April 1, 2012 Baylor 59 Stanford 47 An interview with: THE MODERATOR: Joining us from Baylor, head coach Kim Mulkey, student-athletes Brittney Griner, Odyssey Sims, and Terran Condrey. Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Odyssey, can you talk about the contributions from Terran and how important that was for someone to step up and hit some outside jumpers? ODYSSEY SIMS: She's been hitting big shots all year. She's been key to us winning big games, and she stepped up like a senior should and she hit big shots for us. Q. Terran, Coach yesterday said something like if you guys win the national championship, it's not going to be because of Brittney Griner, it's going to be because of the team effort. Do you think under -- this was like exhibit A, because you got so many contributions from so many different players today? TERRAN CONDREY: Yeah, I think so, because most teams double-team Griner, so they'll leave most people open, and we had to be ready to knock down the shots in the game. Q. Brittney, to see Terran do that in that kind of moment, and also Jordan Madden had some big shots in that second half, were you proud of them to see them delivered like that? BRITTNEY GRINER: Definitely. I was very proud to see Terran and all of them step up and knock down shots. It's not the first time she had done this. She's silent, but you hear her on the court. Q. Brittney, can you talk about what Stanford did against you and they kept you to your lowest field-goal output or -- or tied with for the season, and just was it a difficult night for you? BRITTNEY GRINER: I give credit to Stanford. They're a good team. They always had two people on me or second offender come in try to double me. They stuck with their plan the whole game. Frustrating. You get frustrated when your shot doesn't go in. But I had all the confidence in my team. Like Coach said, it's not the Brittney Griner show at all. My team stepped up and knocked down shots. Q. Odyssey, can you talk about just the overall frustration that whole first half? Seemed like nothing was going right either team, both having trouble on the offensive end and how you guys broke out of it about five minutes into the second half? ODYSSEY SIMS: Just like we came out not as strong as usual. I felt like some of us were a little nervous trying to get all the jitters out. But we didn't come out strong. But going into halftime we knew we had to pick it up. Q. Odyssey, at the end of the game you threw the ball to the rafters. This is where you guys have been pointed towards all year long to finally get to this national championship game. What's the feeling? ODYSSEY SIMS: It feels great that we're going to play on Tuesday. But, then again, we haven't done that yet. Baylor_-_4.01.12.doc 1
Q. Can the athletes talk about whether you felt any effects from the altitude up here? Does it make it harder for you or are you already so well conditioned it doesn't really matter that much? TERRAN CONDREY: In my opinion, I think the altitude is terrible (laughter). But I think that we are in good shape, though, as a team. ODYSSEY SIMS: Altitude is very different from what we're used to. But I feel like we're adjusting very well and we're not trying to show them that we're tired on the court. BRITTNEY GRINER: I'm with Terran on the altitude. But, I mean, we're in shape. You just gotta push through it. Q. Brittney, there late in the game I saw you look over at the ref and it was like kind of shaking your head, like: When are you going to call a foul? Was this any more physical, though, than some of the games you've seen all year? BRITTNEY GRINER: No, not really. Just the ref was laughing, I was laughing. Found it funny at the time. Q. Brittney, can you just talk a little bit about the matchup with Neka? And you guys haven't played against each other in college at least. It's been a long time. Can you talk about what that was like for you? BRITTNEY GRINER: I enjoyed it. It was a good matchup. She's a great player. And it's been a while. We've both improved. And had to work on -- first time I've really had to work the whole night. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. You said all year long that you can't win a national title with just Brittney and Odyssey. This kind of proved it tonight? COACH MULKEY: Yes, it did. We've seen multiple defenses throughout the year. And I just thought Terran Condrey, she's a great shooter, a senior, and I didn't hesitate to quickly insert her in the lineup. She can nail that shot down. Jordan Madden can, too. But what we did better in the second half was we turned down the first look. We were rushing the shot. We'd make one pass and we'd play right into Stanford's hands and shoot the first shot that was open. And all you gotta do is reverse the ball, be patient, let Griner still get touches, and you're going to get the same shot next time across the floor. I thought we did a better job. But Griner does what she does. She draws a lot of attention, and we're not a one-dimensional team. Brittney Griner is the face of women's basketball right now. And we embrace that. She deserves that and it's great recognition for Baylor. But our team is not just Brittney Griner. Q. You mentioned Jordan's ability to hit that shot, too. In the first half, though, it wasn't really going down for her, but you did insert her back in