#1 BYU 72, #9 Air Force 40
3/7/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 
March 7, 2007
BYU
THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Brigham Young University head coach Jeff Judkins, student athletes Mallary Gillespie and Melinda Johnsen.
Coach, if you want to start with some opening remarks.
COACH JUDKINS: We're glad we pulled this off tonight. It's hard playing Air Force. They're so well coached and disciplined and play so hard. If you're not ready to play, they'll come out and punch you and fight. You know, I think my team knew that tonight.
Of course, losing Dani Wright early in the game was a scary moment. But I think you saw tonight that we have other players that can step it up. I was really proud of our team. I thought a couple players realized they had to do a little bit more offensively. I think they took it upon their shoulders. These two young ladies next to me I think really took it upon themselves to look a little bit more at the basket.
But I'm real happy for my team. It's good to see Cheesman and Cassie and Shawnee get some good minutes tonight and get some confidence. Ashley has worked very hard. To be able to come in tonight and get some quality minutes I really think will help her confidence for this tournament.
THE MODERATOR: Let's have questions for the student athletes.
Q: Mallary, what passed between the players when Dani went down?
MALLARY GILLESPIE: Huge part of our offense, big defender, helps out tons. We knew like right off the bat we had to step it up in different ways and help each other out more. We all got together, we're all right; we can still do this. Just need to slow down a little bit and look to score different ways and defend in different ways.
Granted, we have been able to be in like foul trouble this year, so it wasn't too new because she's been out with foul trouble a bunch this year so we've been kind of experienced in that.
But we knew we had to step it up as soon as she went out.
Q: Melinda, not normally like you to be looking for your shot like that. How important could that be to the team for you to be looking for more of those shots this weekend and in the future?
MELINDA JOHNSEN: Don't kid yourself. There's only three shots in there (smiling).
I know for my team I'm kind of unselfish I guess you could say when it comes to the offensive end. I feel confident in what I do offensively. I know when the shot's there for me, I'm going to take it.
Yeah, like Mal said, when one of your players goes down that you're looking to go to a lot you start looking at different things and you make adjustments. When she went down, I think it opened things up for us because, you know, usually everyone's worrying about Kubik. It kind of freed things up for us a little.
Q: Do you know what the status of Dani Wright is? How do you like your chances to win the tournament without her?
MELINDA JOHNSEN: I think for right now she looks like she's going to be back for us. Just kind of both Shawnee and her got just some tweaks in their ankles. They should be back for us on Friday.
THE MODERATOR: Ladies, we'll let you go. Thank you.
COACH JUDKINS: Thank you, ladies.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Judkins.
COACH JUDKINS: Basically I think Mallary hit it on the head with that same question. We've been used to Kubik being in foul trouble a lot. This team has had to deal with it. The reason I didn't play her in the second half is because the trainer told me if I didn't play her she'd have a lot better chance of recovering and playing on Friday.
I told the trainer, No matter what, if we were going to lose the game I wasn't going to put her in the game. That's why I went in at halftime and I really got into Riley and Cassie King and said, Hey, I'm not playing her. It's up to you two. You better step it up or I'm going to go small. I'll go five smalls and run five man motion, trap, and do those things.
I think by those things I got Riley a little fired up, realized she needs to take the load because next year it's going to be her. It's going to be her in the paint scoring it.
That's what's so good about this team. I think you just hear the two, they take what the TV gives them. They've been that way the whole year. One night it's Mallary, one night it's Keele, Slade, Kubik. I think that's why this team has been special. Hasn't been just one person. It's been a team effort.
It's been a lot of fun to coach that.
Q: You call Dani Wright Kubik?
COACH JUDKINS: Her real name to all of us is Kubik. She got married this summer. It's been hard when you've been yelling at a kid for three years and then change it to Wright. I have done a pretty good job with Jennie Keele. She's married, but she's been married a little bit longer. I've been able to adjust. Plus I can pronounce Keele a lot better than her other name. Maybe that's part of it.
You know, I'm real proud of this team because they could have got really discouraged when she went down and kind of like, What's up? But they came together in that timeout, looked at each other, said, Hey, let's to it.
Q: Knowing you're coming into this game as a big favorite, did you accomplish today what you wanted to accomplish as a coach with your team?
COACH JUDKINS: I think so. It was good to be able to have Cheesman come in and play as well as she did. I think Jennie Keele played a lot better tonight than she has the last couple games. Mallary seemed to be more in the flow. Our last game with TCU she was kind of not moving a little bit too quick. I think Riley, second half especially, came in a lot more physical and doing it.
It's hard. I mean, you know, I started seeing all those guys go down. I'm going, I don't have that deep a bench and everything. But I think it was good for us to get in this tournament. Usually the first game is hard. I don't know what causes it. I don't know if it's because it's a tournament, you have practice on the court. But it was nice to get that out of the way.
You know, when you work hard during the conference, to be able to play either the eight or ninth team, that makes it a little bit easier for you.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
COACH JUDKINS: Thank you very much.
Air Force
THE MODERATOR: Joined now by United States Air Force Academy head coach Ardie McInelly and student athletes Letricia Castillo and Alecia Steele.
Coach, if you would start with couple comments on the game.
COACH McINELLY: I'd like to congratulate BYU. They're a very good team, many weapons. They certainly outplayed us tonight on both ends of the court offensively and defensively.
I really believed the first part of the game, I thought we did a pretty good job of staying with them, then all of a sudden, who was it, Dani Wright goes out? I thought, Man, we might have a chance, you know.
But a team like BYU, they saw that one of their main players had gone out and they picked it up and they played even better. They just took it to us. We never did respond.
I give a lot of credit to them, what they've done, the job that Jeff Judkins has done, as well as his assistants. We have a ways to go. We feel very privileged that we even had an opportunity to play them. I'll turn it over to my players.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Letricia or Alecia.
Q. Alecia, when you look at the last two nights, won a tournament game last night, tonight did you step back a little bit? How do you assess the two nights?
Alecia Steele: Yesterday or last night I think we were a little more focused. We stuck to our game plan. Today we started out pretty good, and then we lost focus. We didn't make smart decisions. Basically that's what happened. The team that was there last night was not there tonight.
Letricia Castillo: We just didn't have the same intensity and focus that we had last night. It's kind of unfortunate because we started off pretty well against them, but we lost our intensity. We just didn't make the smart decisions that we made last night. Our defense wasn't on point like it was yesterday. If we would have played like we played last night, I think it could have been a different game.
THE MODERATOR: Ladies, thank you. We'll let you two go. Questions for Coach McInelly.
Q. Would you address that same thing as far as how you look at the two nights, made a step forward last night, and did you take two steps back tonight do you think or what?
COACH McINELLY: I thought last night we played a 40 minute game. I thought tonight we didn't do that. Granted, BYU is No. 1 in our conference for a reason. As I said, they have many players that can come in and score, whether it be Wright or Riley or Gillespie or Johnsen. You know, they're No. 1 for that reason in that many people on their team can step up.
We've relied on a couple people on our team throughout the year. When those couple people are shut down, then we struggle. It is our goal to hopefully continue to recruit players that can come in, we can have winning records.
It was night and day from last night to tonight. But it was certainly due to BYU, I think their outstanding defense, I think their solid offense. It's a team that will not only do well in this conference tournament but will continue to go on and do well in the NCAAs.
As I said, I have a lot of respect for them, what he's done there at BYU. If there's any BYU papers, make sure you put that in there so people cheer for us instead of boo for us when we go to the Marriott Center.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you.
COACH McINELLY: Thank you.
