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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2015Karen AstonImani McGee-StaffordCelina RodrigoDALLAS, TEXAS Baylor – 75 MODERATOR: We're now joined by the University of Texas Longhorns coach, Karen Aston; Celina Rodrigo and Imani McGee-Stafford. Coach, your thoughts about this afternoon's game? COACH ASTON: First of all, I just want to say how proud of our basketball team that I am. It was a long few week for us and I felt like we really needed to show a sense of urgency within our team down the stretch of league play and then obviously in this tournament, and I think that our team did that. I'm very, very proud of them. Disappointed obviously that we didn't play better tonight, but proud of our team and how they performed down the stretch of league play and how they performed in this tournament. Baylor was more efficient tonight in every area. They shot the ball really well from the perimeter, established themselves in the paint, and I just didn't think our team could ever string along anything positive from a standpoint of getting some stops, two or three stops in a row, and then converting on the offensive end, we just couldn't get any confidence. Obviously that had something to do with Baylor, but we were able to do that in our two previous games in this tournament we just couldn't get that accomplished tonight, but again congratulations to them. I think our team represented the Big 12 really well and I'm looking forward to seeing how many teams we get in the tournament this week. MODERATOR: Coach, thank you. We'll take questions for our student-athletes. Q. Celina, Coach kind of mentioned it there that Baylor just had some stretches there where they went 9 for 12 or 8 for 12 from the field both halves. How tough was it for you guys just to have to continue to answer that offensively? CELINA RODRIGO: Like Coach said, they were shooting the ball really well so it was tough for us to kind of make a push for the offensive end. We were constantly taking the ball at the net. We kind of let our defense kind of dictate our offense so it was just kind of tough for us in the second half. Q. Imani, you've been here for a while, you've seen Baylor a lot. Is this a tougher Baylor team to defend because they don't have the one dominant star like Odyssey and Brittany, they've got several players who can fill it up, so to speak? IMANI McGEE-STAFFORD: I haven't beaten Baylor yet, so I'm not going to say it's a better or a worse team. At the end of the day they put more points up, we didn't do what we needed to do on the defensive end. Q. Celina, did you feel like with how Baylor shot the ball all season, especially through the tournament, that y'all needed to be as close to perfect on the offensive side of the floor to be able to keep pace? CELINA RODRIGO: I think we definitely just needed to answer them and we didn't do that in the second half. They got one on the run and we just couldn't answer it on the offensive end. Q. For both, start with Celina, despite the loss, you've won 7 out of 9. How do you feel about going into the NCAAs where you are now? CELINA RODRIGO: I think we're all pretty confident. I think we did good. I'm proud of us as a team, I think we played really well in all of our games, just didn't come out with a win this last one, but I'm really proud of this and we're going to build on this for going into the tournament. IMANI McGEE-STAFFORD: I kind of concur with what Celina said, this game is frustrating because we obviously wanted a championship and we'll probably all be dwelling on it this week and working hard to correct the errors we did today, but hopefully the committee will see how hard we've been working and we can get a good seed going into the tournament. Q. Imani, what makes Nina so hard to defend? IMANI McGEE-STAFFORD: She's a great player. She's improved a lot, and good for her. Q. Both of you, we can start with Imani, what is in your head when you're playing a game? You have the first five minutes, last five minutes, can you describe in a good or bad game what goes through your head when you're making plays on the court? IMANI McGEE-STAFFORD: I mean, today I was trying to focus on defense and they got a lot of points in the paint and I consider that like my job so when I'm not shutting down the paint I think it makes it harder for our entire team to play defense so today just focusing on defense, and that's kind of always my mindset, like rebound and defend well, and normally I score off getting rebounds anyway so that works out. CELINA RODRIGO: Today my focus in my head was just getting some stops, string along some stops and then make sure we're executing our offense, and we're going to shot every time done. MODERATOR: Ladies, congratulations on a great season. We wish you the best in the NCAAs. We'll take questions for Coach. Q. Is one of the tough things about Baylor that you kind of had to play perfect? I know I remember one time there was just a pass that was maybe a little bit careless, they tip it, get a run out, yet a couple times you go to the line, shooting two free throws in the second half. You missed them. Is it one of those things where the execution has got to be in the high 90 percentage to win? COACH ASTON: Well, I don't necessarily think it has to be that way, but