March 19, 2012
SECOND ROUND PRESS CONFERENCE WEST VIRGINIA
HEAD COACH MIKE CAREY
OPENING STATEMENT
I want to congratulate Stanford, they are a great team and I hope they go far in the tournament. Second of all, I am very proud of this team. No one expected us to be this far at this point in the season. The first half they just took it to us the second half I thought we did a little bit better offensively and defensively, but give Stanford credit they are a great team.
First minutes of game
They knew we wanted to go high and low. Jessica Harlee took three or four shots early and lost her confidence and wouldn't shoot, so we tried to put other people in there. If you look at the stats we took more shots then they did. We just didn't make them. Only made 4 of 18 threes. We had more offensive boards then they did. Then on the defensive end we tried to let the guards instead of showing big from our four five we took away Nnemkadi and Chiney Ogwumike a little bit, but their point guard (Amber Orrange) was killing us so we had to stop doing it.
How Stanford stacks up against UCONN and Notre Dame?
They are all great teams Notre Dame has all five players that can shoot at any time. UConn has some great players and Stanford has some great players.
How did you do against Nnemkadi and Chiney Ogwumike?
I thought the way our game plan was in the beginning we kind of took them out and then we had to change our game. You give them any space at all and they run the floor.
How much did 17-0 run take out of you guys?
When they started pressing we started pressing. Our girls took some shoots they don't normally take. We just weren't efficient. On the defensive side we were letting them get in the paint, we rarely let a team shoot 53% from the floor. The second half we did a little better they only shot 32%.
JUNIOR CENTER - ASYA BUSSIE
Talk about first five or six minutes of the game?
We just did not come out strong. They got an early lead and we got ourselves into a whole.
Talk about how you stay motivated:
Coming out we were trying to be more aggressive attacking the paint and I think our guards did that better in the second half. We just ended up being even and not getting the lead.
About the Season:
We had a great season. We proved a lot of people wrong. We are just losing one player and next year can be a really big season for us.
FRESHMAN GUARD - LINDA STEPNEY
How hard is it to run an offense against Stanford?
It was really hard to get our offense started especially with them staying in the paint.
REDSHIRT SOPHMORE - CHRISTAL CALDWELL
Stanford's size
They did have a lot of size but as guards that's something we have to work on. We need to be able to have counter moves, they challenged us but it's something we can work on.
Was their point guard being so aggressive a surprise?
Because of the way we wanted to play the Ogwumike sisters it put a lot more pressure on us as guards and it put more pressure on her because the people she normally looked for to get the ball to made her have to be more aggressive.
On season
I think we had a great season and Coach Carey has let us know the things we have to work on so we can come back hungry next year.