Completed Event: Women's Basketball at Eastern Kentucky on March 19, 2026 , Loss , 58, to, 72
Final Score
Women's Basketball
58
at Eastern Kentucky
72
The University of Utah Athletics
Quotes from Lynne Roberts' Weekly Press Conference
3/15/2016 12:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 15, 2016
Utah Women's Basketball Press Conference
Head Coach Lynne Roberts
Mar. 15, 2016
Opening statement:
"It's nice to be back doing press conferences, which means our season is still going on so that's great. We knew we were going to make the WNIT, but we found out last night when, who or where we're going to play on Friday night at home against Montana State, a very good Big Sky [Conference] team. They were [regular season] conference champions so that will be great. It's been a long season. Basketball season is really long, you start with so much adrenaline and momentum in September and October and here we are in the middle of March and we're still going. The last time we played in the Pac-12 Tournament was two weeks ago this Thursday, which feels like a long time ago, so I know that coaches and players are eager to play again. It feels like it's been too long and this time period from when your conference tournament ends and postseason begins is a long time and to stay motivated and stay hungry is challenging, but our team is doing a good job. We're excited to be playing. We appreciate the chance to host and we're looking forward to it."
On staying motivated during a long break between games:
"That's the challenge. You have to give the players some time off, I believe, after the conference tournament, especially with the way the Pac-12 does it when you have eight, nine or 10 days from when you play until the postseason is announced on Selection Monday. We give them time off just to regroup. We had a really disappointing and devastating loss in overtime at the Pac-12 Tournament. Time gives you perspective and heals wounds so that time off helped. Until last night at about 9 p.m., we didn't know who we were playing so it's not like we could game plan or prepare for who we were playing so we've kept practices pretty short and sweet with high intensity, but very short, just to keep the team going. They're doing well. I'm sure there will be a little rust for us on Friday in the first couple minutes, but we should be okay.
"We played Thursday (Mar. 3) then we traveled home to Salt Lake City on Friday (Mar. 4). The team then had the weekend off and then we practiced Wednesday. We practiced on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday then had last weekend off and we practiced yesterday and we'll practice today."
On seniors reflecting on their careers during time off:
"This is a good group that loves playing together. I told the underclassmen on the team that someday you're going to be a senior so as much as you're fatigued right now, mentally and physically fighting and wishing this season would be over, the seniors don't want it to end ever. Someday everyone will be a senior and you want your underclassmen to treat you the way you should be treated. They've done a nice job. This is an opportunity for us to just keep playing and that's what's fun about postseason tournaments, whether it's the NCAA or the WNIT, it's just fun at this stage. It's just a chance to compete and keep playing together. The fact that we're still playing means that we had a really good year so this is the reward that you get for that. It's not a time to be grinding or feeling down, this is all of the good stuff. If a team can't get motivated to play in the postseason, they should get out of it."
On the process of this season:
"Truthfully, I didn't have a finish line in mind or an image of what that looked like. Certainly, I knew we had potential and I believe in these players, so I thought we had a shot to have a good year like we've had. It depended on staying healthy, which we did, and it depended on the players really buying in and trusting what we're trying to do and working hard. We had some bumps in the road, and every team in America has those, but good teams roll through that. They don't fold or start questioning what they're doing. Adversity is inevitable through the course of a seven-month season, whether it's a hard loss or bad week of practice, whatever it is. You could go undefeated and you're still going to hit those times. The fact that our team stuck with it despite some of those tough weeks is success to me. That was my hope [at the beginning of the season], that was my finish line. If we could keep these guys healthy, motivated, driven and pushing through then I thought we'd have a good year and achieve some great things. I never had a win count, postseason or anything like that in mind, but with that said, I'm really proud of where we're at right now."
