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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2015Karen AstonKrystle HendersonBrianna TaylorDALLAS, TEXAS Texas – 59 MODERATOR: Joined by the University of Texas Longhorns coach, Karen Aston; Brianna Taylor and Krystle Henderson. Coach, congratulations on the win. What do you think about this afternoon's game? COACH ASTON: Well, it was obviously a bit of an ugly game offensively for both teams, but we know each other so well, and very, very familiar, play similar styles, so I anticipated it being a little bit ugly and it was. But we got off to a slow start and really have to give a lot of credit to our players that they didn't get down on themselves, they've really matured this year with that in a sense that they've not let their offensive woes sometimes get to them defensively, which is much better than we were a month or so ago. But a lot of contributions from a lot of players but I would say that this was just a team effort defensively. A lot of players made some plays for us, but I thought the difference in the game was our team defense. MODERATOR: Okay. Questions for our student-athletes first. Q. Krystle, you went into the ballgame with about six minutes to go and you quickly hit a couple 3s. When you went in, what did you think your role was when you went in? KRYSTLE HENDERSON: Well, I feel like my role is whatever my team needs it to be. I just try to come in and give the team energy, and I was open for the shots and I just took them without hesitation. Q. At the beginning of the season everybody thought you might be in this position playing for the tournament championship, then midway through the season nobody thought you would be here. Just talk about the journey that you guys have taken and maybe what you guys have learned along the way. BRIANNA TAYLOR: Well, the journey has been tough, but we overcame the adversity that was put upon us, and I think that's what it's all about. Basketball is a game of up and downs and it's how you handle it, so I think that we're handling it pretty well now. We're starting to become more of ourselves and we're getting back to playing defense so everything is working out well. Q. Brianna, OU didn't score a field goal for about the last 10 minutes of the first half except for the three at the very end. What specifically defensively were you doing to create problems for the Sooners? BRIANNA TAYLOR: I just wanted to be active. Of course I didn't want them to score, so we started playing more team defense, we started helping each other more, relying on our help, so that came together and our defense's just solid. Q. For Krystle, Coach talked about it was kind of an ugly game but will you take winning ugly, especially with the defensive effort, things you had to do out there? KRYSTLE HENDERSON: Of course, you always want to win. It was an ugly game but Coach told us going into the game it wasn't going to be pretty, so we just hung in there and stayed solid as a team and got the win. Q. Krystle, you went to Skyline High School nearby. Were you extra motivated by playing in Dallas and how many people did you have here? KRYSTLE HENDERSON: Well, it's always fun to play in your hometown so I was pretty happy about coming back home to Dallas. I knew we had to get a win. I'm more excited about being in the championship game, and bringing a win home to Austin, so that's exciting for me as well. I probably had about 20, 30 people in the stands, a lot of family, friends. Q. Both players. Brianna first, playing Baylor now for a third time, how do you see that matchup? BRIANNA TAYLOR: Well, I think third time's a charm, so we're going to get them, we're going to beat them. That's my mindset. Q. Krystle? KRYSTLE HENDERSON: Sorry. I think we match up pretty well with them. It's going to be a good game, a fun game, and we've been waiting for this chance so we're going to redeem ourselves, like Brianna said. That's our mantra extra going into the game, we are just going to do what we do as a team and just focus on us and everything else will take care of itself. MODERATOR: Anything else for our student-athletes? We'll now take questions for Coach Aston. Q. Coach, it seemed like you talked about a team defense but it seemed like it began inside with laying in Imani Stafford. I guess, expound upon when a team can do nothing in the lane what that does to them everywhere else? COACH ASTON: It makes a huge difference. We were able to get out on their shooters, run them off of the 3-point line because we do have those two, and I spoke about that in the locker room, as much as I thought some of our guards hit some big shots and made some big plays, I really thought that the interior defense and the interior play, period, was probably the difference in the game. I thought we were more solid than we have been at times against Oklahoma on the inside. Again, we're both so knowledgeable of each other's sets and what we do that I think we paid a little more attention to detail this time. I thought Imani played really terrific. Q. You mentioned the defense, and when you hold a