March 23, 2008

Recap | Box Score | AP Photo Gallery

Baylor Head Coach: Kim Mulkey

Opening Statement:

"Well the name of the game is survive and advance. I thought that we survived by winning. I thought the key to the game is we guarded them. They only made three three's. They usually making eight a game and as I challenged my basketball team before the game is, 'you're the leader in the Big 12 in field goal percentage defense. And you have guarded a lot of great teams in the league. And if you continue to do that throughout the playoffs you'll put yourself in a position to win.' And I though we did that tonight. We eliminated what they do best in shooting the three"

Was it the plan to run a lot using a seven-player rotation?

"We're not going to stop running, we have to do what we do well. We will sub when we can. We we're going run, you never want a slow pace game. We may slow it down against other teams, but not Fresno. We are going to run and put you at a disadvantage defensively, and we did that early."

What was the big lead heading into halftime against Fresno State or in the Texas game mentioned?

"No, I said it the other day, and I will say it again. You make sound like we lost to three rinky-dink teams, we lost to three pretty special teams. We competed in all three of those games. I don't think for one minute we ever doubted ourselves. I think sometimes you just shake the opponent's hand and say you were better than us today. Today we were the better team, and we won. I think a lot of it has to do with just defending them, and we defended them as well as we could with the understanding that you weren't going to see much help-side defense. We weren't going to allow them to get any open three's."

How do you convince your team that this will be a tough game when you are a taller team?

"I think its preparation as a coach. I think it's my personality and a little bit of all that. You see too many upsets, and you talk to them about the upsets on the men's side that you saw yesterday. You talk about it being a one game season. You talk to them about the Cinderella stories from throughout the years. More important than what you tell them its what you do in preparation. We didn't win this game today, we won it after we got beat at Texas, and what we did from that moment forward. We were able to do some things that we had in the scouting report and we certainly looked bad in some situations. We had two players foul out. I think in only one game this year we had anybody foul out, and that was at Oklahoma State, so that was new for us. I felt they did everything we asked of them."

Baylor Players:
Rachel Allison
Angela Tisdale
Melissa Jones

What was the feeling like and what the advantage is for a team like you compared to Fresno State?

Rachel: "Well, my first one was as a freshman so I obviously had the nerves of a freshman coming into a NCAA tournament and but I had great players in front of me so I just kind of followed that example and I kind of thought that was to my advantage cause they had been before and they had won it the year before so they kind of kept us calm throughout it and I think that just the trend you get more and more comfortable when you get to the NCAA tournament."

Can you comment a little bit on what Angela does in terms of the offense flowing more smoothly when she penetrates into the key and her all around floor leadership?

Rachel: "I think she's the key to our offense. She can shoot the threes and they have to get out there and guard her but she is quick off the bounce too so they have to stay down so you know she's got both options available to her and when she does get to the paint it opens up everybody else because our defenders have to help on her."

Angela, what was the difference between halftime of the Texas game in the Big 12 Tournament and the halftime now?

Angela: "I think we got a lot of rest before these games we been off for like a week or tow maybe and we got a lot of rest and we know our game plan and we just ready to play today and we came out the second half ready and we didn't want the same thing to happen."

Talk about what Kim (Mulkey) was talking about making sure that you got out there and even on you Rachel cause I know (Hayley) Munro was one of their three point shooters talk about how you all made sure that you kind of got out there and guarded even beyond the three point arc.

Melissa: "Well I know after watching film for quite some time on Fresno that we realized that not only do they shoot the three but they shoot the three with range and they they have a lot of distance on their three point shots. We wanted to eliminate shots they are capable of making so getting out there was really important for us."

Fresno State Head Coach: Adrian Wiggins

Opening Statement:

"Thank you for coming, first of all. Obviously it is a tough loss for us, at the same time we have a lot of things to celebrate this year. We are very proud of our young ladies. They have been playing on a really high level and they have been getting it done in the classroom as well and I'm very proud of them for that as a coach. I think today if you look at the game we just faced a really good basketball team and we have to give credit to Baylor. I thought that honestly, today, their players were a little bit better, and their coaches were a little bit better and that is a good thing for us because we have room to grow and they helped us today to set a vision for that. Whether it is moving on with our career or our basketball playing, we have opportunity to get better."

Coach, you said that you had to stop their second chance points; you had to a good job on the boards. It looked like it didn't work that way.

"No, we have to give them their credit. They worked hard. They made it very, very difficult on us and you know that's just what a good team does. I felt like a different player would step up and would grab a rebound when they needed to. They really, we rotated well on defense but then the shot went up and they missed and we just didn't have anybody in front of that last person for the rebound on the back side. And again we were playing a great rebounding team; we've been a really good rebounding team. They were just a little better today."

Coach on that end, can you talk about what number five, Melissa Jones, gave them? I don't know how much of her you saw on film but I don't think she's had 14 rebounds this year.

"Right, and again I think that was a product of being in the right spot, probably some good coaching and some good listening on their part. What happened was we really over rotated on everything. Which was a good thing for us. When the shot went up, there just happened to be one person over there on that backside and it was number five. She would grab the rebound. They had a couple of people do that. She's a very good player. I think she's a really talented freshman. I think she's going to be a great player for Baylor in the future."

What do you think was wrong with the Fresno State coaching? You said that earlier.

"Well, no, I just said at one point you would like to get an edge. You want to do something that gives your team an advantage. And I just really couldn't that over against, and when I say 'I', our staff couldn't really make that happen. It's not a negative, it's just that they're well coached, well prepared and I couldn't do anything about it."

Fresno State Players:
Tierre Wilson
Emma Andrews
Jelessa Ross

How brutal was this game? It seemed like you were getting hit in the face, in the hand, the leg, I've never seen you getting smashed up so much.

Tierre: "Playing in this tournament of course you are going to expect to get bumped and slapped. The coaches warned us that these refs don't call everything and that is just how they ref. They did a pretty good job, I guess you just have to keep going up to them and reminding them 'hey I'm getting slapped.' But I guess they did the best they could."

How do you feel about the game? Were you nervous at all? Do you think the team was nervous? How do you think you guys played?

Emma: "I always get nervous before a game, but I think it is a good sort of nervous. It gives you that energy, the teammates give you encouragement to get our there and play. I love when I am nervous before a game."

Tierre: "I was a bit nervous, but as soon as the ball tipped everything just went down. We got the jitters out. I've never been in this situation before but one thing that pretty much took the nervous out was the coaches. They were supporting us and believing in us and that's what pretty much helped a lot."

Baylor really stressed guarding the three. How good of a job did they do or was it a matter of you not making the extra pass to get it in, was it their height?

Tierre: "I wouldn't say we didn't make the extra pass. Yeah they are tall but I think id you scout us pretty good you know we have good shooters on the outside. So we got to get to the next level and start racking the ball. I think that is what we tried to do. I would say they just scouted us pretty good."

What are your overall thoughts on the game?

Jaleesa: "It was a tough loss but we are all pretty proud to be here."

Give us your thoughts on the season in general, considering you started off 0-6 and you made it all the way to the NCAA tournament.

Jaleesa: "Our dream was to win our conference, we did that and then we got here. We are all happy and still smiling."