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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 3, 2016Katie MeierKeyona HayesAdrienne MotleyGreensboro, North Carolina Miami - 77, Pitt - 55 KATIE MEIER: You know, as a coach, when you have a team that you know is good, part of your journey with them is getting them to peak at the right time. It's really important. I know this team is good, and I've known they're good. I think that after that Florida State game, I sort of felt like, okay, you know, the season ebbs and flows and then you start demanding certain things from your team, and when they don't do them, you lose, and when you do do them, you win, and everybody gets the formula. We played with great physicality, and so coming into this game, we felt like we were absolutely on the uptick, and our balance, and everybody is answering the bell. We're not just riding Adrienne Motley by any stretch of the imagination, although I will gladly put a saddle on you, girl, and ride you. But we just need to make sure that everybody understands that her three assists or steals or whatever, that's just as important, and that's what she's been bringing to the table this year. She's not just a finisher for us, and she's a facilitator and she's a defender, so that helps. Key Hayes is very, very reliable, and when Key is reliable, it makes my job a lot easier on what plays to call. If Key is scoring one-on-one, which she can do against anybody -- if she`s demanding the ball like that, my job is real easy because I've got an inside out combination that's tough to beat. Pitt is a very, very nice team. I don't think physically, their physicality inside, I think we kind of dominated there. It's nice, Miami is not just all about the guards, and I thought that was really a nice showing for our entire team tonight. Q. To build on the comment about the building. Suzie was talking about that. She said just Adrienne`s presence on the floor makes a whole of difference even if she doesn`t score a whole bunch of points one day. Can you talk about what she means to you team, and Adrienne, can you talk about the respect you're getting? KATIE MEIER: Well, I think that's where she came to me end of last year when we had our postseason meeting, she said, what do I need to do? In fact she had almost a point per game more average last year than she did this year, but her team wasn't as good, and her assists weren't something I could bring to the All-American meetings and her rebounds weren't anything I could talk about. So we talked about her ability to hit the big shot but to not have to be a volume scorer for us to win, as long as there's a great comprehension in your game and when to make a big play. Her steals tonight were huge. Her assists, she deferred on two of them that she could have shot. And then the killer shot I thought was right in front of me when the shot clock was down to about 5.4, and she was guarded, she just raised up and it was just a silent assassin of a shot, just bam right in. That's where she's saving energy a little bit because Adrienne doesn`t like to miss shots and it affected her too much. She's not having to bail us out like she had to last year. ADRIENNE MOTLEY: I don't think of it as so much deferring to me. I know that whether I'm on the floor getting an assist, getting steals it's going to help Miami not necessarily with points. It doesn't matter. But I appreciate the praise from Coach, both coaches, and I just do whatever I have to do to make sure Miami wins. Q. Katie, tomorrow morning you play Florida State, very quick turnaround, you just saw them Sunday. You touched on that a little bit, but an advantage to play them again so soon? KATIE MEIER: Yes, certainly for my coaching staff, because, you know -- I was joking around with them, I said, okay, we'll go break down Florida State's last game, y'all, and it was kind of a joke because they looked at each other like oh, my gosh, and it was us. So we're good. We're going to have a great game plan. We're going to be solid. And the advantage there is just kind of for the kids to not have to -- we don't have to go to a gym tonight and go walk through or whatever. We can kind of keep them fresh, keep them in the hotel. But I would prefer the word opportunity. Q. You deal with the scouting report when you've seen the team just this recently. Does this give everybody more time to relax? KATIE MEIER: Yeah, I'm actually going to have Keyona and Adrienne present the scouting report to the team tonight. We'll be good. We don't do numbers. We know everyone's name. We know their middle names, too. These teams know each other, so we'll be good. We know their calls, so it's just a matter of the mistakes we made, and we did, we caused that loss at Florida State. They earned it and we caused it. I'm going to give them credit, but I'm