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March 3, 2016
Jacksonville, Florida
Tennessee - 68
Arkansas - 51
THE MODERATOR: We are now pleased to be joined by Tennessee.
Coach, your opening thoughts on tonight's win over Arkansas.
COACH WARLICK: Just a great effort. Really proud of our team. I think we kind of proved that Georgia game wasn't a fluke for us.
I just love our energy and effort. When we do that, great things happen. I'm glad to see that the Oregon kids decided to play today, especially Team Jordan. I introduced her to the team after the game. Really proud of both of them.
Our team was solid. We were solid. We had a tremendous amount of respect for Arkansas. Their record is not any indication of the quality of team. We're just excited about the win and getting the chance to move on.
THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions.
Q. Holly, can you speak to the defensive effort against Jessica. I think 18 points in one game against you, 25 points in the other one. Did you switch up on who was guarding her?
COACH WARLICK: After playing her twice, she's an awesome player. We just wanted to make sure we keyed in on her. We didn't want to leave her open. We tried to keep somebody on her all the time. The person who guarded, we didn't help out a lot.
I just thought our awareness of where she was, what we needed to do was solid. We mixed up who defended her. Bashaara did some. Jaime did some. It was a whole team effort to make sure she didn't go off on us.
Q. Holly, why did Jordan have to be introduced to the team afterwards?
COACH WARLICK: I just love how she played, a lot of energy, a lot of heart. She led this basketball team. She didn't waiver. I like to give Jordan a hard time. But really, really, really proud of her.
When she brings the energy and effort that she did tonight, we've got a great chance to do something really special.
Q. When you got off to a quick start, one missed layup, four or five of those, any concerns at that point whether it was going to be one of those nights?
COACH WARLICK: I wasn't concerned about it because I thought our defense was solid. When our defense is solid, and we rebound the basketball, I thought we were all over the boards early, I think we got a great chance to win the basketball game.
I thought we were getting good looks. It would have concerned me if we were not getting good looks. We were getting great looks. We just weren't knocking 'em down early.
So I thought our defense led to some open layups. Wasn't really concerned at that point about missing shots. Just glad we were getting second-chance points and finishing the play.
Q. Jordan and Jaime, do you feel like the post-season is a chance for you to hit the reset button? Where is the team's confidence at?
JORDAN REYNOLDS: Yeah, whenever it comes tournament time, our coaches always emphasis it's a new life. Post-season, anybody can be taken down on any given night. So there's really no turning back from here on out. It's really one-and-done now. You don't know how many games you have left. You don't always know if you can continue, so you have to give it your all in each game. That's what they've been emphasizing lately.
We really want to give our seniors a good run in this post-season. That's what we've been emphasizing lately.
JAIME NARED: I agree. It is a new season. We just have to refocus. We haven't had our ideal season, but we still have games left. We have a tournament and then beyond that.
We just have to refocus and play the way we're capable of playing, not worry about what happened before.
COACH WARLICK: Let me say this. I think these young ladies, the team as well, we haven't had a season up to our standard. But they have worked so hard in practice. They never thought that they would be out of a game.
I was really proud of them throughout the year. We had a lot of losses, but they stayed focused and came in every day and worked hard. You just think something's going to click. It's clicked towards the end of the season.
But they could have folded, and they didn't. Really proud of our young ladies in staying focused and trying to dig out the hole that we were in.
Q. You took really good care of the ball tonight, not a whole lot of turnovers. Probably wasn't your best shooting percentage. They were pretty even with you on rebounding. At one point late second quarter, you had maybe only three turnovers. Was that another emphasis?
COACH WARLICK: Huge for us. Absolutely. When we can keep the game within 10 turnovers, great things have happened for us. I mean, we talk a lot about turnovers don't allow you to at least get a shot off that could possibly go in. We've really worked hard on limiting our turnovers.
We've kind of simplified our offense a little bit more to not make it so complicated, and just go out and play the game. I think that's really helped.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, ladies, thank you very much.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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