team down to a long period of time with no shots, that's really impressive. Do you see these grinder-type games not much offensive flow but a lot of defense as you move forward, and what do you think about facing Baylor again? COACH ASTON: Well, I think it could be potentially one of those kind of games also because we mirror each other quite a bit also from a personnel perspective. I think they're really good. I mean, our players are confident and I love their -- the way they spoke just a few minutes ago. But Baylor wears the crown right now so we're going to have to really show up and play tomorrow and have our best, absolute best effort because of how solid they are. They have a lot of balance, they can score from the outside, obviously we know about their inside game. So it's difficult to guard them because there is quite a bit of balance with their team. It will be competitive and we will have to bring our most competitive nature that we own. Q. Coach, the game was still in the balance and you put Krystle in with about six minutes to go. Do you remember thinking why you put her in at the time? Was it hit a couple 3s like that? COACH ASTON: That was it. I put her in because Celina had been playing an extended amount of minutes and I thought at that time I needed to give Celina maybe a minute or two blow so that she could finish the game because the one thing we know about Celina is she knows how to finish a game, she knows what we expect, she knows where to get the ball, and I thought she was really great from a floor perspective tonight. But we did want to give her a break so I went with experience because I thought the freshmen looked a little rattled today so I decided to go with the ones that have kind of been there and done this before and Krystle made that move look pretty good. Q. I know it's almost become a little bit of a running theme here, but the roller coaster your season's been on, but it looks like it's taken another turn here, you're on a hot streak right now, you're playing for the Big 12 Championship against Baylor. Just talk about everything this team's gone through and especially what you're seeing from them now. COACH ASTON: I thought it turned a few weeks ago. We still had some bumps, but I did think that their enthusiasm and their willingness to kind of put their selves aside and become more of a team was created a few weeks ago. I think Kelsey mentioned this last night, it's tournament time, they got down the stretch of conference play and realized we had better kick this thing in gear. I thought that they did, I thought the leadership's gotten better and I thought we had balanced off a little bit a couple weeks ago and gotten off the roller coaster. Quite honestly, most of that's got to do with the fact that now we have played a few weeks without an injury and we've settled on a group of people that they can figure out what their roles are, we can have some rotation in the games and the substitution rotation's gotten pretty solid. So we've gone enough period of time where they feel comfortable with who they are and what their identity needs to be. Q. Coach, you had to play your starters all the way to the end. Baylor got to rest theirs for the last 10 or so minutes. Playing a third game in three days, is that a significant difference? COACH ASTON: You would think that it would be, from the outside looking in, but our players are excited. I mean, I don't think they've been in a tournament championship in the Big 12 in a while. They've won, what, seven out of their eight last games, so I do think they're really excited, I think they'll have a high energy level and we still have some people that can come off the bench and help us. I mean, our freshmen didn't play well tonight and they're good players, so the one thing we can look at is they should have some energy tomorrow and we do have some other players that can come off the bench, so we'll give our best effort, promise you that. Q. Your bench was -- made significant contributions today, I think 32 points. Talk about that contribution. COACH ASTON: Well, it's been significant, probably our last four games because of sort of what happened with the injury to Empress. She missed a couple of conference games so she was removed from the starting lineup basically because of the injury. So now we have Empress coming off the bench, who has been a three-year starter, and we had been going big for a while with Imani and Kelsey and we made the decision to bring Imani off the bench also. So you're talking about two players that are solid, experienced players that are coming off the bench. So probably two weeks ago or so you would have noticed that our bench contributions have picked up considerably. You can't start but five and those two have accepted their roles, and they're really the difference in our team right now. And you have Celina and Krystle coming off the bench, so our bench is strong. MODERATOR: Okay, Coach, congratulations on the win, we'll see you tomorrow evening. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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