March 18, 2012
2012 NCAA First Round at LSU
San Diego State Postgame Quotes
HEAD COACH Beth Burns
Opening comments:
"First, I'd like to congratulate Penn State and UTEP. I think they set the table with just a great game in the first game. It was a very clean game played at a high level. I think both teams really represented themselves and their conferences well. We'd like to thank the entire LSU and Baton Rouge community. We've been treated wonderfully since we've been here and your LSU fans did what LSU fans are supposed to do. We fought and scrapped as hard as we could and they wouldn't quit. I think they really gave their team some juice to keep them in the game when we were fighting them. I think Nikki (Caldwell), as I said yesterday, has done a terrific job with this team When it was money time, I thought LaSondra Barrett really stepped up.
"I'm proud of us. I'm proud of our season. The irony for us is that we're first in our league and a very good free-throw shooting team. We come in at about 74 percent and that's a little frustrating on a night like tonight. We tip our cap to LSU. When they had to make plays they made plays that were a little bit too much for us."
On whether the crowd made a big difference:
"I think they were great, but this is basketball and you play on the road. Really, we do have some really difficult venues if you've ever been to Laramie, Wyoming or New Mexico, I mean 8,9,10 thousand people that are happy that the event is going on and crazy. I think it was a good crowd, but I don't think it was anything unnatural. I think it was that LSU is really big and really long. We have a really young inside game. We do a lot of things off ball screens to get to the paint. Our bigs don't score on the block. We do everything in space. Other than Chelsea, we weren't able to turn the corner. We couldn't get around. This is not a team we want to shoot step backs on. They're too long. I thought they did just such a good job of preventing us from getting into the paint the way we needed to. It had more to do with that and then every time they'd go to the free throw line, and they made a bulk of those free throws, they went to their 2-2-1 press, which slowed us down. I talked so much coming into the game, we got to get stops because every time it goes through the net they're going to use 10 seconds getting it up the floor. They went through a stretch where I think they hit about seven of nine or seven of ten free throws and it was difficult for us to score in our half court offense. That put that much more pressure on us."
On Courtney Clements' foul trouble:
"It disrupted her offensive rhythm, because it took her out of the game. She's a player who believes she should never come out of the game. She never understands that when I do that, she thinks that's a weakness of mine, that she should be able to do that. We've kind of, all year we've been able to find a third scorer. It's never been the same guy. Chelsea and Courtney have been pretty consistent and this game we couldn't get a third guy. So her fouls, it loomed that much larger, because then it was hard to call stuff when nobody else was shooting the ball really well. Again, our bigs are little bit young. So, I think her foul trouble was more because I had to take her off the floor. There was about 14 minutes in the second half and that hurt her rhythm, and that hurt our rhythm. Not that anybody didn't step up and do what they were supposed to do, but they just don't have the ability to shoot the ball the way she does."
JUNIOR GUARD Courtney Clements
On LSU's second half defensive adjustments...
"They did a good job of being pretty physical in the second half. They pretty much face guarded me. They didn't let me get any easy looks at all and they knew where I was at all times on the floor. They did a good job."
On factor that changed tempo of game:
"I think when they started going to the free throw line. Those couple of times down they kept going to the free throw line, going to the free throw line. That kind of slowed down our momentum. We're a team, we push the ball, we push the ball, we push the ball, so they were going to the free throw line and it kind of slowed us down and kind of made us stagnant. I would say that was probably the turning point."
SENIOR CENTER Kalena Tutt
On poor free throw shooting down the stretch:
"It's just concentration. For most of our team it's the first time they've been to the NCAA Tournament. I know next year they'll be able to knock them down, when I'm not here, because now they have the experience.