Oklahoma State University Athletics
Cowgirls Preview Sweet 16 Matchup
March 26, 2014 | Cowgirl Basketball
March 26, 2014
Head Coach Jim Littell
On the performance in the opening rounds
“Well, we played extremely well. This is the time of year that you want to play your best basketball. I thought it was probably our best game that we've played in the entire year in every phase of the game. Defensively we did a good job. I think we had them confused at times. We switched defenses a little bit. It was a game that we told our players that we couldn't have one player play well – that everybody had to step up and make contributions. I think you saw that. We had four people in double figures, and we had some young players step up and play well. It was a great win going into a tough environment. Purdue doesn't lose many games there, so we felt very good about the way we performed.”
On playing in another tough environment against Notre Dame
“That may be an understatement. We're very aware of Notre Dame, how good they are. They're very deserving of the No. 2 ranking in the country. They're just— by watching the film—it's probably one of the most efficient teams I've ever seen. When I'm talking about efficient, they understand the game, they know how to play, they play well with each other, they have great balance between inside outside game, they understand change in defenses. It's just a really finely tuned machine that really understands how to play the game. They're very efficient in how they play.”
On if he thinks OSU will have to play a little bigger to combat Notre Dame post players
“We've got to have both ways prepared. We started two posts against Purdue, and then we ended up going with the four guard lineup. For us, we have to have both ways ready to make sure that we can rebound with them. We've got to also go small because that's what we do best sometimes.”
On the maturity of some of the younger players
“Brittney (Martin) was phenomenal the other night. You get 20 and 20 – somebody told me that she was three rebounds away from the NCAA Tournament record of 23. For a young lady who his 5'11”, 6-foot to go in and get 20 rebounds is remarkable. I've coached 36 years, and I don't know if I've had many kids go get 20-20 on a given night. Ro (Johnson) stepped up, especially when Tiff got hurt, and did a great job. To play in that environment and have 16 points and one turnover is pretty impressive for a freshman.”
On the importance of Katelyn Loecker's minutes
“Katelyn's important to us. She gives us energy. She's one of those high-energy kids. She's not going to score a lot of points, but she understands probably as well as anybody we have what we're trying to do defensively. Against Purdue she stepped up and took two charges in key parts of the game. She's one of those kids who is just a great teammate. She doesn't care about scoring at this point in her career. She's going to do the little things and the intangibles that help you to win basketball games.”
On if the balanced scoring against Purdue reminded him of the team that battled Baylor closely
“It did. We've had some outstanding games, and we've won some of them and lost some of them. We played Baylor very well twice. We played them well in the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament. We took them to overtime here. If you remember the last 30-seconds when we had a three-point lead, everything that could go wrong went wrong as far as lose balls, dribbling off of our leg, we probably should have fouled at some point in there. So we've played pretty well against some quality teams, and we've beat a lot of good teams. To finish third in our league, we're pleased with that. We've played a lot of good basketball this year. You look at 25 wins in the Big 12 and advancing to the Sweet 16, these kids have had an outstanding year.”
On Notre Dame being the biggest challenge thus far
“I'm not taking anything away from Baylor or what we do in our league, but this is probably our biggest challenge. Not only how good they are, but playing on their home court presents a big challenge as well. They've been very dominant on their home court if you go back and look up some scores.”
On Notre Dame being just as good, if not better, without Skylar Diggins
“They had a lot of great players last year that when you have a star like Skylar Diggins, sometimes those kids or players in waiting are just waiting to jump out and show people how good they are. I think that's what you've seen out of Notre Dame this year. Some of those kids were kind of in the shadow of Skylar Diggins, and they're no longer in her shadow.”
On what the team is focusing on during practices
“We're just toning up the things that we've done all year long. I don't think that it's an advantage trying to change things at this point in the season. We're just trying to be very sharp about what we're doing. We limited our practice to an hour a day. We're trying to go into this game with fresh minds and fresh bodies and getting everybody healthy.”
On how important Brittney Martin has been
“Just monster numbers, she's just put up tremendous numbers. I don't recall ever having anybody for 20 and 20. Maybe Toni Young did a few times, but for a 5'11” small forward or a big guard to go in there and get 20 rebounds is pretty remarkable. She had 15 the game before against Florida Gulf Coast. She had 15 against Baylor in the semifinals, and she had 11 against Iowa State. She's done a great job on the boards.”
On Tiffany's impact against Notre Dame
“Tiffany has been our leader here for four years. We need to get her healthy where she's feeling comfortable and where she can go full speed again. Tiff is the key to our team and always has been.”
On when the team was going through a streak of winning a game and then losing a game
“That's the No. 1 question that I've had to answer over the last two weeks, and I think there's one or two things you can attribute that to. I think our schedule on the front half was more favorable. I think the second thing was, we got in a four or five game situation where we didn't play as well as we were before we went in a little bit of a slump during that time of year. I think the No. 1 thing was, it's called the Big 12. The Big 12 is a grind. I've heard, 'Well you won one, you lost one.' Everybody in our league except Baylor, West Virginia and Oklahoma State lost multiple games back-to-back. You look at Iowa State— they started the season 3-0 and lost four in a row. Texas was playing extremely well, and they went on a three game skid. OU had some games where they lost back-to-back. If you take the glass half full or half empty theory, we did pretty well because we were the team that didn't lose consecutive games within our league. It's just a tough conference to play in.”
On the differences between the men's and women's game
“You see the Mercer's of the world stepping up and beating Duke, but you don't see as many upsets on the women's side, because you're not playing at a neutral site. We went in and had to play at West Lafayette and played Purdue and got a great win in a very tough environment. Now we go into a hornet's nest going in to Notre Dame. That's the major difference between the men's game and the women's game, the neutral sites.”
Guard Tiffany Bias
On her injury situation
"I've been pretty lucky about not getting hurt. If anything, it would be a bump or bruise, anything you can get rehabbed. I've always gotten back on the court. There hasn't been a game I've missed because of injuries."
On Roshunda Johnson's performance against Purdue
"She did an unbelievable job. That's what a point guard should do. She stepped up as a freshman and did a great job. I'm proud of her. I've been coaching her the whole way. She's a great player on top of that, so it's not that big of a surprise to me that she stepped up and played well, because we know that she can do that."'
On going to the Sweet 16
"I am so excited to go to the Sweet 16. It still hasn't hit me. It's an exciting time. This is a special team. I am so excited about this team and what we can do. We're all clicking right now, and it's great."
On Brittney Martin
"Brittney is great. 20 and 20, you can't really beat that. That's a pretty remarkable night. She's just a great player all-around. When you have that and everybody else contributing in their own way, that's a special team. Brittney is a special player. We feed off her. When she's hot, we're going to give her the ball."
Center LaShawn Jones
On the ups and downs of the Purdue game
"When Tiffany (Bias) went down, we knew that we had to win that game for her. We always have our ups and downs, but we know that we're going to stick together and try to get all of the wins that we can."
On playing two-straight NCAA tournament games on the opponent's court
"We're blessed to be here, so we're going to take this chance and try our best to beat them. They're a really great team and we're just going to go out there and give it our all."
On playing undefeated Notre Dame
"They're a really good team. We give them credit for that, but we are going to try our hardest to win. I'm already hyped to play. After we beat Purdue, I was already excited to play them."
On getting back to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2009
"We're really happy we got back to the Sweet 16. Hopefully we can keep getting further and further in the tournament as the years go on."
Guard Roshunda Johnson
On being able to step up against Purdue
“It felt pretty good. I was kind of prepared for it. We work toward this every day in practices and Tiffany (Bias) pushes me and tells me what I need to do to be a good point guard. So, I was pretty prepared and just went out there and did what I knew I had to do.”
On what she has learned from this season
“I learned that you have to be in really good shape to play this game. You have to keep working. You can't take any plays off as a point guard. You have to step up when times get rough. When you're playing a tough team, even if you're down, you have to pick your team up and be the point guard.”
On falling in line after Tiffany Bias
“It feels pretty good. When I first got here, I knew at some point I was going to have to take the lead. I knew Tiffany Bias was a senior coming so I had to learn from her and do stuff outside in order to be where she is right now.”
Guard Brittney Martin
On if she realized how close she was to breaking the all-time NCAA Tournament record for rebounds in a game
"No, I really didn't. I was just dedicated to getting any rebound I could get. I think it benefited us a lot, too. I think if you subtract the 20 rebounds from what we had, that would have made a huge difference in the game, both for them and for us."
On how the team plans to rebound against Notre Dame's size advantage
"You have to kind of get them off balance. You can't just stand in one spot and try to jump. You have to get momentum on them instead of just standing there. I guess I'm just going to do the same thing I did last game. I'm going to hustle, play hard and try and get the team ready to play the game."
On the overall challenges of facing Notre Dame
"They're a really good team. They're going to have a huge crowd, and I think I heard it was already sold out. Even if it's not, they're going to have a big crowd, and that's something that we will have to overcome. It's tough to play in other places, especially at their home court. They're undefeated, and that's insane. I think they're just a good team, and we're going to have to bring our A-game for the entire game."
On if playing at Purdue will help the team in another game on the opponent's court
"Yeah, it does, but every team plays different. They have different people, different players and different coaches, so the atmosphere is kind of the same, but playing is really different. We're pretty familiar with the atmosphere, though, especially with the places we play at in our conference."