the game. What did you tell her? COACH MULKEY: Just keep shooting. Just keep shooting. If you're a shooter, you gotta keep shooting. She made some and ones there late and didn't lose her confidence. She got frustrated a little bit coming in and out of the game, and competitors want to play and just keep playing. It's going to fall for you. And at the end I decided to go offense/defense with her and with Terran and I just felt that they were challenged and they stepped up. Maybe not early in the game. But it's going to fall for you. Just keep shooting it. Q. How is Destiny? Is she okay and will she be able to play on Tuesday? COACH MULKEY: Destiny? Q. Odyssey. COACH MULKEY: Odyssey, you're talking about the layup there when the trainer went out on the floor? No one's hurt to my knowledge. Q. I had heard -- someone told me that Destiny had been injured too. COACH MULKEY: No. If she is, they haven't told me. Odyssey had a little cramp there. I called a timeout so I didn't have to take her out of the game because the trainer was on the floor. Had I not called the timeout, I would have had to insert somebody to shoot the free throws for her. Q. Nneka mentioned that Griner -- maybe psychologically playing Griner kind of psyched her out a little bit. Do you think that's part of what Brittney's built up over time, the fact that she's so good that it's almost a mental game as well as a physical game? Baylor_-_4.01.12.doc 2
COACH MULKEY: I do. I do. Because the women's game we haven't seen the likes of a Brittney Griner before. We've seen 6'8" and 6'9" players. We've seen players that dunk it. But her presence on the defensive end -- I've been around the game since I was 18 years old at this level. And I've never seen anybody dominate on the defensive end, just her wing span and her presence. Q. I think the score was tied 31-31, and then you went on a 15-3 run. Was there anything in particular that you were doing different during that one span that kind of gave you the big lead? COACH MULKEY: No, we didn't change -- well, we changed our defense a little bit. We played a 2-2-1 zone back to a man, and one possession or two, I don't know the time period, we went back to a 2-3 zone. But we probably got some easier baskets in transition through that period and just had some defensive stops, got to the foul line. But it wasn't a magical thing that I did or called on either end of the floor. I think just our patience paid off. I thought -- one of the things that we really stressed against Stanford that we did well is we kept them off the offensive boards. When you have a Neka and Chiney, they're such athletes, if they don't score on their first shot, they're usually getting putbacks, getting their team an opportunity to score again. And I thought we battled with them and made sure we eliminated their second chance points. Thought our defense was good. We held them late in the shot clock many times. And I thought we got to the foul line. Q. Kim, on a night when Destiny was not shooting her best, just battled on the boards, ten rebounds for her, can you talk about what she gave you? COACH MULKEY: I thought Destiny had one of her better defensive games. Honestly, you tried to keep Griner inside. You may assign -- you have Neka, you have Chiney, but the truth is keep Griner in the paint as much as you can. And I thought Destiny was active on who she was guarding, whether it was Neka or Chiney. I thought she didn't let her offense or her inability to get many shots affect what she was trying to do to help her team win. If that was blocking out and getting the defensive rebound, she missed some free throws. And she never let that affect her. So she makes her free throws, Destiny does what she's been doing, and that's a double-double. Q. I asked Odyssey about reaching the national championship game. Of course she said it's great, we haven't accomplished anything yet. Did you love hearing her say that? COACH MULKEY: Sure. You do. We're 39 and 0 and you're going to play for the national championship. And they deserved to play for the national championship. They've taken everybody's best shot. They've got a gimpy coach up here that can hardly hear, see, or talk, yet they pull me through and pull me along. And we'll be out there come Tuesday and we'll give it our best shot again. Q. You said before that there's nobody that's come up with a new defense for Brittney Griner. But it looked to me double teaming is certainly not novel. But they were doing it a little bit differently tonight for the first half at least, in that they had one player playing behind her and one in front to deny her the entry pass, where Tennessee was playing to help the defender between her and the post. Was that different and was that part of what held her down? COACH MULKEY: No, it's not different. We have seen that. Jordan and Terran and NayNay have been challenged and they have seen that before. St. John's was outstanding doing that to us. So it's not anything we haven't seen. And when you think about it, if you knock those shots down early you take a big lead quickly. And they've got to make some adjustments. But when you don't knock those shots down early, you need to be more patient and make sure we continue to get Griner touches. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts by ASAP Sports Baylor_-_4.01.12.doc 3
