Nebraska - 74, Illinois - 70
THE MODERATOR: We have here with us head coach Amy Williams, Logan Nissley, Jessica Petrie, and Britt Prince.
Coach, if you would go ahead and make an opening statement, then we'll open it up for questions for the student-athletes.
AMY WILLIAMS: We're just incredibly blessed to be advancing in this tournament, and I'm incredibly blessed to coach this tough, gritty team here. I thought they just obviously fought till the final buzzer, and it paid off for us here tonight.
Q. Britt, you had 17 points, 5 assists, 100% from behind the arc today. 10 points, 5 assists yesterday. How's the Big Ten Tournament going for you?
BRITT PRINCE: It's going good so far. Any time you can come out with a win is good. Hopefully we can carry it into tomorrow, and it will be good for us.
Q. Logan, I've got to say this is a trust-the-process effort from you. I've watched you grind on the boards and take bodies, then to hit the two big threes. What did this mean for you? This is a statement game for you to make the plays you made.
LOGAN NISSLEY: We talked about it all week long, making plays for each other is what's going to keep our momentum going forward and win us games. We have to go 1-0 every day. My teammates are out there fighting.
We talked about it before the game just trusting each other. I know my teammates are going to take good shots, and not every single one is going to go in. So just being able to get those second-chance opportunities for my team is what I was working on today.
Q. Jess, you've had to fill in for Natalie this whole season. Can you just talk about what this game and maybe this season has meant for you so far playing that kind of role.
JESSICA PETRIE: Coached talked about it when Nat went down. Not everyone can replace Nat. It's finding ways that everyone can contribute a little bit more. Two extra boards here, and an extra four points here. I think this season has been a lot of growth for me in those areas. Just stepping up for my teammates and I know they have my back and it's been really fun to play with them this year.
Q. Britt, I'd really like to ask this for the coach, but I'll ask you. Fouling a shooter in an intense ballgame like this, I think it happened twice in the fourth quarter, one late. Just your reaction when that happens? You're sending somebody to the line, especially when she hits all three of them.
BRITT PRINCE: Yeah, obviously that's not what I was trying to do. I made a couple mistakes down the road, but I'll learn from it. I mean, we still won the game.
Q. Britt, I've watched you win state title games at Nebraska, and the moments were never too big. Compare winning those titles and having the ball in your hands to having this moment in this big venue with all the eyes on you.
BRITT PRINCE: It's super cool. I think, I just love playing with this team. They're all so great. Great humans, great people, great basketball players.
Just them trusting me with the ball in my hands late, especially as a freshman, is something that's really special to me. Yeah, I just love playing with this team.
Q. For each of the players, you had a chance to play yesterday. You start the fourth quarter, I believe, down seven, and yet you had the energy and capabilities to be able to not fold and to be able to come out on top. What does that say about the group that you have this year at Nebraska?
BRITT PRINCE: I think just the way that we play together, we all trust each other. Like Coach said before the game, just trust your training, trust each other. I think that helped us a lot down the stretch.
JESSICA PETRIE: Another emphasis has been having fun, and I think this is the best time of the season, this March Madness. March is so much fun, and just cherishing these last couple of games with this group just brought us back today.
LOGAN NISSLEY: I think too these are one-game seasons, and obviously we're playing for something. We don't want to go home. Obviously there's a lot more of March left, and we want to just play the rest of March, and like Pet said, we just want to cherish what we have with this group because we don't want our seniors going home.
Q. How do you evaluate tonight when Alexis goes for 9 and 4 and you're still playing tomorrow?
AMY WILLIAMS: Well, just how blessed am I? I'm sitting up here after my second win in this tournament with three different players than were sitting up here yesterday, and I think it speaks to just the depth of this team.
Make no mistake, you might want to say Lex was 9 and 4, but Alexis Markowski is the reason we won the game. I said before the game her super power is an incredible ability to instill belief. She believes in herself at a very high level, but her ability to instill belief in everybody around her is -- it's something I've never been around.
I really wish I could like bottle it up and save it for when she's not in my program anymore, which I don't even want to think about. But she had us believing heading into that fourth quarter that we were going to win that game.
So I have no doubt that her influence was all over this game. We just had a lot of other people -- Petra Bozan, I think, stepped up and really contributed points in the paint when we needed them the most. I think yesterday's game that allowed us to play our bench significant minutes really built some confidence up and down our roster to be able to step in and make the contributions that we really needed tonight.
Q. You saw them just two weeks ago, three weeks ago maybe. What was important for you guys this time around in terms of coming out with the win?
AMY WILLIAMS: We wanted to do a better job of trying to protect the paint, and I'm not sure that we did that for 40 minutes tonight. They still got in there, got some and-ones, a few too many free throws down in the paint and stuff.
I thought that down the stretch in the fourth quarter we did a little bit better job of keeping Bostic and McKenzie kind of under wraps.
Q. When you look at this, you don't really know who won the game and who lost the game by just looking at all the stats. What do you think you won the game for? What made you win the game?
AMY WILLIAMS: I thought just some really tough, gritty plays down the stretch, Logan Nissley grabbing a couple offensive rebounds down the stretch. I thought we had a baseline inbounds play that we were really kind of looking for, designed to get a back side upscreen, but we're thinking get it to the ball side, get it in, and maybe run a little more clock to a different action, and Callin Hake had the courage to look for Jess Petrie on the weak side for that layup that stretched the lead out there, gave us a little cushion and confidence.
I just thought gritty, tough, courageous plays where our team really trusted each other. That's the biggest explanation.
Q. Illinois started the game on a 9-0 run and at one point was up 11, and even in the fourth quarter they were up 6. Didn't call a timeout. Can you talk about your mindset of why not at that point?
AMY WILLIAMS: I'm quite sure you're not the only person who is asking that in that moment. Earlier this season we started our Michigan State home game down 10-0, and my brother told me after the game that's a bold strategy, Cotton. A little Dodgeball quote for you.
That certainly wasn't our strategy going into the game, but I have seen this team be able to regroup and fight back, and I'm really glad that we were able to kind of overcome that and fight back in in that first half. It allowed us to be able to have the timeouts we needed down the stretch.
Q. Coach, there was a moment fourth quarter, late run by Illinois, and there was a timeout, and it was your moment in the game where you stomped your feet. I actually heard your voice elevate, and it was, boxing out, rebounding, and then getting effort. That's a choice that you made. I patiently watched to see when you were going to ignite. What about that moment was that moment that you needed to correct the game?
AMY WILLIAMS: We really wanted to stave off any of the dagger threes where an offensive rebound on their part would lead to an open three-point basket. I thought we had some hustle plays with tips on basketball that's just ended up in their hands and a layup late shot clock or whatever. Right there I thought we played pretty good defense. We were covering up for each other, flying around, and we missed a boxout on the back side, and it led to a wide open three for them.
I thought that was enough for us to take that timeout and just catch our attention and regroup and just remind our team how important it was going to be to give them just one shot.
Q. Kendall Bostic had 16 points during the first half, only 3 in the second. What went into that?
AMY WILLIAMS: She was on fire early. I mean, she's just a great player. She's just a great player that can do a lot of different things. I thought in the first half her mid-range was just on point. We were not getting to her on the ball screen short rolls and they were finding her, and she just wasn't even hesitating. She was 5-for-5 before we even knew really what hit us.
I thought she got an open three in the second half that she knocked down. We needed to -- she just is so capable with her back to the basket, mid-range, three-level scorer, it's just crazy. So you just try to do everything you can to try to slow that down.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports