Nebraska 75, Richmond 56
THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by the Nebraska Cornhuskers. We have with us Head Coach Amy Williams along with student-athletes Britt Prince and Callin Hake. Coach will have an opening statement.
AMY WILLIAMS: First, I just want to say I feel incredibly blessed to coach this group of young ladies, but to still be playing at this point in March and to get to advance in this tournament, we knew that we really wanted to take advantage of the opportunity that was given to us.
I thought that it was a true team effort today. Just up and down our roster, just contributions, whether it be a couple of steals here or there, assists here or there, knocking down buckets, grabbing a couple of rebounds. Just playing great defense.
There were just contributions that came up and down our roster in a true team win for us.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.
Q. Callin, third quarter you outscored them 27-6. What was working so well for you all in that quarter that maybe didn't go right all the time in the first half?
CALLIN HAKE: Yeah, I thought we really locked into our personnel, and Richmond loves to shoot the three, and I think we did a really good job of being there when our girl caught the ball, but then ready to hip drive and keep them out of the paint.
They kind of dominated us in the paint in that first half, and that was something that we wanted to do better in that second half, and I think it started with Petra right away getting an offensive rebound for us and just setting the tone for us in that second half.
Q. Britt, I wonder if you could talk about defending Doogan and perhaps allowing her to get hers and kind of getting everybody else under control?
BRITT PRINCE: Yes. I mean, we were trying to keep her under control as much as we could, and I thought we did a great job of that. I think she got a few off late in the game, but yeah, overall I thought we did a good job defending them.
Q. I think it was Amiah Hargrove, do I have that right, it felt like she was guarding Doogan a lot in the first half. I think Doogan only had two shot attempts in that first half, two, three. What was she doing so well to deny her shot a little bit?
CALLIN HAKE: I think Amiah did a great job. I thought her initial positioning was great. She was where she needed to be so she could beat staggers, chase her off staggers, beat her off pin-downs. I thought she did a great job, and that started with our preparation in practice.
I think our scout guys gave us a really good look at what Richmond liked to run, and I think Amiah did a fantastic job on just a fantastic player.
Q. Britt, I think you had ten of your 22 in the third quarter. What was working so well for you in terms of the offensive end?
BRITT PRINCE: Yeah, I think we just played with really great pace in the third quarter. I came out trying to kind of hunt my shot, but yeah, I think my teammates were finding me in really good positions where I could capitalize. Yeah, it was just really fun out there playing with a lot of pace and playing with joy.
Q. This is for Callin. With this going into it potentially the last game, what was maybe the stakes, and just as a senior leader, what were you kind of saying to your teammates and to have this performance? You're not done playing. How fulfilling is this?
CALLIN HAKE: I think just being, yeah, a senior, you dream of these moments. Like Coach said, opportunity presented itself, and we wanted to seize the moment. I think we did that.
Yeah, as a senior, there is definitely a sense of urgency that I want to fight for more games with these girls, and I think we did exactly that today.
THE MODERATOR: Callin, Britt, thank you for your time. Questions for Coach.
Q. From your perspective, that third quarter, did you deliver a message at halftime that maybe kind of lit a fire under them or got them to refocus a little bit? What went so right for you in that?
AMY WILLIAMS: Well, Mitch, we may have mentioned at halftime that we had zero offensive rebounds at halftime. Just kind of talking about that, was that the most complete effort that we could have given? With this opportunity, we do not ever want to look back and say, Oh, man, I had more to give. I think they really took that to heart, came out there in that third quarter.
One of our better defensive efforts then in the third quarter. We have a ton of respect for Richmond and the offense. I've been watching Miss Doogan play for a while and just admiring her game, but when you actually dive into preparing a scout for a team, you get a much deeper look at their team.
The respect we had for the way they run offense and have so many prolific 3-point shooters, we knew we were going to have to guard that 3-point line. I do agree that Amiah Hargrove did a really good job. They got to the free-throw line too much in the first half. We needed to be able to guard hard without fouling, and I still told them. We gave up 11 threes attempts. We were just talking about the attempts from the 3-point line that we wanted to takeaway. I thought we kind of were able to buckle down and guard without fouling in that third quarter and not giving up those free-throws made a difference.
Q. You said in your opening statement that you guys just were given this opportunity, kind of being on the bubble and being in that last four in. I guess just coming away from this, how proud of you of your team and especially someone like Callin, and does it fulfill you as a coach that you guys really earned this spot to show that you're one of the better teams on this bubble?
AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah. I mean, I think we feel really strongly that our metrics speak for themselves. We know that the way the Big Ten schedule fell, we played five of our last eight on the road. We had a really tough stretch.
Everybody that plays in the Big Ten Conference has a tough stretch. I mean, you do. You're just going to have a tough stretch. Ours happened to be kind of in that last ten ball games that they tend to look at in how you're playing recently, which is just kind of unfortunate.
But in the realm of metrics, we knew our team was a team that deserved to be playing on this stage, but we needed to silence the doubters and find a way to make that well known that we deserved to be here, and we're excited to get a win over this quality of a program in the first play-in game.
Q. I had a question about the difference in preparation after a big win with a quick turnaround as opposed to it was a nail-biter. Do you tell your team anything different or what goes into that?
AMY WILLIAMS: No. I don't think it is preparation will be any different. I think that it did allow us to be able to play a lot of players today and to not have to play any of our starters much over 30 minutes. So that was important when you have kind of a quick turnaround coming. We're excited for that.
I was pleased to have players like Hailey Weaver and Claire Johnson stepping up and finding ways to contribute that allowed us to be able to not have to play Logan Nissley or Callin Hake, Britt Prince quite as many minutes.
Q. I was just wondering if -- not to bring up bad memories, but the come-back loss against Indiana in the Big Ten Tournament, was there some kind of discussion at the end of the third quarter with your team to maybe avoid that let-down in this game?
AMY WILLIAMS: Thanks for bringing it up.
Q. Sorry.
AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah, not really anything that we drew attention to. I mean, obviously I'm not trying to put that kind of mental picture into our players' heads in that moment. The message at halftime was what specifically was going well, what specifically was not going well in the first half and making sure that we could shore up that.
We had a good start to the third quarter. They took a timeout. In the timeout huddle the message was do not be satisfied with that run. I think just being able to make those types of subtle comments maybe they could understand.
We've been through the fire in the Big Ten Conference. We've seen almost every situation, including what happened in our conference tournament game. So all of those things have taught us lessons to get us to where we are right now.
Q. I'm wondering about the mentality of going into a First Four game versus the first round as a coach. Did you approach this any differently than you have previous NCAA Tournaments? Obviously the turnaround is quicker, and you are facing an opponent that's ranked right where you are.
AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah. We didn't approach the preparation any different. Like you mentioned, the biggest difference I noticed was just once that bracket is announced on Sunday night, it's like we left on Monday. So it was a very, very quick turnaround for the preparation, but the preparation itself was really no different. We just kind of took the same type of approach and routine that we have all season up to this point.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports