California vs. Washington State

Jan. 29, 2016 | Haas Pavilion | Berkeley, Calif.

Head Coach Lindsay Gottlieb

Opening statement:

“It was a fun game, and a lot more fun when you win. I'm proud of how our team carried themselves the whole game. I said to them in the locker room 'We looked like the team from nonconference,' moreso in our energy and effort. We still made a lot of mistakes. We're a young and imperfect team but we can be really good when we just play through those mistakes and just do the good things we can do. I loved our resilience. I loved how our team prepared this week. Washington State is really good. We know they can get streaky and hot from three -- obviously, they did that in the second half when we gave them some open looks. But we did a good job figuring out where we had to get the ball and we cut down on the turnovers in the second half and just happy to get a win and happy for our players to be able to enjoy themselves and realize what they can do when they stick together.”

On the game winning play:

“Well, the thing about Washington State's defense — a matchup zone — you can't really count on anything. You need players who are able to make reads throughout the progression of a possession. I thought we actually grew up a lot throughout the game, because it's new until you've done it before. So when we run our man sets, you can't count on the first look being there sometimes, although, it is sometimes. So we had a multi-look possession and obviously the first look was to Kristine Anigwe on a lob, second look was to Kristine on a duck in. And I said 'Mikayla Cowling is going to be in that corner' she likes the opposite corner behind the defense. So I actually thought Asha Thomas did a really good job going through her progression of reads and not panicking. She looked at all of them and they did a good job of sandwiching Kristine and I thought (Thomas) made a great decision and Mikayla Cowling made a great one as well. Whether she could sweep along the baseline and score or just decide to give us the lead right there with the three. So that worked out well. I'm just so proud of them. Like I said before. We have players that if they were older kids we would be able to defer. They would be able to sit and watch someone else. But throughout the course of the season you see Mikayla Cowling doesn't get the chance to defer. Sorry. Turnover on the last play? I still need you to take the big shot. Kristine Anigwe doesn't get the chance to be a freshman or a normal freshman and watch the game. So as they learn on the fly it's fun to do the things that's maybe not as fun — to see some of the growing pains. But I'll take this group anytime and we'll fight through it.”

On why Washington State was able to make so many threes:

“We're mixing up our defenses in general. Courtney Range started guarding the three early in the game and I thought she did a great job limiting looks and our zone had a lot of energy than it has had in the last few games, — just taking away looks. They all got hot, though, in the second half. At that point it gets a little contagious and when any of them put it up it looks like it's going to go in. But they're a super good team that can get their streaky three-point shooting going.”

Kristine Anigwe:

On playing through adversity:

“We just trust each other and just played for each other so if we were getting a turnover, we just said that we were going to make a shot and we were playing hard every possession and not taking anything for granted. I think that was what helped us get this win tonight."

Mikayla Cowling:

On her game-winning shot:

“We were running a play for Kristine actually. We knew that they were going to sink in because she's been hot the whole game and they were collapsing in the paint. So we got the ball in and we were looking for every option we had in that play and I happened to be open in the corner. I was feeling a little confident so I knocked it down and the crowd went crazy. It was really good energy and I'm really happy we got the win today.”

On the mentality of the team:

“Coming off of a losing streak is always tough to come back and try to keep playing. We stayed together this game and had that mentality of 'always play hard'. They started hitting threes and the good thing that we did today was that we didn't become discouraged by their shot making and we just thought 'keep going, it's ok they're going to make threes and they're good three point shooters' but just we just kept playing together and I think that it was really important for us to communicate and just stay together throughout the whole thing.”