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Bowling Green State University Athletics
From the Media Room
March 19, 2006 | Women's Basketball
March 19, 2006
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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Quoting some of the participants in the Bowling Green State University women's basketball team's 74-61 loss to UCLA Sunday ...
BGSU HEAD COACH CURT MILLER
(Opening statement)
"It's been a magical year at Bowling Green. Certainly, nothing can take away from the 28-3 season that we had, but the Hollywood ending was with the home team today. When we got our draw, we knew it was going to be an extremely tough matchup. The media talked about the `triple threat' of the three great (UCLA) players and future WNBA stars. The triple threat in my mind was that we drew an athletic team, a big team, and -- the dagger -- a team that could really shoot it. We could have lived with, maybe, two of those things, but the third was the dagger. We might have been able to compete against an athletic team, or a big team. But, when you combine all that, and they shoot the ball as well as they do, we knew we had a tough task today. Their one big run in the first half was a huge key. That was the difference in the game."
"One of the things that was very important during that run is that we didn't get any second chances. As a coach, playing against one of the top offensive teams in the country in UCLA, you're torn. Do you send people to the boards as aggressively as you normally do, or are you in (the players') ear about getting back and making defensive transition a priority? Looking back, if I regret one area, I felt like I made our team a little tentative, because we talked so much about their transition game, and how we had to get back. In hindsight, I wish we had thrown a little caution to the wind, and tried to get to the boards better. (Rebounding) was clearly a big statistical disadvantage."
(Did you sense that, when UCLA was missing some shots early on, you needed to have a bigger lead because they were going to start hitting?)
"Absolutely, and that happens all year long, no matter who you're playing. You can tell when teams are executing fine, but just missing shots. I knew that they were getting what they wanted, and that we needed to sprint out to the lead. We didn't shoot our foul shots as well today, in the beginning. But I told our kids at halftime that I was going to keep fighting for them, and they had to keep fighting for themselves. If you would have told us that we were going to get the looks that we were getting, we weren't going to get doubled-down in the post, and they were going to allow us to get low-post catches and play one-on-one, we'd play that game over right now if you gave us some of the looks we were getting early. But, we just didn't win the one-on-one battles that we needed to win to pull the big upset."
(You talked yesterday about, if you can contain one of UCLA's star players, that another one would step up. Did it make it tougher when it was a different player stepping up each half?)
"That's what makes them special, and that's why, with a little more consistency, that's a top-10 team in the country, night in and night out. They just have so many weapons. I mean, you don't have to make a mistake very long for Lisa Willis to make back-to-back 3s. She made three 3s in a hurry in the second half. We cut it to five, and I really thought the pressure shifted to them. But, you knew it would be a game of runs, both teams are too talented not to have runs, and we made it interesting, getting (their lead) down to five."
(Obviously, the loss today is tough, but when do you start getting excited for next year?)
"Last year, we were at the NCAA Tournament, and we had the youngest starting lineup in the entire field of 64. We are still one of the very few teams in the field that starts an entire lineup (of non-seniors). That's two years in a row that this team has made it to the NCAA Tournament with no senior starters. So, I'm excited to see where our junior class, which will be seniors, can take us next year. We'll have an even bigger bulls-eye then we thought we had on our back this year. But, we're going to take a few weeks off and then get right back at it. We want to be back. We're having fun. Even though we haven't gotten over the first-round hump, we are having fun."
BGSU JUNIOR ALI MANN
(How frustrating is it when you play well defensively, and they still are able to make shot after shot?)
"It's very frustrating. In the first half, I thought we did some pretty good things, trying to keep their key players under control, but they're great players and they hit some tough shots. During the course of the game, those shots can be killers."
(On expending so much energy defensively, then trying to answer on offense)
"Those (UCLA) shots were just killers, and then we have to go right back on the offensive end and try to answer. Against an athletic team like UCLA, if we didn't make our first shot, they obviously outrebounded us, so were weren't going to get many second chances."
BGSU JUNIOR LIZ HONEGGER
(You rallied within five or six on a couple of occasions in the second half, but they seemed to respond with three-pointers. How disheartening is that?)
"As soon as we closed the gap, they hit a three, and then I think Willis hit another three. It definitely took the wind out of our sails, and we kind of lost our momentum."
(Did UCLA do anything that surprised you?)
"I don't think we really felt that they surprised us in any way. We knew they were going to be athletic, we knew they were going to push the ball in transition, we knew they were going to be able to rebound and make plays. We got what we thought we were going to get."
(Being a junior, you obviously have one more year left. What can you look to for next season?)
"Well, we lose Casey and Jill, but we still have a good squad coming back. We have good players, and the loss today will just give us motivation to work at it, get better and see where we can go next year."
UCLA HEAD COACH KATHY OLIVIER
(Opening statement)
"I thought that we had some signs of very good basketball and some signs of being rusty. We haven't played a game in about 13 days and I thought that showed a little at times. Give Bowling Green credit, they never gave up. They worked really hard, they played good team basketball and gave it their best shot, especially in the second half. Offensively, we did a lot of positive things, but we've got to do a better job of taking care of the ball, but otherwise we'll get back on track."
(On the pressure of first round tournament game)
"Personally, I was feeling it (pressure). I just think it's a very good basketball team, extremely talented. They like this atmosphere, they like playing in front of a crowd. I was trying to keep them settled down. It's nice to know that we were toned down a little and still scored 74 points. In the first round, you just want to get by the first one. It's nice to represent the Pac 10 and win the first round."
(On her team's defense)
"I thought we did a very good job defensively early. Maybe Bowling Green was a little hesitant at the beginning, but its hard when you get a lot of fouls. We had a lot of fouls called on us and then we got a little tentative. We've taken a lot of pride in our defense the last six weeks and it's been paying off. This team' very offensive minded, they like to get up and down the floor. Defensively they bought into it and it's been working for them."
(On UCLA guard Nikki Blue)
"Early on, they were playing her to pass and she was getting her teammates involved. I told her 'you need to look for your own shot'. She's so capable and she was trying to get everyone involved. That's what she's been doing all year. She did a great job of getting the ball to the right people."
(On playing Purdue at Mackey Arena Tuesday)
"We like that atmosphere. The Purdue crowd, they were great for the first game and they stayed for a lot of the second game. We definitely anticipate a big crowd, and hopefully play better basketball and have a little more fun, do a little more offensively."
UCLA GUARD NOELLE QUINN
(On hot streak in first half)
"I think we just settled down a little bit. As a team we came together, focused on passing the ball more. We got more movement and started to run a little bit more which gave us more opportunities and more open looks."
UCLA GUARD NIKKI BLUE
(On more fundamental approach to game...)
"We wanted to come out and just play fundamental basketball at the beginning, to just get the jitters out and then progress from that. Bowling Green, you've got to give a lot of credit to them. They slowed the ball down very well. They're very good at half court defensive sets, but I think once we got our transition going it would open looks up."
UCLA GUARD LISA WILLIS
(On pressure at beginning of second half)
"We knew that they would come out with a sense of urgency because it's one loss and you go home. So we just tried to make a change and we did pretty good at that. I wouldn't say we relaxed, they just stepped it up more than we did. Then in turn we stepped it up."
(UCLA quotes courtesy of Purduesports.com)