2012 NCAA Division I Women s Basketball Championship April 1, 2012 Pepsi Center Denver, Colo. National Semifinals Baylor Locker Room Quotes Junior Destiny Williams On moving on to the national championship game: It s an honor, it s a blessing and it s something we ve been working hard for for 39 ballgames and throughout the summer. We re just glad to be a part of this game on Tuesday. It s going to be a hard-fought game and Notre Dame is a great team and we re just excited to be there. On Terran Condrey and Jordan Madden stepping up: [Terran Condrey and Jordan Madden] had a great game. At the beginning of the game, Jordan s shots weren t falling down like she wanted them to, but she didn t let that bother her and she came down and got and-one s and Terran stepped up to the plate and knocked down what they gave us. It just shows how much depth we have and with this team, no matter who you try to stop, somebody on this team is going to step up and knock down shots. On senior Terran Condrey: Terran s been a great senior, along with our other two seniors. She s been doing this for a long time before I even came here. She s been knocking down clutch shots. Terran just does it on an everyday basis. She does it in practice and I think she can do it in her sleep if you ask her. On the slow start to the game for both teams I think it was probably just jitters from both teams, rushing shots, knowing that you re one game closer to the championship game and it was our first time playing against each other. We had to figure out [Stanford], offense and defense, and I thought that we did a great job in the second half and stopping their backdoors and eliminating their 3-point shots. We got after it on defense to allow our [offense] to click. On halftime adjustments: We had to bring me out and spread the floor so [Griner] could get more touches in the middle. They crowded the paint on post players and forced our perimeter to make
shots. We tried to penetrate and dish off or go for a layup. They left the perimeter wide open so we just attacked and put them in foul trouble and we worked off that. On winning a game while playing ugly We re not a perfect basketball team. We just came out and got it together in the second half. And honestly, that s all that really matters. Regardless, we can t allow that to happen against Notre Dame because they will make us pay. On Notre Dame: They have great guards. They re small and I think that we [beat] them on the posts. I think our post players had more points than anybody and we [beat] them on the boards as well. We have bigger size. We just have to keep their guards and not allow their seniors to go off because it is their last game. Junior Jordan Madden On advancing to the championship game: This is a great experience for us. We have some people on the team who have never been here before. It s great for them to see different things and play tough opponents. We ve been having fun but we still have to get our job done which is to go down and win two basketball games. We re down one and have one more to go. We have to practice and watch a lot of game film on Notre Dame. On the strong second half: We started kind of bad and at halftime we were still up two points to a great team. Stanford is a great team. Coach Mulkey came in here and said we needed to get some more shots and rebounds and limit their transition offense. Terran Condrey hit down some big shots, she stepped up a lot.
April 1, 2012 Baylor 59 Stanford 47 An interview with: THE MODERATOR: Joining us now, head coach Tara VanDerveer from Stanford and student-athletes Nneka Ogwumike and Toni Kokenis. Coach, an opening statement. COACH VANDERVEER: I'd like to congratulate Baylor. They have an excellent team. We worked very hard. We prepared really hard. But at the end of the day they outplayed us, and they have some great players and really outstanding coach in Kim Mulkey. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Nneka, can you talk about how you're feeling right at this moment and was it a matter of you guys not knocking down shots? Do you feel you'll walk away and say we didn't hit enough shots? NNEMKADI OGWUMIKE: Obviously no one feels good after a loss, especially if it's in the Final Four. But I just kind of look back and reflect on what it took for us to get here, and I would have rather gone down with my team than up with any other team. But when it comes down to the game, if you look at it, yeah, we were 20 for 60, that's a lot. And I know I didn't make one 3, and I shot five of them. And I think in the first half -- Tara made a really good point at halftime. She said I was settling for my shot. Because during the week we worked on kicking it out, kicking it out, kicking it out. But when I started attacking in the second half, I was able to go one-on-one against. But ultimately I think also it was kind of difficult for us to really figure out what we wanted to do on offense. I think we were too worried about her. But in reality attacking her wasn't as hard as we thought it would be. And hitting shots is always what it comes down to. We were 2 for 17 from the 3. Granted, five of those were mine. But I think it's a good thing for our youngsters to look back and reflect on what it really takes to get over this hump. Q. Toni and Nneka, did you guys feel that you came close to executing