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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: COLLEGE STATIONMarch 19, 2016Gary BlairCourtney WalkerChelsea JenningsAnriel HowardCollege Station, Texas Texas A&M - 74, Missouri State - 65 GARY BLAIR: The whole ballgame, our offense was pretty efficient. Our passing was not efficient. But we cleaned it up in the second half. Jordan with six turnovers in the first half, zero in the second half. The third quarter was the difference, 13 out of 18 from the field, three out of three, and that has been -- our Achilles heel the whole year was third quarter. I thought when we were able to rest our kids, I thought Danni and Coop in and did a heck of a job. Knocked down, gave us nine points right there, and Curtyce was doing fine at the point guard position except for that last possession, 21 second half points. I kept calling Walker's play and C.J.'s play, earlier -- Jennings' play earlier, because I think they're the best mid-range shooters in the country because they work at it. They work at it, and they're quality seniors, and they know what we have to have. And when Walker got tired, she started going to the lane and drawing fouls. But it was a team effort. Happy for our team. Missouri State gave us everything that we wanted. Snow is a really good player. They just play like their coaches played the game. Every one of those coaches -- and I recruited two of them, lost both of them -- every one of those coaches is bringing experience and Final Four experience and Kodak All-American experience to that team. And that's why they've been to more Final Fours than A&M has. They've been to two. We'd love to see what two looks like. Q. Anriel, what went into your success on the boards today? ANRIEL HOWARD: Well, today, March 19th, about 10 years ago my mom, she was in the hospital, and her line was flat. So March 19th has always been a day for sacrifice and accomplishment with her and I, and a lot of other things have happened on March 19th. That one, of course, is the one that sticks out the most, and I just really did it for her. I didn't know I had it in me, but I played really hard for her, and I'm glad I could get the accomplishment for her. Q. Courtney, can you talk about the end of the third quarter? Seemed like nobody could stop you. COURTNEY WALKER: I just got hot. I think the beginning of the quarter when the team was hot, we had just got out into transition more or at least that's what it felt like to me. I think it was a couple of lay-ups I had gotten in transition. And after being able to get to the hole, I stopped hesitating on my shot and that helped me a lot with the follow-through. Like Coach Blair said, he just kept calling my play, and he just goes with who's hot because that's what going to make the team best, and when somebody gets hot he goes to them, and that's just what happened. Q. Courtney, what about the turnovers early? You and Jordan had a lot of turnovers. What was the explanation for that? COURTNEY WALKER: Coach Blair mentioned in our after-game conference that we hadn't played in 20 days, so there was a little bit of rust, a lot of excitement, our last NCAA Tournament, and just careless passes. I know some of Jordan's was just me -- a couple of them were to me and I didn't come to the ball. And other ones were just throwaways and not making the right read on the defense. I know one I passed it right to the other team. But just being able to be focused. I'm glad we were able to at least have a stretch there in the third quarter where we were really focused, really tuned in, and we're going to have to be able to bring that for the whole game on Monday. Q. Chelsea, how do you feel the suspensions pregame affected the team, and did you feel any added pressure being thrust into the starting lineup? CHELSEA JENNINGS: I've been in this position when Courtney Williams was out with a back injury, so I'm used to being in this position. So it brought no extra nervousness or anything like that. And just A&M is known for the 12th man. And we have a senior leader that's down right now, and we all stepped in, and we did our part, and we're going to keep going. Q. Anriel, you said you didn't know that you had that many rebounds, it never really occurred to you. But was there a point in the game where you felt like you were getting more rebounds than you normally do? ANRIEL HOWARD: Well, with about four minutes left, I was on the bench, and the coaches were like, come on, you've got to get some rebounds. And Coach Blair pulled me aside, and said, I need two rebounds out of you. I said, okay. Then I got some rebounds, and everybody was cheering when I got the first one, so I was like, what's going on? Q. What about not having Williams? How did that affect you? You played without her; did that help you prepare this team for this game or how did you prepare for the game without her? GARY BLAIR: We had Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to get ready, okay? And we worked on our transition game instead of our half-court offensive sets. We tried to get out on the floor and attack because you saw us -- instead of handing the ball to Jordan, we had to work on that, because we had to make up for not having Williams, and we had to score in different ways. We wanted a fast tempo. That's why I was able to go to the bench so much during the ballgame, because of the pace that we were going to play. Yes, it hurt. It hurt big-time, because she has meant so much to this program, USA Basketball