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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2015Tiaria GriffinAndy LandersNORTH LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS Georgia – 75 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Georgia head coach and student‑athletes Tiaria Griffin and Krista Donald. COACH LANDERS: I think it was the type of game that our players, that we expected it would be. Missouri is very, very good at what they do. What they do is extremely difficult to defend. That said, I thought defensively we were pretty good everywhere with the exception maybe of containment. To Missouri's credit, to Robin's credit, she elected to go with five guards and drive it, which made it very difficult. Consequently, we had to downsize our lineup and try to defend them. But I was extremely pleased with the effort, with the patience, with the discipline on offense. When things weren't going well, we stayed the course. We stayed, for the most part, disciplined. Our players in the second half, by and large, made a lot of plays. They didn't run a lot of plays, they made a lot of plays, which I found through the years you have to do that at tournament time in order to be successful. So thought they were terrific. Thought these two sitting beside me were excellent. Their numbers I think indicate how good they were. Overall just a really good team effort. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Girls, after you went up 11, they made quite a few charges. You got within two. What allowed you to keep your composure and not let them take your lead? TIARIA GRIFFIN: I think staying the course. We all came together and we all knew what we had to do to just stick it out, keep our composure, make plays when we have to. Q. There was a point late in the game in the last three minutes, one of the times when they pulled within two, they had a three‑pointer go up. You called a time‑out right after that. What did you have to say? What did you do mentally to turn it around? COACH LANDERS: Well, I remember the play you're talking about. The person guarding the ball on that shot was Mackenzie Engram. A couple times as the game got into the later stages, the shooters would extend their range. That's what happened on that shot. It was as if we didn't know they were going to do that. We knew a couple of those kids have really crazy range. For us not to be defending hands up, to allow them to shoot while we basically have assumed a position of defense, they're just shooting, that's not the way we're going to finish the game. Then the other piece was just be patient on offense, make them guard us. Let's not quick‑shoot the basketball. When we get it back, let's make them guard us, get a good shot or get fouled. We started talking about that at halftime and probably should have repeated it more during the second half. Q. Tiaria, speaking of the second half, you came alive. What were you doing differently? What looks were they showing you? TIARIA GRIFFIN: They was pretty much standing on me on the three‑point line. I was looking to get the ball in the paint a little and try to shoot a jump shot. Q. Coach, a lot of coaches don't really work on free‑throw shooting in practice. In a way, your being cool on knocking them down on the free‑throw line made a difference in the game. COACH LANDERS: We try to shoot free throws every day. Some days we have challenges of trying to hit eight in a row or ten in a row, buddy systems total in a row. I think the thing that happened, that's been happening to us, in my view you have to go back, to appreciate today, go back about three weeks. We've been playing three weeks without our starting three, our starting four and our starting five. Today you saw how much we missed Kris because her presence was incredible today. Merritt has been out for three weeks with mono. We didn't complain about any of this when we were going through it. I didn't mention it with the players. What you have now is a team whose younger players have improved. Haley, Mackenzie, they're like starters for us. They're in better condition than Kris and Merritt. I'm going to continue to start them because of that. These kids have been hurt and been on the shelf. But what happened during that period, those kids grew up. They had to grow up. We've been out of one game. Even with Tennessee, Kentucky, everybody we played in the last four minutes, we managed to lose them all, but not anymore. I think that's what you saw today. The younger kids have grown up. Veterans understand what needs to be done. Now when you put us all together, put us back together, give me these two healthy ones back, give me Merritt, wow, we're better than we were before Kris sprained her ankle, before Merritt caught mono. There's a confidence there, to answer your question about free throws. I think there's a confidence that we know who we are now. We reinvented ourselves. It took a while. We were painful. But we're pretty good. Q. The NCAA Selection Committee says they don't pay attention to the score differential. It does seem to me it means something you're in the game with Kentucky and Tennessee. Do you think they ought to pay more attention to that? COACH LANDERS: That's up to them. It doesn't matter what I think. Three‑fourths of the people read whatever you write don't care what I think. That committee, I'm not going to have any influence on them. We know going in you have to do what you have to do. Right now we know we need to win basketball games to get in the tournament. We're comfortable with that. This is the bed that we made for ourselves. It's time to go to work. It's time to get it figured out. Q. Coach, what did you think you had to do entering this tournament to get the attention of the committee and have a résumé at the end they're going to look at? Have you spent a lot of time thinking about that? COACH LANDERS: No, I haven't. I can tell you how much we've talked about it, none. All we've talked about is winning the next game because we know if we win the next game, we're in good shape. We're not going to get two ahead, three ahead. Win the next game. Hey, if we don't beat Missouri, we're cooked, we're crock‑pot cooked. Now, we got us another good one to play. Win it. Just take care of that business. That's all that matters. Maybe somebody somewhere along the way will have to stop and go, Whoa, we got to put these guys back on the table. Q. You have Tennessee next, the third time this season. What are you going to do to get a different outcome? COACH LANDERS: I think we take care of the ball a little bit better. I think we've learned to do that. I know it's hard for anybody out there to believe because we just played Tennessee three games ago. We're going to take care of the ball. We're going to do a better job of taking care of the ball. I truly feel like we've learned that lesson. I think having two point guards now who have the experience, I have options and I have choices. At Florida I pulled Haley and put in Marjorie and finished the game with her. Tonight I pulled Marjorie and put Haley in. I thought she was terrific the first half. As things started to unfold a little bit, I put Marjorie back in. We're going to do a better job of the things that we had control of in all of those games that we lost control of and hurt us. That's what we're going to do better. THE MODERATOR: Coach, ladies, thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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