I do think you have to be efficient offensively. We didn't get to the foul line very much and I thought that was significant compared to the last time that we played them, I thought we got them in foul trouble. We were able to be a little bit more aggressive offensively. They were in probably better position, their defense was probably better today than it was the second time that we played them. But you know, when they shoot the ball well from the perimeter, they're tough to beat because they're obviously going to score some points in the paint and they're going to rebound well, but when they're shooting pretty well -- and there have been some games that they haven't shot well -- but when they're shooting well, it's hard to beat them. Q. Coach, is Baylor tougher to game plan for because in previous years you had the one dominant player, and it looked like there were five players out there that could sink it at any time? COACH ASTON: Well, I don't necessarily think that they had one dominant player. I think when Brittany played there was a whole lot of people that were good on that team, if I remember correctly. And then last year obviously they had Nina and Odyssey and Sune and Alexis, so they had those players before. The team that Brittany was on, if we need to go back to that team, I doubt anybody really necessarily needs to, but they were pretty good, they had a lot of really good players on their team. Q. With how log-jammed the Big 12 finished and with how many teams finished above .500, how many teams would you expect or would you think would make the NCAA Tournament? COACH ASTON: I would think seven. I'll be really, really disappointed if six do not get in, but I would hope for seven. I think the tournament was a really good indicator of -- and the games down the stretch in our league was a terrific indicator of the competitiveness of our league. Then the tournament games were close. So I think that six will get in, that's my assumption, and I would like to think that we have a chance for seven, and I hope that we do because I think that we'll surprise some people from a national perspective when we get in. Q. Coach, it was 28 in the first half, Agbuke got her second foul, they sat her down. From there, you obviously cut it down to two. Second half, she pretty much stayed out of foul trouble. How key is her to that, particularly playing against your team? COACH ASTON: Well, I think she does obviously provide a presence for them against our big girls and like I said, just a few minutes ago, I do think that we were not able to get on the foul line tonight and that was one of our goals, was to get to the foul line. The two things that we didn't do well at all besides defensively, we weren't really very good, but in the two categories that we really try to win in games are free throw attempts and offensive rebounds and they beat us in both of those categories. Those are areas we try to be successful at. Q. You mentioned earlier how proud you are of this team and how they played with such a sense of urgency. What does it say to you when you hear your players talk about they're proud, but this is going to dwell on them for a while and they know that they can do better and they know that they've got more to do to get to the NCAA Tournament. COACH ASTON: Well, I think they're disappointed. What I didn't want to do was go in the locker room and everybody fall apart, because there's a lot of games to play. I want them to be disappointed. This is not what we came here to do, is lose. But I want them to feel proud of the fact that they reset. We had some adversity going this year and for them to -- and as I told them in the locker room, I think there were a lot of people that thought we were done a few weeks ago and for them to rally the way that they have and reset their brains and really focus on what the task was every single day and every game we played is a testament to the fact that they wanted to achieve some things. So I want them to be able to push the reset button after a few days off and rest their bodies and their minds but get ready for the tournament. The tournament's all about matchups, and I think we really helped ourselves from a seeding perspective this weekend. Q. You talked about it a little bit, but Nina Davis, you held her to two points in the second half but is the key on Baylor maybe not letting that third, fourth, fifth option beat you? COACH ASTON: Well, I think the hard part is how well they penetrate and how good of decisions that Niya Johnson makes. As good as Nina Davis is, I have said this for a good month, that I think Niya is really the key to their team and because her decision making is just so good against the zone, against man, she gets the ball to the right people at the right time and she creates really easy shots for her teammates. So as much as -- that's great that we held Nina under 30, but they made shots. They made a lot of tough jump shots, some in the first half, I thought our defense was a little bit slow reacting. In the second half, I thought we contested some shots and they were tough, they made some tough shots. MODERATOR: Any further for Coach? Okay, Coach, congratulations on a great season, good luck in the NCAAs. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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