bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the games against Nevada and San Jose State?
Darin Spence: It was an interesting week to say the least. We put ourselves in position to win on the road at Nevada but just didn't quite get it done. But then we came back and took care of business with San Jose. The San Jose game was kind of rough. I think we were just a little emotionally drained from the game at Nevada so we played a little ugly at the beginning of the game but at the same time we made San Jose play that way as well. In the second half I thought we did a pretty good job and got rid of them and took care of our business. All in all we finished fourth in the league and we'll move on and get ready for the tournament.

bc.net: Your thoughts on the team and your prospects as you head to the WAC tournament?
DS: I think first of all the WAC race was interesting for us this year. Going into it we were picked fifth and sixth in the coaches and media polls. We've got a new team heading into this year, a couple transfers, kids who hadn't played in a year and trying to mix a new group together and had a pretty good first semester and so our expectations and hopes were pretty high going into the WAC season. I think we rode this group really hard first semester and came away with some big wins and I think sometimes with a new and inexperienced group it kind of wears on you once you get into second semester.

Plus those other teams in our league, the WAC was good this year. It was the 12th ranked RPI league in Division I this year. We didn't pull out some wins that we probably could have, I won't say we should have, we beat the bottom end teams and the teams ahead of us beat us. We had chances to beat Nevada twice and chances to beat Idaho twice. I think finishing fourth is a good position for us. Going in every year we're always looking up at Fresno, La. Tech, Nevada and Boise to begin with, we took care of Boise but Idaho has a good team. They're much much better than what their record might indicate.   Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the past two games against Idaho and Utah State?
Darin Spence: In some areas we've improved. I think the biggest area we needed to improve on was just fighting through some down times in games and not letting a poor defensive possession affect our offensive possession and vice versa, not let a letdown on the offensive end create problems down on our defensive end and it's been a work in progress all year long. I just think that maturity can cure that, playing experience with each other. I think slowly but surely we're turning the corner and seeing improvements in that area. It was obvious when we came out in the second half against Utah State. I think we just hit a whole other level and took them out of some things they wanted to run and offensively we executed better, got better shots and we scored which is always going to allow you to shoot a better field goal percentage. We've seen some promising play down the stretch. The Idaho game before that, we should have won that one but we made some mistakes there, mostly that was some shooting percentage and free throw things. Overall I think we're playing much better now and it's the time of the year you want to do it. It's an exciting time. We've got two regular season games left and we go into the tournament. It's right there in front of us.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the wins over San Jose State and Boise State last week?
Darin Spence: We needed them obviously. We're trying to stay in that top group of the league race. Road wins are big, especially against the couple of teams we're supposed to beat. Doing it o nthe road is that much better. The home win with Boise, we hadn't closed a couple games out at home and let a couple slip. It was nice to see us develop a little bit of a backbone and finish off that home game and get the sweep over Boise. Boise is a good team. They've got a lot of experience, they've won the league title before. It was pretty gratifying to win that game and get the sweep over them. It keeps us in the hunt. We're fourth place by ourselves and we definitely control what's going to happen to us.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the Nevada loss on Saturday. The game was really a tale of two halves but the first half showed the potential of your team.
Darin Spence: It's so us. I chuckle about it now but I assure none of us were at the time. It was one of those best of times worst of times situations. It showed how good we could be and the reason we were able to play so well in the first half is we defended. We got out and defended and everything came off our defensive effort. Our easy baskets, our defensive rebounding, forcing turnovers, making them shoot tough shots. This team really just grasped the idea and the concept of defending first and it really shows that if we can do that and be committed to that, what we can do and what level we can play at. Nevada is a really good team. They're explosive, they do a lot of good things, good weapons, good experience. But then if you do that you go into halftime and you're thinking "how are we going to keep this going?" I'm a big believer that teams and players always go back to their percentages in shooting, so we're trying to get across to our players that we don't need to match that, we just need to play well and limit our mistakes in the second half and just play with some energy. But it's really hard to duplicate that effort for another 20 minutes especially when you know the other team is going to come roaring back. It just seems like we came out in the second half and did a complete 180. We tried to outscore them which led to a lot of bad shots, quick shots, wrong people shooting. Our floor balance wasn't good so they would get runouts and easy baskets and we just didn't have that same mindset we had to start the game out with which was defending and then letting our offense come. That was disappointing. Even through it all we had a chance to win the game, we gave up two late rebounds off their missed free throws. It was just a very disappointing end for all of us.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the Idaho loss?
Darin Spence: We showed a sign that we hadn't shown in a long time. Our kids watched tape of Idaho and came away with the wrong impression of the team we were about to play. We hadn't done that since we played North Dakota. By that I mean they watched the tape, looked at the team's record and thought we'll just show up and we'll be okay. It directly affected our mental preparation and our focus during the game. We played in way too many spurts. We'd go on a run and get a lead and then we would take steps backwards and let them back in it and we did that all night long. We could never get in a positive flow which is why we let them back in it and ended up losing the game. It was disappointing to see our team do that. It had been a long time since we'd done that. It was obviously something we had to correct.