the game plan that you wanted to do, but when you missed that many 3-pointers it's tough? TONI KOKENIS: I think we were really well prepared for this game. We had a great game plan, and we were executing it. We just struggled a little bit offensively and missed some shots that would have definitely helped us, like a few 3s that we stepped out of bounds a few times. And I think also their offensive boards kind of hurt us, and we needed to box out better and get more rebounds because they got too many second-chance points. Q. Did you feel that the strategy of bringing each possession down to the end of the shot clock? I mean, although it worked, in terms of shortening the game, it forced you into some difficult shots, more than you probably would have wanted. Is that accurate? NNEMKADI OGWUMIKE: Yeah, we weren't trying to run the clock down. Q. But you didn t take shots until the end of the shot clock repeatedly. Stanford_-_4.01.12.doc 1
NNEMKADI OGWUMIKE: If we could score earlier, we would. But their defense was -- it's tough. Having in the paint, it completely changes everyone's game. Not just the inside players' game. Attacking the basket is a little more difficult, as you saw. Toni and Amber were trying to get in there, and you kind of have to think about making an extra pass. Your first instinct is to shoot. But, besides that, Odyssey's pressure, obviously she got some steals. Destiny Williams got a steal. And it's not -- it's not like we were trying to run the clock down. It just kind of happened, and obviously those aren't the shots you want, but I think we tried our best to really compose ourselves on offense, even though it was really difficult. Q. Nneka, you kind of talked about settling for your shot in the first half. I don't know if it was the plan or if what you saw was open, but looked like you were attacking more in the second half. NNEMKADI OGWUMIKE: Definitely. I think I -- when Tara mentioned, I realized yeah, I am settling, because this whole week we talked about driving the baseline, kicking across the baseline or kicking behind you. And so the pick-and-roll, we didn't think, would work as well. Because 's in there. I thought if I start hitting some outside shots, they will come out on me. But they were flying out on me regardless. My coaches helped me realize that. In the second half I started attacking. When I realized it wasn't that hard to score against her, I was like: Give me the ball, give me the ball. But also we needed to try and get offensive rebounds so we could kick it out to our shooters. Q. Neka, can you expand on what you said about attacking her wasn't as hard as you thought it would be? How much of playing is a psychological thing where it's really scary to think about doing it and talk about what the reality of it was like; that it wasn't as difficult? NNEMKADI OGWUMIKE: I think it actually was kind of -- I was definitely psyching myself out. I think I was kind of too into myself in the first half, feeling I needed to fire, fire, fire, but Tara's always told me if I'm shooting, who is rebounding. When they told me at halftime just attack -- because first play of the game I think I got the ball and I attacked I missed the layup, but I was able to get a shot off. And in the second half I just started attacking. I was like, okay, this isn't that bad. And I think it is mostly psychological. Granted, Griner, she has over 200 blocked shots, more than our whole team combined, on her career. That's amazing. But I think if you put your mind to it, and I think I did a really good job of not being scared of going in there. And my teammates had my back. I think Chiney did a good job of rebounding, even Amber, you saw Amber get a tip back, that's awesome. It's the Final Four. Even if it wasn't the Final Four, when you go out there you want to leave it all on the court. And I tried my best to play as hard as I could in whatever situation I was. Q. Toni there was a sequence, Bonnie hit the 3 but she stepped out of bounds and Chiney with the offensive foul and Nneka fouled on the other end. It was an 11-1 swing. Did that feel like a pretty tough sequence for you? TONI KOKENIS: Yeah, that hurt us because those were plays if it had gone the other way it would have been at least a little more momentum or kept the game closer, especially like a 3 or a fastbreak layup. Those are both momentum plays and to be right there and obviously not be able to finish or have them taken away was difficult, and we just weren't able to overcome the hump of that stretch of plays later in the game. Q. Notre Dame doesn't have nearly the size that you have. Is there any way that they can stay with Baylor on Tuesday? NNEMKADI OGWUMIKE: I mean, they may not have the size, but I think Devereux is one of the best post players I've played -- I can only say "with" because I played with her in USA. And Kayla McBride, she's a brute. When we were watching tape -- was it on West Virginia? -- she was guarding Bussie and Dunning, and I don't doubt it will be a good game on Tuesday. And just regarding the fact it's and then they don't really have as strong of an outside, you have Skylar Diggins, you have Natalie Novosel, you have Brittany Mallory, and obviously Natalie Anchonwa and everyone that comes off the bench. I look forward to watching it. I'm going to Stanford_-_4.01.12.doc 2
