2009 NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship

Bank of America Arena, Seattle, Wash.; Mar. 21

First Round – Game 1 Pittsburgh vs. Montana

Montana Post-Game Quotes

Head Coach Robin Selvig

Opening Statement: “I want to say Pittsburgh is a heck of a team. I wish them luck; they did a great job tonight. Still not sure quite what happened in the second half, but I’m sure they were responsible for it. They did a great job on us. We couldn’t make a basket, and that makes it a hard game.”

On what he said to the seniors after the game: “I said I was proud of them and told them I loved them. They’ve had a heck of a run. It’s tough. They’re a proud team with some proud seniors to have a half like that. And it’s a heck of a team that did it. That’s the consolation. We didn’t really give them anything, they took it. Shavonte [Zellous] she was huge. She shot it in for them on the offensive end. It takes a long time to get over something like that. We have good competitors who play hard and win lots of games and it’s no fun to lose like that. That’s just the way it is.”

On Pitt’s press: “I think we only had 14 turnovers for the game. I think the key for their press was that it was one spurt. I think we turned it over three times and it was layups. It was the same press. The kids are good, they anticipate and slowed down our offense and we had to do different things. It generated four or five baskets at a time and then we couldn’t make a shot. It’s just weird to me how that thing just slipped away. They didn’t score in that many spurts. They had that one and then they didn’t score for a while. But we were stuck on two (points) for about 15 minutes, so they didn’t need a big spurt. They got hot late and made a couple of runs. But when you think a press really took you apart, you usually have 20 turnovers. There was a couple spurts where they did and it was effective for them.”

On playing a physical game with Pitt: “It’s just the nature of the game. They’re a big, strong, athletic team, but I thought that we battled. I honestly thought, defensively, we did a pretty good job. They ended up with 64-something, and they’re hard to defend because Shavonte can create so much. We just had to score more to hang with them. We can’t shut them down; they’re too talented and too good. Yeah, it was physical. But you won’t watch an NCAA game that isn’t.”

Senior Britney Lohman

On Montana’s struggles in the second half: “Yeah, I think we started out great defensively and we held them. We were able to make a few shots now and then to kind of pull ahead with the lead for a while. It gave us great momentum. They started hitting and answering and it kind of slowed down our offense. Not hitting a few shots swung the momentum in their direction.”

On the difficulty of Pitt’s press: “It just seemed that our composure faltered a little bit. But other than that, it was the same press from the first half and we were just struggling a little more. Nothing was changing.”

On halftime strategy: “Rob just complimented us on our defense. We had been playing defensively very well. We were all very confident that we were going to come out and have a great second half. That wasn’t the case. So that was unfortunate.”

On limiting Pitt’s transition opportunities: “We’re more of a half-court team. We were battling down low, and that was helping us slow down their offense and forcing them to make shots and being in position to rebound. I think that really helped us a lot, because I think we were leading on the boards for a bit in the first half. But they put that press on, and kind of got a little run going on and it all started falling apart then.”

Senior Sonya Rogers

On the Montana fans who traveled to Seattle: “It was definitely great. At home we have a great following, and after last weekend everybody was ready to come out. [The fans] were awesome and I thank all of them for coming out.”

On Montana’s first-half: “I just wish we could have done the whole game like that. We had a great first half. We had some great shots in the second half and they were just not falling for us.”