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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 2, 2016Melanie BalcombChrista ReedMinta SpearsJacksonville, Florida Vanderbilt - 74 Ole Miss - 59 THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Vanderbilt. We'll go directly to questions. Q. Coach, statistically it's your best start of the season. Did you believe that? Did you sense a first quarter like that coming out of these girls, especially since they got that victory the other day? COACH BALCOMB: To be honest with you, yes. I think this was a good matchup for us. A team totally different than that. A team that we wanted another shot at. Just not the win at Missouri, but I felt like this was an opportunity to get back one of the games that we felt like we had won, then we gave it up at the end of the game. We had a lot of motivation, not just momentum. Q. Christa, talk about your start in the first quarter. Did you take more time to get warmed up? What do you think happened? CHRISTA REED: For this game specifically, they were pressing a lot. But then I was just like wide open. So my teammates did a really good job of taking care of the ball. When it got to me I just took the shot because nobody was there. Q. Coach, you took a big lead in the fourth quarter, then Ole Miss goes on a big run. What did they do differently in those couple final minutes to cut the lead? COACH BALCOMB: You mean the last quarter? Q. Yes. COACH BALCOMB: They didn't do anything different. We were just resting our players for tomorrow. I thought their bench beat our bench. We had two walk-ons in the game, playing players that did not match up and were not going to play a lot in that game. We were just trying to get the game to be finished. They turned it up, played hard. Credit them. But they didn't do anything different. They didn't give up and they didn't quit. Q. Minta, coach was talking about getting that game from Ole Miss that you thought you should have won. Now you have Georgia, a game you probably thought you had a real good shot at. If good things happen there, certainly you think you have a chance to beat Mississippi State? Can this kind of motivation continue throughout the tournament? MINTA SPEARS: Definitely. I think so. I think the Missouri win was a huge confidence booster and kind of served as a seminal moment going into the tournament. We definitely wanted to win this game back, have another opportunity. Then playing Georgia, we're excited about it because that's definitely a game during the season that we thought we could have had. We're excited about the second opportunity. Q. Coach, during the game you had a lot of substitutions, sometimes fairly quickly. I understand that was trying to keep your players fresh. Was there something else going on in particular? COACH BALCOMB: No. We have a great rotation right now. There's nothing else particular. Maybe you're talking about Kendall Shaw. She's I call it special teams. It's been a challenge for us out of bounds under to get stops. We decided to use her on the ball. So she plays out of bounds under on the ball. She did very well actually. I kept her in when there was a good matchup for her on the floor to be successful. When there wasn't, we needed to go with a quicker lineup to stop their drives and penetration. We'd get Quez and a Te'a back in. Q. When you're walk-on No. 12 hit the basket, can you talk about that. MINTA SPEARS: That's Myka. Myka is awesome. Actually last night she earned her a scholarship for next year. We love them so much. They've come every day. They work hard. That's Myka's shot, too. Whenever she's on scout team in practice, she nails it. Whenever she made it, the bench, we went crazy because we were so excited for her. I don't know who that was. Q. Christa or Minta, you had this long losing streak, now you've put together two solid performances since then. Can you talk about the changes in your team between that bad streak and now. CHRISTA REED: They're not bad losing streak. Our main thing was to stay focused. If we stay focused, do our discipline, we knew it would come together for us. That Missouri game we won gave us momentum coming into this tournament, and we just want to keep building off of that. Q. Coach, regardless of what happened, who you should have beaten, who you did beat, is the most important stat right now this team is 1-0? COACH BALCOMB: Yes, that's what we talked about, season three. We had a good season one, not so good season two. This is the third season. It starts 0-0. Exactly what you're saying, we're 1-0 in this season. It's a one-and-done season. I have five seniors that we really want to keep playing and do whatever it takes for this team and are working really hard at doing their job and their role. I'm really happy for them to keep playing and get another shot. The big thing about who we play doesn't matter. Like Christa said, it's about our growth. But if you're going to play somebody, matchup-wise you're better off playing somebody, I think, no matter what, all the years I coached, it's extra motivation. We're already motivated but it's extra motivation to play teams you lost to. It's hard to beat teams in this league two and three times. It's not personal with any certain teams. THE MODERATOR: Coach, ladies, thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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