watch it. I think it's going to be a great matchup on Tuesday. I think it's going to be interesting to see -- it's a rematch as well. I think it will be interesting to see -- Baylor's a great team; Notre Dame's a great team -- to see them match up. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. In the end, why do you think you guys didn't win this game? COACH VANDERVEER: Well, in just looking at the stats, as an example, we shot one more field goal, made one more field goal than them. We sent them to free-throw line. If you look at everything else, I mean, our assists are the same, turnovers the same. We had more blocks than they did. I think there were some momentum plays. The big momentum play was the foul on Chiney driving in there. Honestly, you never know what's going to happen in games, but the game before ours seemed to be extremely physical. And this game was just the opposite to me. But I think the main thing was we sent them to the free-throw line. And I don't think we should have with the game plan we had. We're totally off of either No. 3 or 20. And 20 hit some big shots. She hit one 3. She's made ten all year. She had a couple of shots for them that she stepped up nicely. I think she gave them some momentum. But the free throws, that was a big thing. Q. Nneka just said it wasn't part of the game plan to run the clock. But the other day you said that you wanted to slow the tempo of the game. COACH VANDERVEER: No, I didn't ever say that. The question was put to me like did you learn from what other people did, and I said yes. We wanted to run on them, but we really didn't get out and go as well as we wanted to. They make things hard in terms of running your offense, so they take you out of doing your normal thing. So to try to get into alignment, to try to get to do things, it took us that long to get the floor organized and to be able to run our offense. And I thought we got some -- the first half we had some turnovers I didn't like. We had some fouls I didn't like. But we really -- we had some nice open looks and didn't knock down shots. Q. You talked about No. 3 and 20, Condrey and Madden, knocking down shots. With Baylor do you almost have to pick your poison, try to stop inside and maybe let them take some outside shots? COACH VANDERVEER: That was -- if I were to do it again, I would probably do it the same way. I think there was -- like the first play of the game Madden just drives in for a right-hand layup. That was not part of the game plan. That was we're guarding her going to the rim. There were other possessions where some of the turnovers that led to baskets. You have to keep them in front. And I think our team -- it took a lot of focus, and I think our team did a good job, but we had to do a better job. I think Nneka -- just I was happy with our defense. They shot, what, 30 something percent. But except for our fouling. And I just -- honestly I just didn't see it. We're not that a physical a team. We've never had anyone foul out all year. And I was just like -- it's just different. Q. I want to make sure I understand this correctly. You were not trying to take the full 30 seconds? COACH VANDERVEER: Correct. Q. But your team just couldn't find the shots; it seemed very deliberate, a lot more deliberate than normal. COACH VANDERVEER: I think they force you that way. We tried to get out and go. We tried to push the tempo a little bit. Honestly I think Amber got a little tired. And we just -- we weren't able to run our offense the same way. You just can't make passes that you usually make. You can't attack in the same way you're used to attacking. Although, I think finally I just said to Nneka: You've got to get the ball and take it at. She did and drew some fouls and scored. But we didn't really get much -- Nneka didn't get much help. Usually it's been Nneka and Chiney. We needed more help for Nneka. People needed to pick up offensively. Amber going 1 for 9; Jos, 1 for 6. We had some good looks. We needed to knock them down. But we're not trying to hold the ball on them. Q. It's easy to see you were Stanford_-_4.01.12.doc 3
double-teaming, but can you describe in some detail exactly what the strategy was with her? Was it just as simple as muscling her and fronting her sticking two people on her? A. It was always the person that was guarding either 3 or 20 was leaving them and just sagging in front or doubling in on her. We knew we didn't want to leave -- other teams had left -- most teams always put two people on her. And other people had left Odyssey Sims and she would light them up. They'd leave Hayden and she would light them up. We said we're going to leave those two and gamble off Madden. Besides her first layup, basically she was like 3 for 10. So that was -- I thought that was a good gamble, 0 for 2 from 3. But Condrey came in and hit a couple of shots. And Griner doubling her was a focus and staying on other people. We did not do a good enough job on Destiny Williams. I thought she got a couple of O boards on us. But defensively to me it wasn't the problem except for our fouling. And I just -- I don't know. I mean, it was different. Q. Nneka mentioned that she was getting psyched out over the Griner mystique. Was that something you were concerned with at the beginning when you were game planning for this game? COACH VANDERVEER: You know, I think that in some ways -- I think that we had really -- we watched block and block and block and block, but she didn't -- Nneka could get by her, Nneka's quickness. And probably waited a little too long but Nneka probably needed to attack her more earlier. But I thought she did a good job in the second half of attacking, going at her a little bit better. But we needed -- I just felt like we needed other people besides Nneka. If 's going to guard Nneka, then other people have to take advantage of playing against either Williams or Pope, or come off a screen and knock down a shot, either Amber or Toni or Jos open for a 3. I'm not faulting Nneka at all. I mean, if anything, maybe we should have said: You go at Griner and other people be ready to spot up and knock down some shots. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts by ASAP Sports Stanford_-_4.01.12.doc 4
2012 NCAA Division I Women s Basketball Championship April 1, 2012 Pepsi Center Denver, Colo. National Semifinals Stanford Junior Joslyn Tinkle Locker Room Quotes On her emotions after the game: We re disappointed. This was a really fun team to play on. But we re not trying to hang our heads. We re proud of ourselves, we are very proud. A lot of people didn t expect us to be here. We work extremely hard. But It s painful right now. I ve been in this spot three years now, and each year it doesn t get much better. We definitely had that big goal in mind. I thought we played well, as well as we could. We knew it was going to be a tough challenge. Baylor is a great team, [Brittney] Griner is a great player, and you have [Odyssey] Sims. We kind of gambled a little bit. We had other people come and knock some shots down. We were trying to take away from Griner. Defensively we did good, but they changed the game a lot offensively and we struggled a little bit scoring. We had people not really making shots that we re usually making. We had a great senior class. It s going to be a bummer to miss those guys and have them leave us. But we re very happy and excited to be in this position, to be here made it to the Final Four. It s stinging a little bit, but we re proud of ourselves. We worked hard. On how Baylor was able to pull away in the second half: I think it was just knocking down some shots. I thought we did a good job defensively, held Griner to seven points at half. She s very tough to guard. But I think a couple things just didn t go our way. Whether it was some offensive mistakes, we had a charge, and it s just those little things. I was missing shots and other people were missing shots. I think we maybe had lost a little bit of focus offensively, which stinks. We could never really get up, but we kept fighting, we did not give up. And that s something that we re proud of and that s something that we re always doing. We don t give up and we re going to fight to the end.
Freshman Amber Orrange On the biggest difference in the game: They are just a really great team. They made plays. I think on our side we fouled a lot and they made their free throws, so they took advantage of that. I m just really proud of my team, especially our seniors, and I m just grateful for the experience. On the biggest takeaways from the experience of the Final Four: It s definitely motivation to get back in the gym and get ready for next season. Sophomore Chiney Ogwumike On Baylor s defense and how it impacted their game plan: I think the shots were there. We weren t used to the alignments they were coming from but we got some decent looks at the basket. I think it more or less, they had game plans, we got some pretty good shots, it s just that they got some easier shots than we did, down the stretch especially. Baylor is a phenomenal team. You know it is a 40-minute ball game no matter what in this circumstance; we knew we needed to keep working. It just didn t go our way, we lost momentum. On playing against Baylor s Brittney Griner: I did as much as I possibly could. Knowing Griner, she is going to take away a lot of my shots. Two-for-four is fine for me as long as someone is making plays and someone is getting a decent shot off, then that s good. I would have loved to have contributed more, but I am most proud of myself being able to handle Griner. I fouled out, but being able to limit her in a sense and make other people step up was my goal. On playing with her sister Nnemkadi for the last time: I really wish we could have won this game just for her, knowing how much work she has put in. She left everything on the table. I think she was the best player in the game tonight. She was the best player on the court and I am proud to say that. On Stanford s season: We worked so hard this season. I think that is the only thing that is helping me bear my emotions. This group of girls I don t think anybody worked harder in the country, it s just that we weren t able to piece it together completely tonight. I think the journey we have had so far has been great. We have defied the odds, no one really expects Stanford to do anything and to be able to compete with Baylor for so long and slow
down Griner and keep things at bay until the 38th minute, I think we were pretty successful. It s a tough loss, me personally, wishing I can contribute more, but Griner is a tough person to guard. There is not much more you can do about that. I am proud of our effort.