Mhm joining me is lisa Fortier from Gonzaga coach.
Thank you so much for taking the time. Sure
. Yeah. Nothing else going on right now.
I know it's kind of like a slow stop for
basketball, but a startup for all your kids and
whatnot. So it never ends for you. I
want to get into that emotional victory because that was
something that me as a sports reporter. One of
those winds I walked away from and just thought,
wow, it took me some time to come down
from it. How long did it take you to
process that game? Um Probably a couple of days
. Um It was, it was kind of a
surreal situation. We've had game winners before the way
that it was Jill um under the circumstances we were
fighting um that day, but also just this year
I think made it seem even more exciting and you
know, it wasn't like you had six seconds and
you just hit it right at the buzzer. I
mean she really had, it had to be perfect
and um, it was, it was a lot
of fun. Um and hopefully the types of things
that we remember because those are big deals for these
guys. Yeah, I remember when we talked about
Vegas, the WCC tournament, you didn't have the
best memories obviously. Do you feel like because you
had that buzzer beater, you get the championship,
that kind of erases all of those past memories and
now it's only good moving forward. Um I hope
so. I mean there there's plenty of good stuff
we learned from the hard situations, you know what
I mean? And I think that we're going to
set ourselves up for a long, hard life if
you can only take the good moments and make them
into learning. Uh, so I am trying as
a individual and then certainly as a coach to remind
our team that um, maybe county getting hurt a
few years ago was not a wonderful moment, but
there's plenty to come from that. And the beauty
is that day I think for Jill definitely felt that
much more exciting because of, of the past and
what she had felt and I think for some of
the team it felt like that. But um,
you know, going forward, I think we're going
to be focused on whatever opponent is next and what
the task at hand will be. However, it
hopefully won't feel like doom and gloom quite the same
because it has not been amazing to us the last
three years in Vegas. What is your roster looking
like when it comes to those that are returning and
those that aren't. Yeah, so we have a
funny roster dynamic because we have some that, so
jen worth lian worth Jill Townsend, um those Gillian
Barfield, those guys are graduating and the three Julian
is going to go on to medical school. Um
but the other three are going to go play overseas
and then you know Louise Forsyth opted for her fifth
year elsewhere. Um so she's not with our program
anymore, but then we have Abby O'Connor, Sierra
walker and on of your job are all actually seniors
who are choosing to stay in different circumstances, right
? So it's on a, on a transfer and
red shirted and stayed for her fourth year as playing
and then Abby got the bonus year last year as
a transfer, so she's graduating but staying and then
Sierra transferred played for, but it's gonna use her
bonus. So it's kind of funny they're all in
different scenarios. I think we have a good mix
and that coupled with an incoming class that we're really
excited about as far as the freshman go. Um
, so you know, it's gonna be different,
definitely Jill and Lianna and jenn specifically spent a lot
of minutes on the floor for us in all four
of their years. So I think that it's fun
when you get to do something different, but it
also feels a little bit nerve wracking and unsure how
we're going to piece it all together. But a
good challenge for the off season. What is your
hope as we look ahead to next season? What's
your hope for this team? I'm trying to refine
those goals for me right now and for myself and
just to help with the team and how I articulate
it. But really, I think the biggest thing
is that they would just um Find a way to
achieve everything that they can together and I don't know
what that looks like. I don't know if that's
a top 25 situation. I don't know if that's
a host home, be a top four seed in
the tournament, that's championship. I don't know if
for this team and the best we could do would
be if our best was finishing second in our conference
, then let's be our best or strive to be
better. So I think just figuring out how,
I think the ceiling for them is higher than that
. Um, and I think that a lot of
people might not see it in the same way that
we do. So I just, I'm really hopeful
that they're gonna stick together. Yeah, yeah.