Postgame Press Conference: NCAA Women’s Basketball First Round

NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship: First Round – Holy Cross vs Maryland

Friday, March 17, 2023 • College Park, Maryland, USA • XFINITY Center 

Maryland Terrapins

Brenda Frese, Brinae Alexander, Abby Meyers

Maryland – 93, Holy Cross – 61

THE MODERATOR: Thank you for joining us, everyone, we have Head Coach Brenda Frese, Brinae Alexander, and Abby Meyers.

Coach, we’ll start with an opening statement.

BRENDA FRESE: This group just continues to want to compete and play hard for each other. You can see why they’re just so much fun to coach.

I loved the start. We were ready to play. We were locked in. We came out defensively, I thought, forcing a lot of turnovers with our defense, holding Holy Cross to four points in that quarter.

Then I thought our D to O, our unselfishness, to be able to have a box where everyone scored, five players in double figures was a pretty important game.

Again, to be able to have Brinae in her first NCAA Tournament game, I loved her response coming in with a ton of confidence. That’s how we need her to be able to shoot the ball, and you can see that level of toughness. I thought with her and Abby, just, again, a lot of great plays for us.

Excited to be moving on. Understand that, as you continue through the tournament, you’ve got to be that much better. We’re going to be going against a really, really good Arizona team, but I love the way that we came out today.

Q. For Abby or Brinae, I was just wondering, when you guys are playing a press like that, that really seemed to rattle Holy Cross. They talked about the length of you guys and how it disrupted them. How much did you see it taking them out of their game plan and their offensive flow when you have a press that’s constantly forcing turnovers, you can’t really get into any sets you want to. What did you see from their offense that maybe you guys disrupted?

ABBY MEYERS: That’s the goal of our press, right? Get their nerves up, speed them up, and get a ten-second call. I think we had one of those. We were close to a few more.

It’s kind of like the bread and butter of our defense is that 12 — you know what, scratch that. You know, that press. I think, for us, we’re athletic. We’re long. We’re energetic. And that also helps motivate us, and it helps us find our effort and energies through that press.

So we’re going…