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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2015Karen AstonAriel AtkinsKelsey LangDALLAS, TEXAS Texas – 67 COACH ASTON: Thank you. A hard fought game. You have to really give both teams a lot of credit for how hard they played. We knew that this was going to be a different game than it was in Austin, TCU was obviously a little bit flat, it was senior night for us and we played with a tremendous amount of energy in the last game and expected them to return that energy level and they did. Our team played really well for a long period of time, and then I thought we relaxed a little bit in the second half defensively and started letting them have some 3s, some open looks, started letting them have some drives, but I really thought the difference in letting them back in the game was our inefficiency offensively. We missed four or five layups early in the second half. We got in too big of a hurry maybe trying to think we were going to close the game out early. That's a sign of youth, but I'm pleased with the way we finished it. It looked like we learned some lessons from a couple of other games where we didn't finish very well. Q. Kelsey, when they cut it to four, I believe, in the last few minutes, what was the mindset? I think Coach called a timeout with four minutes to go. KELSEY LANG: I think that with this team the most important thing is just trying to calm everyone down. We get really worked up and anxious and I think that we just needed to calm everyone down, take a deep breath and really focus on executing offensively. Q. For Kelsey first, then for Ariel. Just talk about the stretch that you guys are on, six wins the last seven games, what's changed for you guys during that span? KELSEY LANG: I think we finally found our sense of urgency. We realize that in the last few conference games that in order to not have to play on the first night, we would have to get those wins and now we just know when you lose, you're out. So I think that we're playing with more urgency than we were whenever we were going through the middle of conference. ARIEL ATKINS: Like Kelsey said, I thought we found our urgency, we knew what was at stake and we wanted to accomplish what we set out to accomplish towards the beginning of this season, so we just found it in us to pull together and do what we needed to do. Q. Ariel first, then Kelsey can chip in, too. I thought Empress had a big impact, she came in with about eight minutes to go and scored almost all of her points in the last eight minutes. Can you talk about Empress's roll shooting and dishing off inside? ARIEL ATKINS: Empress is very energetic, she feeds off of energy and different things that happen on the court. So with her coming in and her energy helping us, basically we all just feed off of each other and she has that fire that makes everybody go, okay, let's get it done. KELSEY LANG: Definitely. I think that this year Empress has definitely been our person that when we know we need to go get a layup, we get her the ball and we know that we can rely on her to do that. I think that building on that, she just has gotten so much better with realizing when she can take it and whenever someone else's man is helping over and she needs to pass it. Q. Coach, the same question, I thought Empress was a big difference in the last eight minutes. What are your thoughts? COACH ASTON: No question about it, and she's really been playing well the last I would say three or four games, been extremely solid and obviously she went through a stretch of time when she was unhealthy also and she looks healthier and more confident. But you look at her line, there's no question it's an impactful line. She was 5-9 from the foul line, she had nine rebounds, one rebound away from a double-double, four assists, no turnovers, so that's a miracle in itself for anybody on our team at this point. But she definitely understands there are certain sets -- because she has experience, there are certain sets that we call to Empress because she's been around, knows exactly what we're looking for and her decision making is pretty good. Q. Going back to that run that TCU had, what were you telling your team during the timeouts at that point? COACH ASTON: Slow down. Brianna Taylor made a couple of really great plays and just missed the layups, Kelsey missed the layup, Brady missed the layup. They were making good aggressive plays and I wouldn't have told them, okay, don't do that, but we needed to slow down. That's the tendency of our team, especially I thought we really played with a lot of energy most of the game and we have a couple of players, in particular young players, Brianna, Ariel, that are just full of life and full of energy but sometimes they can just get going so fast that you just kind of have to tell them to take a deep breath and slow down a little bit. Q. Coach, Jada Butts was kind of the player that started that run for TCU during the second half. How difficult of a matchup is she with her different abilities? COACH ASTON: Well, they're a difficult matchup. TCU is good, they're a good basketball team and I expected them to play the way they played tonight. They had an incredible sense of urgency and that struggle with guarding them is because at times they will put five guards in basically and Jada spreads the floor. Diaz came in tonight and hit one. I just think they are difficult for us to guard but on the flip side of that I'm not going to take my big girls out just because it's a little bit of a mismatch because you can see that they'll get some offensive rebounds for us. So it's a trade-off. It was the one thing that I thought we did a great job of in Austin was not letting Butts and Prince hit shots and both of those guys kind of got going tonight so it's difficult when all of them are making shots. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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