athletic than people give her credit for. She's quite an athlete. She picked off the ball, threw it to her sister, who threw it to Jai. Then I think down to two, we called a timeout. We ran a kick‑back to Dee. She got a good look at the basket. It would be interesting if she hit that if the game changes at all. Q. Was there a hand on it? COACH PRESNELL: I couldn't see it. I asked. I felt like we got a pretty good look at the basket and we were going to drive the lane as hard as we could. I thought they executed that pretty well. But give Wyoming credit. They're extremely well‑coached. He's as good as there is in the country. They came ready to play and they beat us. Obviously I feel good about the 24 field goals, but they beat us offensive rebounding, yeah, free‑throw line, too. Q. You mentioned looking ahead with who you have coming back. How do you look at what you had to overcome losing the four seniors, having it end like this? Can you look at the season and looking ahead to next year. COACH PRESNELL: It was hard losing the four seniors. We lost our starting center 15 minutes into the first practice of the season to ACL. Obviously Lexie I think is one of the premiere trail posts in the whole league, 11 and 7, 11 and 6. Just to lose that two weeks ago. She's kind of the glue of our team. That was a very difficult loss. I thought Kayla stepped in and did a nice job. Kayla is five‑ten and plays a little more three, and Lexie is six‑one. I'm excited about having those guys back. Kinzi Poteet, Diana Lee. Then our whole team will be back. The whole team will be back for two more years other than Deanna. I'm really proud of them. It's a hard loss. A hard loss for them. But Wyoming, they just beat us at the point of attack in terms of rebounding. Yeah, should have done a better job in that area. Q. What was your message to the team after the game? COACH PRESNELL: This loss needs to stick with us. It's a good season. It's a really good season. It's a great conference season. If this loss will stick with us in April, June, July, August when we need to be with our strength coach and working. If we let this loss go, it won't be as good of a season as we'd like. It's an amazing group of kids. It's the finest kids I've ever coached in terms of values, academics. They're just a great group. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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