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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEMarch 5, 2013Joanne BoyleJOANNE BOYLE: You know, like every other team, we're just excited. It's March, March basketball, and anything can happen. Just excited that we came off of the win that we did to hopefully gain some momentum going into this week. Obviously we've struggled here the last two, two and a half weeks of the season, so to be able to come in and beat a really good quality team in Florida State, hopefully it gives us some confidence rolling into this weekend. Q. The first time you played them, you had Telia and you shot the ball real well, offense was really flowing. Second time up there you didn't have Telia, offense struggled, nobody really shot the ball well. Kind of a two‑parter here. Just the impact of having her now against them for the third time, what kind of impact will that be? And are you going to go back to starting her on Thursday, or will you still kind of go with Sarah there? JOANNE BOYLE: Those are things we're still assessing in these next couple of days. Obviously Telia is available for us, so whether she starts or comes off the bench for us, she's going to get minutes for sure. We're just still working through kind of our philosophy on playing them because they are so different from most other ACC teams. But you're exactly right. I mean, I think we didn't shoot the ball well up there, we had a bad rotation, we were coming off of a concussion. Erik does a great job, he spreads the floor and he makes your post really guard at the three‑point line, and we just got burned on some things that we just didn't do well. So we've got to clean up a lot of the stuff. We've got to move the ball offensively. We kept the ball on one side of the floor way too much and ended up having to take quick and really contested shots, and we've got to be able to swing the ball and move it. But more importantly we've got to stop them in transition, really locate them at the three, and just sit down and guard and have better communication. I don't think we did ‑‑ in their so‑called Princeton offense, I don't think we did a good job defending it. Q. On Sunday you said how you told your girls to make sure you smell the feeling of you guys beating Florida State. Are they still smelling that? Have you noticed a change in everybody's approach? I guess a lot of positive vibes going forward. JOANNE BOYLE: Uh‑huh. Like Kelly, we had off yesterday and came in today, we had an early morning practice, go to classes and traveling stuff, and had a great practice, had a lot of energy, and it was good. Obviously they're a tough team to prepare for, like I said, because of their style, but I was pleased with how we came out of that practice this morning with understanding what we need to do to win the game. Q. Obviously you guys lost a bunch of games in a row and then all of a sudden turn around and beat a nationally ranked team. What was that difference in that Florida State game for you guys? JOANNE BOYLE: I mean, I think a lot of things. Honestly, I'm pretty critical when I see my team in terms of effort. I don't think we have really been having the effort like we did against a Florida State or for that matter earlier in the season to mid‑season. Obviously the injuries have hurt us. Losing Kelsey was a huge scoring threat for us. That was a big blow for us. Telia missing probably‑‑ I don't know if she missed three or four games, she was in and out, missing Jazmin part of the year, in and out. I just feel like sometimes we only had six or seven kids in practice, and so we just never got in a rhythm and we never got to practice hard, and I think all that affected us. So it was disappointing because I feel like we're a better team than our record, but I'm sure a lot of teams could say that at this point in the year. It really took a toll on us when Kelsey went down and Telia went down with a concussion. We had some rotations, we played a lot of freshmen a lot of minutes they weren't necessarily ready for. We got some people back and we got in a couple good practices heading to Florida State and Faith Randolph became a sophomore and we got some balanced scoring because for a long time Frankie was carrying us, Sarah was carrying us, and we had to get more scoring from people, and we did at Florida State. Q. Does that Florida State game give you hope that you guys can put some good games together in Greensboro, or is the real‑‑ is that just kind of one of those nice upsets but the real team is the team that has struggled the last few months? JOANNE BOYLE: Well, I hope that's not our team. I mean, I feel like we've played basketball against Florida State, we played basketball like that against Miami, against Vanderbilt, against other teams, it's not just Florida State. I feel like the only time we've ever hit the skids a little bit was in these last two weeks when we lost two starters to injury, one obviously for the whole season and the other one, Telia, for three or four games, which was a huge deficit for us. Q. Obviously you went into the season with a lot of high hopes about making the NCAAs after having not gone the last few times. With the way the season has turned out what's kind of your message to your team heading into the ACC tournament here? JOANNE BOYLE: Yep, we're going to have to win it, and like every other team that's battling for that position. We weren't able to take care of business down the stretch, and so you're kind of put in a situation where, no pressure, it's just come off a Florida State game, have a great game, we know we all contributed in that game, we had four people average double figures and let's go into a four game series and see what we can do with it. I think this year in particular, it's kind of wide open. A lot of the teams in our conference have struggled with injuries, and you put people in tournament play and anything can happen, so why couldn't it be us? Q. Sort of a philosophy question: What's better for the ACC's image as a conference; is it getting as many teams as possible into the NCAA Tournament, or is it getting one dominant team to a Final Four? JOANNE BOYLE: I mean, it's always better, I think, to have multiple teams, but that's multiple teams from start to finish. It would be awesome to have an ACC team in the Final Four, but I think there's a process that goes along with that, and obviously the more teams we can get into the tournament and then for those teams obviously to advance give us a lot of credibility. As you get through the tournament a lot of it is about match‑ups and travel, and just advantages in other ways, and if you can really kind of take your group and put them through as far as you can, I think that says a lot about a conference. Obviously I heard Kelly say when they had three teams in the ACC a couple years ago‑‑ ACC teams in the Final Four, that was awesome. Obviously the more you can move teams through and keep as many alive as you can, obviously the better for the conference. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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