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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: WEST LAFAYETTE


March 22, 2014


Kacie Cassell

Jodi Kest

Rachel Tecca


WEST LAFAYETTE, INDIANA

Purdue – 84
Akron – 55

COACH KEST:  You know, I know the outcome wasn't what we thought beforehand, but I am so proud of these young ladies.  I'm not going to allow one game to define the body of work that we accomplished this year, especially with these two seniors sitting next to me, and even as poorly as we played today, and give credit to Purdue.
And their defense, I guess I'm not used to playing against players that are a little bit taller and stronger and at no time did our kids give up.  I'm just so proud to be their coach, and I know these young ladies, I will have a relationship with them ten, 15 years from now, because they are great kids and they are kids that you want to be associated with.

Q.  What did you feel like Purdue did so well defensively to keep you guys from doing what you wanted to?
KACIE CASSELL:  Their length, they are really long and lengthy.  They put their biggest girl in front of Hanna.  We shot the ball not very well.  I mean, they knew our offense.  They stopped it and we just couldn't get rebounds and couldn't get second chance opportunities, because they did a good job of boxing out and getting on the boards.

Q.  You obviously like to get out and run, and to do that, you have to rebound; how much did that limit your transition game today in?
RACHEL TECCA:  Yeah, we didn't rebound too well today, which did limit us offensively running the floor.  We did have a few opportunities, but yeah, they rebounded a lot better than us today.  They are more physical, taller, and I just think we struggled with that.

Q.  How much was the tough matchup for you guyswith 32?
RACHEL TECCA:  Again, strong, physical post.  Very hard to push off the block.  She did a great job feeling inside, and I mean, I definitely struggled with that today.  Wish I could have done a better job.  But yeah, commend her for being physical in there and just stealing really well.

Q.  The way Purdue started this game, leading 20‑2, how much did that sort of put you behind the 8‑ball in the first five minutes?
KACIE CASSELL:  We've been there and we played them in the MAC Tournament, so we didn't get down in ourselves.  It didn't hurt us at the end of the game because that deficit, we could never really get past 11.  We never got down on ourselves, we kept fighting to the end, even down by 20, we just kept fighting and keep working.  So proud of our players because they never give up.  I think the younger kids will feed off that next year so I'm proud of them.

Q.  I saw you grab your leg in the second half, did that hinder you throughout the game?
RACHEL TECCA:  I got hit with a knee brace pretty hard and it was bleeding but it was just really painful at first, kind of a Shock.  I got taped up and went back out.  It was fine.

Q.  What do you both take from this season and its totality?
KACIE CASSELL:  I mean, one game doesn't define our season.  We've set the records.  Most wins in the season, we won the MAC for the first time ever.  We came in with goals to get a banner up there and that's what we've done, and I'm so proud of them, and this girl right here.
RACHEL TECCA:  I'm just so proud of what this team has done all season.  We have been together for four years now and we've developed friendships that's going to last us a lifetime.  I'm so happy to be part of it, and like Kacie says, this doesn't define what we've accomplished this season and the four years we've been here.

Q.  What was it that Purdue was doing so well defensively to take you out of what you wanted to be able to accomplish?
COACH KEST:  Well, they were a little bit longer and stronger than we've seen all year.  They made it difficult for us to get the extra passes into hands the way they played and we weren't getting too many offensive rebounds, and we weren't getting too many stops where we could run and that put us in the hole.  But I was really proud of our kids because they did fight really hard to get it down to 11 going into halftime and the second half, unfortunately, that's been one of our struggles is coming out of the second half flat and we did it again today with not a very good three‑point shot and it cost us two and another wide‑open three so we are down by five.

Q.  Hanna struggled today shooting the ball, how was Purdue able to contain her from‑‑ to get going on offense?
COACH KEST:  Again, give them credit.  That's the worst shooting she had had all year, not just her, but first time I think we were under 40 percent all year.  She's not used to going against kids that long and that tall.  She's normally able to jump over everybody and then when she finally did have a lot of good looks, I think she got a little frustrated at times and started to fadeaway.
But we wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for Hanna and the rest of those kids.  I mean, she's fought all year and unfortunately today she struggled.  Again, give Purdue credit.  They did a phenomenal job with that, applying a lot of pressure, she always had someone guarding her, they kept switching up different players on her and we don't see that very often.

Q.  You mentioned slow second‑half starts; knowing that, what did you do to try to jump start them and get them coming out of the locker room, and then did you call that real quick time‑out; anything there?
COACH KEST:  No, we just talked about what we needed to do better and come out strong and execute that first play which we didn't do a very good job.  We took a quick three which is something we really didn't want to do.  Just happened, I don't know what to say.

Q.  Why was Purdue a tough guard?  We heard about your offense coming in, and they weren't able to put up 80 points on you guys‑‑
COACH KEST:  They are known for their defense and all the research we did on them, they are a very good offensive team but she does a fantastic job with them defensively.  They face guarded her a lot and that gave us a lot of problems.

Q.  How much of a problem was it, your matchup with 32?
COACH KEST:  We have a lot of respect for her, very strong kid.  We tried to double as much as possible, and a couple times and we didn't do a very good job of rotation and it hurt us.  She was someone that we talked about a lot.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




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