|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCEApril 2, 2008Van ChancellorRICK NIXON: I'm Rick Nixon with the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship. I'd like to welcome everyone to today's teleconference. I'd like to introduce the chair of the Division I Women's Basketball Committee, Judy Southard, for some welcoming remarks. JUDY SOUTHARD: Thank you, Rick. I'd like to take the opportunity to welcome everyone from the media and everyone joining our media teleconference calls this afternoon. And also, most especially, on behalf of the NCAA and our Division I Women's Basketball Committee, we certainly want to congratulate Coach Van Chancellor and all the members of the LSU Lady Tiger basketball team on a terrific tournament thus far and we want to wish you all the best of luck as you head to Tampa and the opportunity to compete in the Final Four. So having said that, I'm going to turn this back over to I think our operator who is going to give us some details on our calls now. RICK NIXON: With that, I'd like to introduce LSU head coach Van Chancellor for some opening remarks. COACH CHANCELLOR: Well, naturally, as a coach, I'm really glad that LSU's getting to go to its fifth Final Four. And our team is playing great defense at this time. And that's what carried us all year, and that's what will carry us in the Final Four. I'll take questions. Q. Coach, over the past four trips to the Final Four, outside of the first trip against Tennessee, it seems like LSU's offensive output in the national semifinal has been the biggest problem and biggest detriment in the Lady Tigers moving into the national championship game. With it being your first year here, what do you think you can do to change that in this game specifically, and have you seen evidence that you have been able to change that throughout the regular season and all the preceding games of the NCAA tournament? COACH CHANCELLOR: Well, when I got the job April the 11th, that's the first thing we thought we needed to change, is create an atmosphere to where we could shoot the basketball. And I was just looking at our overall team stats before the SEC. We were up about 4 percent in every area of shooting except free throws, we're about the same. And so I think it was about that time we began to grasp what we wanted to do here offensively, and I think it's got to get better. And Sunday night we're going to have to score because it's so hard to keep Tennessee from scoring. They have so many weapons and they do such a great job with their players. Q. Could you talk about Erica White and what she's meant to your team this year? And as a follow-up, could you address the issue of what you think her impact, if any, can be at the WNBA level if she indeed is drafted? COACH CHANCELLOR: I don't think there's any doubt in my mind, we turned the season around offensively when Erica White began to run our team, make great decisions, has picked up her scoring lately. When we get through winning games, we just say to ourselves as a staff, boy, Erica ran us well and she's done a great job. She's had a lot of heart, a lot of character. She's improved her outside shooting. I do think Erica can play in the WNBA. I'll tell you why. She's a great defensive point guard. She runs her team well. She can run the break. I think her play lately has gotten a lot of attention. I've had a lot of calls. I think she will be drafted and I think she will be a player in the WNBA. Q. You don't think her height at all will impede her, although it certainly didn't for Temeka Johnson? COACH CHANCELLOR: I don't think height, in the women's game, unless you're tall and you're six-five, six-six, six-four, I don't think the point guard height hurts you in our game, or lack of height. Q. Could you talk about the whirlwind year it has been for you in terms of being -- going to the Basketball Hall of Fame, being hired at LSU and now the Final Four? COACH CHANCELLOR: It's been -- I hope the rest of my life don't go by as quick as the last half of my life, because it will be just too quick. It's been a great year for me. I was fortunate enough to go into the hall of fame and then from that I was named the coach. And this team has been such a joy to coach. It's been everything I thought it would be and more. They're easy to work with. LSU's a great place to work, and it's just been a fantastic year. I was just thinking after we beat North Carolina, I was just thinking I was glad Judy and Skip gave me this job. Q. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about Mesha Williams and the role you've used her in this year and what she's done for you guys. COACH CHANCELLOR: It's been unbelievable what Mesha Williams has done for LSU women's basketball. For minutes played she's got great stats and our two losses late in the year in Connecticut and Tennessee, as a coach, after a loss, especially after losing, you always say to yourself, what should I have done different? I thought in both games we should have put her in, because she's rebounded the ball and our win against North Carolina she hit a big shot down the stretch when we were trying to score, when we were struggling to score. I don't think -- there's no question, not a player on our team would argue with this point -- without Mesha Williams we would not be in the Final Four. Q. I was wondering if you'd like to comment on Sylvia and particularly her role in the rivalry the last year or so with Tennessee. COACH CHANCELLOR: I think Sylvia has just had a tremendous year. One of the great things for me, from day one Sylvia and I hit it off. When your best player is easy to coach, that's made it so much easier. If the draft goes, like everybody hears it's going, Parker to LA and Sylvia there, your city is going to get not only a great player but a wonderful, wonderful person. Her rivalry with Tennessee, it's there, but it's been that way because it's two great programs that played each other a lot in the regular season and in the SEC tournament they've met a number of times. So it's intense, no question. Q. In terms of the mental block, a lot of people have said that last year it was -- LSU's been there three straight times and they just don't believe it this year. Is the mental focus and the psychological focus of if you were to