going to let you all know that we feel like we controlled that game for 32 minutes. Q. Coach, Keyona Hayes, nine for nine, does that set a Miami women's record for percentage of field goals, shooting more than eight field goals? Do you know if she broke a record today? KATIE MEIER: I do know. Fun fact, I know that she couldn't have -- you can't do better than 1,000, right? I do know that in the two times that we played Pittsburgh, I was told this, that she has not missed a shot. She was 9 for 9 tonight and 7 for 7 in the last -- she's 16 for 16 against Pitt so that probably is some type of record. Q. This question is for the players. You both had very outstanding performances today. Ms. Motley, you had 19 points and 8 for 14, and Ms. Hayes, you obviously had 18 points and 9 for 9. What are you both going to have to do to play a tough Florida State team tomorrow? KEYONA HAYES: Just stay focus and come ready to play. ADRIENNE MOTLEY: Like Coach said, we know each other. We know each other first name basis, so just brushing off on what we did wrong in the first game and making sure we don't make the same mistakes this third time that we play them. It's always fun playing Florida State. Two in-state rivals, and it's Miami-Florida State. That's pretty much all we have to say at this point. Q. Can you talk about the atmosphere today and playing in front of those kids? KATIE MEIER: We love it. In fact, in my pregame talk, we started the season with a youth day at home at 11:00 a.m. with 4,000 kids, and we used the quote from Hebrews, which was let us run with patience, and that's where got our word of the day for that and I brought that word back up again. I wanted to run and have great patience because the kids get you so excited that you just want to win the first -- you want to win the game in the first two minutes because there's great energy in the gym. We were in that atmosphere to start the season, and so I thought it was really appropriate that that was the draw we got. We loved it. When we got the brackets, we were like, yea, we're playing the 11:00 game. We love that, and it gives us great energy. I want to thank the community and the kids. And at first I think the players came in and says are the kids cheering for you in warmups, and they said some, and I said go win them over, go back out there and win them over, and then by the end I think we won them over. ADRIENNE MOTLEY: Like Coach said, we played -- our very first game was in front of a bunch of kids. It's just fun. At one point they were like Miami, just yelling Miami, and I was just like, wow, the kids are really yelling for us. They're usually just yelling random things, just happy to be out of school. But it was fun. It's always fun playing against a bunch of people where there's a bunch of kids. It's just always fun. KEYONA HAYES: Like they said, the crowd was amazing. It was fun, and it was great being role models out there for the little kids watching us. Q. Keyona, how do you explain the shooting percentages against Pittsburgh in two games like that? KEYONA HAYES: Just focus. Nothing really to explain. The team ran plays for me, I came through for them, they put me in the right positions to make a right play. Q. For the players, how much confidence does this game give you when it was pretty much a blowout the entire game? ADRIENNE MOTLEY: We had a lot of confidence coming out of the Florida State game. You really don't hear that much coming off a loss, but we really gelled well and came together that game. So we just know, again, we know what we have to do and what we have to do to make sure it doesn't happen again. Necessarily I wouldn't say this game gave us confidence. It's always great coming out with the win, but we want bigger things, and that's what we're looking forward to. KEYONA HAYES: Like she said, this game not necessarily gave us confidence, but we continued to play hard to work for the next game. We have to continue to hunt and run plays and get through everything, prepare for our next game. Q. How happy are you with 21 assists on 33 made shots, and how do you take that sharing of the ball forward to tomorrow's game? KATIE MEIER: We have -- 65 percent of our field goals assisted is a goal of ours, and that's right at it, and we have 10-game goals, and that's one of them. Our percentages tonight were amazing. I know Pitt had to be -- she's such a great coach, and we're friends, and I really think the world of her and her team and how hard they fight. But we were so efficient tonight, and they were having to chase that basketball around, and then we finished well. That was a big part. The ball went to the right spot, but you don't get an assist unless the bucket goes in, and I thought we finished well. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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