bc.net: In the couple days leading up to your game against Utah State what did you see in practice that gave you a better feeling about the team than what you had immediately after the Idaho loss?
DS: After the Idaho game we stayed in the locker room for a long time. We talked about a lot of things that can go wrong that are out of our control so we just have to focus on the things we have control over. The biggest issue for that three game stretch that we had lost, we weren't playing offensively as well but we had stopped defending how we're supposed to defend. We had taken a really big step backward in the defensive effort and a lot of that I think is the result of us being able to score points this year. So we entered games where we thought we'd just go outscore people. We had to get our minds redirected. So we came back on Thursday and practiced really hard and all of it was defensive play. It was just the fact that we had to get out and compete harder and pressure the ball and get in the right spots. We had to work harder defensively. We didn't practice at all on Friday. We came into the gym on Friday morning and shot the ball and then traveled and got in there late and then went to Utah State's arena and shot for about 30 minutes and that's about all we did. It was a matter of us fixing ourselves and getting back and defending harder. I thought we did a really good job of that during the Utah State game for the most part, we had some breakdowns but when you've got your confidence down after losing three in a row you always have that moment of "Here we go again" kind of a thing. We had a few of those bumps but overall I thought we defended really well. We defended the post well and we got good backside help and we needed to because we didn't shoot the ball very well. It was a good grind out win for us.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the Fresno State game last Wednesday?
Darin Spence: It was not one of our better efforts. I think a lot of the reason was I think mentally we were drained and we played that way. We played hard but mentally we were a little fatigued. I think a lot of that has to do with we had won six in a row, we had won some big games and we were riding them hard to try to keep that going and get better but if you look at the makeup of our roster, we've got a lot of kids who have not been through that yet nor have they been through that kind of a thing together. It's something we're still learning, how to keep a winning streak going. But a six game winning streak is good especially with some of the teams we beat. I thought mentally we were a step behind. But we still competed, we gave ourselves a chance down the stretch but we just didn't play the way we envisioned ourselves playing that game. Fresno has got a lot of experience. Their juniors and seniors, all they know is winning WAC titles. They knew that was a big game and they came in and really did a good job. It was something we can learn from without question.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the Boise State win, you erased a late seven point deficit to force overtime and then won in overtime.
Darin Spence: That's a game where we played both poorly and well in long stretches and it just seemed like early in that game I think we thought we were going to just go ahead and outscore them rather than defend them and playing like we like to play. Once we got it figured out just under the last media timeout we figured out we better start guarding and getting some stops and we did that and that just created some better scoring opportunities for us as well. We challenged them a little bit at that last timeout and they responded and got it into overtime and then just took the overtime over.

