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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2015Katie MeierAdrienne MotleyNicole SterlingGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA Miami – 62 COACH MEIER: I'll tell you what, that whole game I thought was going to be a grind. It was the last time we played them. We talked about there's a difference between confidence and faith, and confidence just has the patience to it, and that's what I was‑‑ at the beginning of the game, we were confident but we didn't have faith. We were in a hurry, we were fumbling balls, we were trying to win the game in the first four minutes. And then I think we found our patience and executed our sets and simplified the game plan and gave the guards a little bit more power to make the calls that they believed in, that they had faith in. I think there's a play that we've put in lately, ran Motley that runs it deep into the shot clock. Literally we visualized it in the time‑out and said exactly what look we'd get and she got it for that lay‑up, so that was faith. There's confidence and then there's faith. My seniors, I got a little emotional in the locker room right now because their senior night didn't go the way any of us wanted it to go, but in our postgame senior celebration, just beautiful, powerful things were said. And so I told them that this was their senior night because I don't think the three of them collectively have played their guts out like they did tonight. So this is their senior night. Q. Katie, how much of this was sort of a familiar feeling for you, this kind of game in which you have a game in which Adrienne played really well and then you have one or two other players who stepped up in scoring, and your big wins this year could have been any four, five, six players who had double digits. Can you speak to the versatility of your guards, and speaking of faith, your team did an amazing job of shutting down Faith Randolph of Virginia. COACH MEIER: That's ironic. I didn't mean that, I promise. Q. Can you talk about your defensive game plan and how you focused on her and forced the role players to do things for Virginia? COACH MEIER: Yeah, that was obviously the large portion of our prep. Faith Randolph has been amazing. But to your first point, the first media time‑out I looked at our stat sheet and it was 2, 2, 2, 2, 2. Every one of my starters had scored two points. I felt good about that. As good as Adrienne Motley is, the coaches and players in this league are really good, too. So you think you're going to ride one horse, you're going to win some games but you're not going to win enough. So when Necole lit up, I thought Suriva McGuire started the game making a huge statement for the team. And she was absolutely 100 percent called out in the locker room before the game, I stared right at her and I called her out, and she came through. That's why I'm so excited. To your second point, I think Faith Randolph has been carrying a heavy load for a lot of months, and she's an electric shooter, and her jump shot is impossible to defend. You saw that everybody on my team, including Jassany Williams, guarded her at one point. You've just got to mix it up with her and I thought our team was very committed to that. Q. Along the same lines of stopping Faith Randolph, you limited Sarah Imovbioh, too. Anything specific you did to limit her? COACH MEIER: Yeah, I thought Jassany Williams did a great job, and then we'd bring in Erykah Davenport, and we brought in Khalia Prather to give it a different look. That's one thing about our team, we can switch sometimes and maybe they miss it or something or maybe Jessica Thomas is on Sarah Imovbioh. There were times throughout that game, but if you have a job to do, we just do it. And it's hard to call a specific play against us when we're all together defensively because you really don't know how it's going to end up because we'll switch throughout the game. Q. I guess you never know until the next game, but is a grind‑it‑out type of game against an even‑ish team usually a good way to start a tournament, and what do you need to do over the next few days to make sure you're in the NCAA? COACH MEIER: Well, I thought our non‑conference season was amazing. We brought a lot of great wins, a PAC‑12 win, a Big 12 win, an SEC win and almost another big win against Arizona State who had an amazing. Then we beat some really high RPI opponents within this league and went .500. I honestly personally think that's enough, but I'm sure this win today should seal it for us. And if it doesn't then we've got to win our next game, and if we win our next game, you'd better invite us to this dance. Q. A lot of open three‑pointers from the wing, you missed some early but had some late. Why was that so open? COACH MEIER: Well, I just said to Mot, she makes the lay‑up, but then the next two plays that seal the game is an assist, a sharing of the ball, Faith with Michelle Woods was struggling and hit a big shot. Then Jessica Thomas hit a huge shot. They're sinking in, they're taking away, they're hedging ball screens, so the plays are out against Virginia. That's what we prepped and they were out wide. If we missed them, we were going to lose and if we made them, we were going to win. But that's what they give you, and that's when I talk about she has faith in her teammates, too. Necole made the shots open out wide in her first half effort because she was shooting from the top, so now they had to react to that stuff. We sucked them in and then we got things out wide. Virginia covers a lot of ground, you'd better take what's open and you'd better hit it because they are a great defensive team. Q. You beat the next team earlier this season. What do you remember from that game, and what did you do so well in that game? COACH MEIER: You know, we started the game with a complete commitment to defense, and they're very, very difficult to defend, and I think we really just‑‑ in that game I think we threw the first punch and then we punched again to end the half and just had this glorious run. They came back, didn't blink, and then it became players making plays. Between Nigia and Motley and then some others, there was just players making plays. It was a beautiful basketball game. But I am sure that Notre Dame saw the brackets come out and were hoping that we would win this game. I'm sure they were because they're great competitors. Q. This is for both players about tomorrow's game. The only people that have beaten them in the last year besides Miami and I think Connecticut. What did you do so well and what do you hope to recapture going into tomorrow? NECOLE STERLING: We played with a lot of passion the first time Notre Dame at home, a lot of faith maximized our capabilities as individuals and we played as a team, as well. Great team defense, communication. We played one of the best games of our season. And tonight I feel like we definitely got back on that track, so tomorrow I feel like we have a good opportunity ahead of us. I feel like we have great focus right now and we have a date with destiny. ADRIENNE MOTLEY: I agree with her, one of the best basketball games we played all season and it just so happened to be against No.4 Notre Dame at the time. So we're definitely not going to back down at all this time around. We know that they're going to come even harder at us, so we're just going to have to play our A game, do the defensive concepts, and play basketball. Q. Katie, I've noticed when your team is playing great defense, they're playing with their feet and with their brains and with communication, and in games where you've struggled it's kind of more handsy defense and players getting in foul trouble. Can you talk about the defense today just as a team in that especially with reference to chastity not getting in foul trouble and being able to stay in for a long time and giving your team that‑‑ I thought she was sort of the key to the whole stew. COACH MEIER: Yeah, you're so good because you really know the team in the league, and that's exactly it. If Jas decided to just flail her arms ‑‑ I told her I didn't want blocked shots from her, I wanted stops towards the end and then she went out there and blocked a shot. Her length was impressive, and she really was just staring at the midsection instead of staring up at the ball. We've all been working on that defensively. We look at the ball a little bit too much defensively and that gets you high. So we stare at the midsection and don't worry about the shot, just challenge high, and I think that made a big difference for us. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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