to be into falterable that early into the game as coach Holberg joins us now on Cougar Postgame. If I could speak with losing my voice, it would feel very good. That was our goal. I mean, in your We've had some great teams here.
We have great individuals. We won 30 games, 31 games, conference number one, the only goal that's escaped is getting to the final four. And now we're here. I think it was probably shot selection, but you want to look like you want to rip out your hair.
Was it really the shots in the fourth quarter that you guys weren't really setting up your offense that was really giving you those frustrations? Well, what it was, is our shot selection became their best defense. They weren't guarding us. They couldn't take the ball away.
And we weren't milking the clock. Now, it's hard to blame somebody who's a good shooter for taking a wide open shot. But that same shot would have been available 15, 20, 35, not 35, 25 seconds later. We just shot too quickly and gave them the ball back.
Now, all of those shots are great when they're going in. You know, when you make the shot, you know, talk about milking the clock and shot selection. So we were trying our best to put them back in the ball game. I gave them the ball back about five seconds later.
And then after they gave it to us. So that's what I was a little dissatisfied with is knowing when, you know, a good shot is, knowing when the clock is, you're taking care of the clock. As a veteran coach like yourself, I mean, you've been here before. Obviously you have to adjust on the fly on the sideline.
And of course, we talked about it in Operating Collins, one of the best front-court players, if not the best front-court players in the country gets involved trouble early. You have to rely on Sammy Pollock, she stepped up big tonight. How did that work out for your team? I told Sammy in the locker room, I said, you never know when your number is gonna be called.
You know, you sit there all year long. You haven't got your chances because you're such a great post player. It's hard to take a round of a ballgame. So therefore, your second streak post gets a lot less time.
So we found trouble tonight. I went with Sarah in the first period. And then I kind of give Sam your shot. It was a little bit more physical.
And she came up big. She was ready. What her number was called? Yeah, we were obviously expecting, you know, the size advantage of you guys to be the big key here.
And obviously, Brittany Callant said, you know, having the most rebounds, second most rebounds in the game, we're going to student 27, she had 23. Did you expect that much though? Because Brittany Callant seemed like the key to you guys having a 19-0 run in the first quarter. Well, I mean, that's the whole thing with Brittany.
The other team has to have a very good post player in order to stop her. And Brittany, the last foul that she picked up by the sideline over there. Yeah, coaches could say, oh, that's aggressiveness. Well, I don't know if I'd call it aggressiveness or not, because during the time out, I said, no, Brittany, you can't pick up the fourth.
You can't pick up the fourth. Okay, coach. So what did she do? Go out and jump somebody and pick up the fourth.
It was aggressive. She was going for a loose ball. But when you're playing as good as she was and dominating the game, you don't pick up the fourth regardless of what, you know, pitching that early in the ball game. So she had all those statistics.
It didn't play 14 minutes of the game. And she still had 21 points and 23 rebounds with 14 minutes on the bench. Last question for me, coach, is I was really impressed by the timing of your timeouts when you decided to call them during the game, especially when, obviously, going on a 19 all run, that was huge. And then they were the storm a bit kind of cutting to that deficit.
What was the thinking in calling the timeouts when you did? And what was the message being stressed? Well, some of the particularly I was, you know, I thought we were tired tonight. I thought we looked very tired again.
It's my decision to play a lot of minutes with the starting team when they're jelling. But over the course of three games in a row, and players out there playing 40 minutes a game, I was trying to call some of the timeouts just as I sit here. This is a break for you. This is a coffee break.
I want you to, this is a timeout. So you get your energy because we missed a couple of those balls today that we normally get just because somebody beat us to the ball. So most of that, and then you're always trying to step out the other teams for momentum. You don't want to have a slice all the way down your lead in the six or seven points and then say, OK, now it's time to call the timeout.
You've got to try to take the momentum away from that team when you've got a big league before it slices down to a small lead. So we try to get it, I never want to get under ten when they're coming back at us. Final thing, Coach, obviously I'm going to ask you how much this means to you because you're just going to brush that one off. I know you haven't been looking at Concordia.
What do you notice from that? And what are you going to be game planning for Monday? You know, you guys have been down here all week and what you really notice is how different each is, you know, the style of play. Look at this.
I was a little fearful of this South Western South Eastern Florida because they were monsters all over the floor. They had two guards over six feet. At the top of their zone, they went to Joe. That was a girl.
She looked like an airplane when she spread their hands out. We'd had some trouble with her height because we're not a big team. So they would have given us some trouble. But Concordia now is similar to, similar in a way to Olive and or friends.
A team that comes out and gets you and presses you a little bit. However, I think we've got the ball handed up. If you're going to press us, I'm not giving us a scouting report. you're going to process, you better be pretty quick.
Because if not, we're going to go buy you, and we'll have some open shots at the other end of the floor. So we got to be ready on Monday for more of a full court game, where this one was a half court game. Well, Coach, I'm glad. And you said something that I want to ask.
And it's really the quickness that gave him Kayla in trouble. At least in the first half, not know how to deal with the quickness of the Ozarks. Is that, are we going to see something similar, at least from Concordia? Because it makes seem like she struggled just getting in her foot.
Well, as you do, they were small. OK? If you're small, you better be quick. Yeah.
The worst combination of basketball was small and slow. That's a bad combination. But somebody tells me, recruit this girl. She's small, but she's not too quick.
Well, OK, well, you can be big and slow, but you can't be small and slow. But Kayla has been playing her tail off. Kayla, she was the one I called the time out for. I could tell, but she was physically exhausted out there.
Because she plays with so much emotion the whole time. She's out there. You don't get tired if you're not playing hard. I always get a kick when players say to me, I'm not tired, coach.
My answer to that is, you mustn't do anything. If you're out or playing like Kayla does, you're going to get tired regardless of what kind of shape you're in. Coach, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it.
Congratulations. Absolutely. Congratulations on the win. Very well, Coach Gaiman.
And we're looking forward to Monday night. I made one mistake in the lacroom. I told him to limit it. Famous Dave's.
That's going to come back. That's going to come back and want me.