On introducing her team to the postseason experience:
"Mostly, we just have to keep them focused. In the postseason, there can't be any drop off in desire. How you wanted to win in December and January has to be even a little bit heightened. You have to turn that up. At the end of the day, you can't have a fear of losing in the postseason. As cheesy as it sounds, the key to winning in the postseason is the joy of playing, being together and having the excitement and enthusiasm of being able to play in the postseason is the fun and good stuff. If you focus on that, you take away from outcome-based worries or stress. You just say 'Let's enjoy this.' That's my mentality and it always has been and I think it will work."
On concerns of lack of execution on offense after a lengthy layoff:
"That could be true. But for our offense, the Pac-12 Conference is no joke and you saw during the second round of playing teams [on the league schedule] with such great coaching and such great players, that teams did a good job of taking away what we were doing well. We're still a maturing team in progress with a system in progress so that's what led to [offensive struggles during Pac-12 play]. I'm hoping by next year at this time that we're just a more mature team with a more ingrained idea of what we're trying to do and better at what we do, which is a better way to say it. I don't know that it's anything more than that. I'm hoping that some time off might help us on offense, which is counter intuitive to the question. We can get our legs back a little bit. We were tired down the stretch, too. Some kids are playing a lot of minutes and that does affect everything so some rest has done us well and I hope our offense is crisp after some time off."
On Utah's all-conference selections:
"I'll start with Danielle Rodriguez. I'm really proud of her. I told her when I got the job that she could be an all-conference player. The look on her face told me that she was surprised to hear me say that, but I saw her play in high school and I knew and I coached against her when I was at Pacific and she was just a freshman in the WNIT. I knew the potential that she had so it was fun to see her develop. My big thing is the process of continuing to improve, as we've talked about numerous times, and Dani is a perfect example of that willingness to improve and trust the process. I came in and asked her as a point guard to play a completely different style than she's played for three seasons and play in a different way than she had been playing. She trusted it and went with it. As the year went on, she just continued to improve. I'm really proud of her for that and am so happy that the other Pac-12 coaches saw that and recognized not just what she does for our team, but also how much she has improved in the year that she had. She was honorable mention on the all-defensive team, too, which is great. With her speed and athleticism, I wouldn't want to bring the ball up against her. She has some length and tenacity there.
"Paige Crozon was all-conference as well. She really came through. I look back almost a year ago to when I first worked out these guys and thought she had one speed and it's full speed. She plays so hard. I was curious to see what her skill sets are, but she has really impressed me with her consistency and that's the one word I would use to describe her. I had several coaches compliment her before games when we shake hands about how impressed they are with the year that she has had and how valuable she is to our team.
"Emily Potter just had a breakout season. I've said it before, but one of the coolest things about her season is she's coming off the ACL injury where she didn't play competitively for 18 months if you go back to March of freshman year to November of this year. Coming back from that and then also with new coaches for her to have the year that she had is really impressive. She and I have already talked that this offseason is huge for her. As good as she was for us, she can get so much better. There are so many things that we can work on. The sky is the limit and we're still on the ground floor with her with how good she could be."
Favorite moments and games of this season:
"I've had a lot of great moments this season. This year has been really fun. It's fun because we've had some success, but also because the team that I inherited is just filled with great kids. They really are. They have a good sense of humor. I don't take myself too seriously so we've had a lot of laughs. That's the good stuff and the fun stuff.
"In terms of games, beating California on the road was fun. Not just because Cal has a great program, but because we were down and they showed me something that I hadn't seen, in terms of toughness and the ability to take a hit on the chops but get back up and keep fighting. That is something I'm really proud of. I want to coach teams like that. That was really a great moment, a great game, that I can circle and say that they showed me that we have what it takes."
On any games from this season she'd like to have back:
"In conference against USC, we didn't play our best and against Oregon at home we didn't play very well. USC and Oregon are very good teams, but I would love to play them again. I think we were two or three wins away from getting an NCAA Tournament bid. We beat some good teams, but we lost a couple where I thought that if we could go back and get one more shot at it, it would have been different, but at this point it's 'coulda, should, woulda.' Coaches lie awake at night and think about games like that. Those are the games I would circle."
Players Mentioned
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