bc.net: You won that game against Boise State despite being outrebounded by 14 but you guys did a great job on the fast break and a great job on turnovers.
DS: Yeah we did. I'm one that I don't get too crazy about did we outrebound somebody or did we not outrebound somebody because a lot of times that's not a true indicator of how the game turned out, just like there are games that are closer than the final score shows. If I miss a lot of shots yeah there are going to be a lot of rebounds and the other team is probably going to get them. Our tradeoff is we want to be a better defensive rebounding team. Sure, we want to get offensive rebounds but by defensive rebounding you're going to limit the other teams shots. We might not get on some nights a lot of offensive rebounds but that doesn't mean that it's really hurting us a lot. You just find a way and we got out in the break and that's just the way we're trying to get this done, just find a way, no matter how long it takes or whatever we need to do, we're just trying to find a way.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the game against N.M. Highlands, you went in with a 10-point lead at halftime but then put together one of your best defensive performances in a half and they didn't make a field goal until there was 4:35 left in the game.
Darin Spence: When we went into halftime of that game we weren't upset with how we played in the first half but we just thought something was missing. Of course human nature, you have a little letdown because you're not playing an opponent who you think is at a higher level. We talked about that at halftime and we just discussed the idea that what we're doing now is going to help prepare us to play for a WAC title down the road and so it's all connected. The kids did a really good job of playing in the second half and playing more to our identity which is our team defense and making people play defense on the other end and moving the ball. I thought we took a huge step forward in that game and just kind of pulled away. Of course the talent level is different but Highlands they do some good things, they're gonna to win some games in their league with the way they play. I thought they battled and just kind of ran out of gas.

bc.net: Yesterday you hosted No. 21 Kansas and it was a huge opportunity for your team and in the first half you didn't let them get out of reach in the first five to 10 minutes of the games and you really started to force them to play your kind of game.
DS: I noticed that when our players are really on top of things we've got a chance to be pretty good on both sides of the ball in all aspects of the game. Kansas made the choice that they were going to guard tight and they were going to stay tight on Madison and Danisha and they were not going to let them be the scorers. So that left of course Crystal and Jasmine and Tabytha one-on-one with their defenders and they did a good job of shooting good shots. Of course sometimes Crystal gets carried away with some of her shot selection but she did a very very good job of taking good shots and of course she made them. But she also played very good defense and she rebounded defensively and that kind of fueled her energy on the offensive end. Jasmine got in early foul trouble and picked up some interesting calls so she didn't play quite as much in the first half and we went back to Madison playing the point in a long stretch towards the middle and end of the first half and we just did a good job of recognizing who was scoring and played against their pressure. I just thought we battled really well defensively, we rebounded okay, good enough. I just think our kids are starting to understand where to be defensively and how to help and recover and we just took a big big step forward. We weren't in awe of them and we battled toe-to-toe.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: You had a nice week and picked a couple of good wins over Alcorn State and UTEP especially given the fact that it was the holiday break.
Darin Spence: We've taken some small steps forward. The Alcorn State was an interesting game because you had the Christmas break coming and everybody was going home the next day and you're just coming off the New Mexico game and you've got UTEP right around the corner. It was one of those games that you worry about. We could take it for granted or we could get out and compete. I thought for the most part our kids did just that. We found ways to play in spurts and took care of business and then turn around and bounce back with the game at UTEP after being off a couple days, it's always nerve wracking to see if your timing is going to be back and will you settle back into what you were doing before. We had some moments offensively down at UTEP where we were trying to score too quickly. We were just kind of going to fast. Once we settled in and moved the ball and made them play defense we were shooting high percentage shots and getting to the free throw line. I thought we defended really well for the majority of the game down there and came out with a really big win.  Continue Reading This Post >>

bleedCrimson.net: Your thoughts on the UTEP game? You had a strong first half and had a 13 point lead and then jumped ahead by 21 then UTEP made a comeback and took the lead but you held on for the win.
Darin Spence: Yeah, that was definitely the rollercoaster ride there. We came out of the gates and played really well on both sides of the ball. I think we kind of smacked them in the nose and surprised them a lot. We executed offensively and defensively and had to play through some early foul trouble as well through the game. It was very encouraging to see how we started the game, moreso how we started the second half. I thought we came out and really took it to a whole other level. But at that point in time they called a timeout we were so emotional, it's like we shot all the water out of our water pistol. Then it was like, "uh oh" they started to come back on us. It was a real interesting game but I was happy to see us hit a level as the games move on we can play at for longer stretches and for a lot more games in a row.  Continue Reading This Post >>