fall behind early in a game of, oh, my goodness, here it goes again? Is that one of the big obstacles you're trying to overcome this week in preparation for the game on Sunday? COACH CHANCELLOR: I think what we have done, we told them what went on the other four years of the other four years. We've complimented Mitchell and Whitfield for being the only two players in men or women that have ever been to five Final Fours. But that's past. Let's go play the game. Forget all that other stuff. We don't talk about dropping behind. We don't talk about getting ahead. We just talk about playing basketball and being there and believing in ourselves and playing. We're not going to mention what went on the last four years. Q. Coach, earlier this week there was a lot of talk on the men's side with the four No. 1s getting through, that there was such an attractive field, that it may be the greatest men's Final Four ever. Can you talk about the women's Final Four with who emerged coming to Tampa and the star power that all these teams are bringing with the players and how attractive you think this field is? COACH CHANCELLOR: I think the women's Final Four right now, with not only the players, but three of the other coaches, I think this is the greatest Final Four we've ever had. You've got perennial powers, Connecticut in Tennessee, with legendary coaches. Then you've got Stanford where the coach has won a national championship and LSU has Sylvia. Now, you think about it. Wiggins, Moore, Parker, Fowles, doesn't get any better than that. That's four players that will be recognized as some of the greatest players to ever play the women's game. Wiggins at Stanford right now is moved up in the WNBA draft. That's a real guard. So many people don't know about her because she's played on the West Coast, but, boy, is she a special player. There's no doubt. Parker is as good as has ever played the game. And Moore right now, how many freshmen do you know of that's been all-Americans? And then Sylvia Fowles is a double-double machine. Q. How do you defend Maya Moore? COACH CHANCELLOR: I said Michael Jordan cannot score without the ball. I think that's the only way you can stop her. Stop her getting the ball. She's the best scoring freshman I've seen in a long time. I thought Rutgers did a nice job keeping the ball away from her. But at the end of the game they gave her a flicker of opening and she drilled a 3 after struggling the whole game. I think you have to work and make her move, but that's hard to do. You're not going to stop her. You're just trying to slow her down. She's a special, special player. Q. You said that there's no doubt in your mind that you think Erica can play in the WNBA. What do you mean by that? Do you feel she can go in and start right away? Or do you feel she can go in, be a back-up, and then learn to be a starter after a year or two? Where do you see her on the development curve in the professional ranks? COACH CHANCELLOR: I see her -- it's according to who drafts her. Some people, because maybe her size a little bit, will try to draft her as a back-up. But here's my whole thinking. Latch onto a team and improve yourself and then step up and make -- and start for a team. There's a lot of good players that don't start -- not many rookies start in the WNBA now. Q. I was just wondering, is it tough to play one team three times in a season? Do you have a sense you know what to expect from Tennessee when you see them? COACH CHANCELLOR: I think it's really tough when you play a team and you've won the first two games, or you've lost the first two games. I think it's just starting all over when each one of you have won one. I think it's like you actually have never played. We didn't need to play two times for -- our team knows them and they know us. There will be no surprises Sunday night. Q. We have yet to have a player who tried to challenge the WNBA in terms of going to the league early. But do you ever see a day when that might become a possibility or that it might be opened to that? COACH CHANCELLOR: As a WNBA coach, not as a college coach, I am 100,000 percent against that, for the following reasons: Number one, the money's not good enough. Number two, the female player needs the education to fall back on. You can't make enough like an NBA player can. In other words, if you get one contract and manage your money right, you may not have to work the rest of your life, especially if you can get two contracts. The WNBA money is not good enough. I hope we never ever have that. I think that would be a mistake for a freshman to come out. I think Candace Parker is a four-year player. She's an exception to every rule. She's an exception as a player. She's so gifted. There's just not very many of those. Q. Could you talk briefly about the senior class and the kind of education they've gotten out of the classroom and off the court and most of them probably were recruited thinking they were playing for Sue Gunter who subsequently passed away. Another coaching change, a hurricane. For all this time they played in one of the toughest conferences in the country for women's basketball and remained a dominant force. And I wonder, do you think that basketball helped them through all that or do you think that was an obstacle that they overcame in addition to playing basketball? How would you kind of qualify the senior class in terms of character, chemistry, all those things? COACH CHANCELLOR: That's one of the reasons I'm so proud of them for making the Final Four. No one else in college basketball as a team has overcome the loss of a coach, the loss of another coach, another coach for your senior year. You've gone through all the hurricane problems. You've done it all. This team has not been a discipline problem. This team has gone to class. Every player we got will graduate. Every player -- we got three players working above on the graduate level. This team has been everything that you would want as human beings. I do think basketball has helped them so much. I think this has been an outlet for some of the situations they've had to deal with and for them to get to the Final Four, that's what it's all about. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. I appreciate it. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|