this summer, All-SEC three years in a row. It hurts. There's not a kid in the country that's that size that can create off the bounce as well as she can. There's great players out there, but she's meant a lot to this program. So we pick up the pieces. Ten is enough. That's what we had. We had 10 kids ready to go. We were only on a nine-player rotation anyway. But I've got 10 ready to go. And like what I told the lady at halftime when she interviewed me, how are you coping? And I talked about the 12th man. Somebody needs to step up. And I think that's what we did tonight. Jennings was great. She had to guard the other team's best player in Snow the majority of the time. Coop and Danni stepped up for first three which made it a tie ballgame. That's the first three Danni has hit. She was 1 out of 15 going into those two that she made. People get injured. You've had suspensions in every sport all over the country, whether it's pros, little league, high school or college. It's something, as coaches, we just have to pick up the pieces and be able to get our players to adjust and believe in each other. And I think our kids did a good job of that. But remember, we were 5-0 without Williams and Jones when they were injured. So now we're 6-0 without another starter. But to get to 7-0, we're going to have to be a whole lot better. Q. What was the key for the turnaround after halftime as far as limiting the turnovers and getting out on a roll offensively? GARY BLAIR: A couple of set plays. I'm glad it was our ball to open up the third quarter, because we were focused. We knew what we wanted to do, and we got the ball in the hands of the right people, and they made some turnovers. I think their turnovers to start the third quarter really hurt their momentum, and then when we get on a roll, and you get that crowd behind you, it was pretty special. I just kept running set plays, okay, and sometimes we've got to have more motion. But Walker was quicker than everybody that was guarding her. She will not necessarily be quicker than the people that will guard her Monday night. Q. She was quicker, but she didn't compete well the last three games and she was 3-8 at one point today before she got into it. What was the difference do you feel, the driving, getting a few lay-ups, or what made her shot come around? GARY BLAIR: Getting her space and using the step-back move and getting into the flow. She is a flow player. She has got to get in it. You've got to pocket pass. One time in the first half, Jordan, she was wide open in the zone. We reversed it to her and Jordan hit her in her knees, she came up, shot the ball and missed. When we're rolling, we're a great passing team, and we're putting it there, and all that shooter has to do is turn her feet and move and get into the flow. You see it every night on TV. And what always makes a great shooter is a great passer, learning how to pocket pass. Q. What was the key for Anriel to get off like that? She had nine rebounds in the first quarter. GARY BLAIR: Well, she knows one thing. If you watched her every day in practice, she's the Energizer Bunny. The ball is shot, and she's going. Maybe a little bit of that is because of her track background, being a triple jumper or whatever. She's just a high-energy person off the court and on the court. She wants to be the next ESPN, Carolyn Peck. She told Shanae, who was doing the ballgame, I want your job. I mean, she wants it all. And once we teach her the game of basketball more -- but right now I'm not having to teach her anything. I just say go fetch it, and she goes and finds it. It gave her confidence that she scored on a couple of those offensive moves, whereas in the SEC and the size that we go against like Florida State, those were slapped back at us a lot. But she got her confidence because generally the people she was going against were her size. Q. Will Courtney or Shlonte be available on Monday, or do you know yet? GARY BLAIR: No. Q. How tough was it to sell tickets with short notice? You got 4,000. What were your thoughts on the crowd today? GARY BLAIR: I thought it was pretty good. I think our marketing department at the end was out there hustling, selling tickets and getting some tickets out besides the ones -- we had a number of people that came up to me while I was sitting there watching the first game, and said, hey, I just want you to know we just drove in from Oklahoma City; we're here. We're driving right back first thing in the morning. Then we're going to drive right back on Monday. That's what Aggies are all about. So we're using that as a plus, between Oklahoma City and us. Q. You mentioned the size of Florida State. How do you prepare to go against them on Monday, especially with Courtney Williams being out? GARY BLAIR: Well, the great match-up is going to be Shakayla Thomas and Howard. They're both 5'11", they can both jump out of the gym. The difference is Thomas can dunk. Mine cannot. But mine can triple jump farther. It's going to be a tremendous match-up, who can stay out of foul trouble. A lot of times they like to bring Shakayla the bench. I think they started her today. I missed the opening tip. But I recruited Shakayla very hard. So I got one from Atlanta and I lost the one from Alabama, but I'm not trading mine. The junior college kid, Bulgak if that's how you say her name, she's very, very good. That's where Shlonte Allen played junior college ball with her and they won two national championships. Romero, the point guard, is as good as anybody we see in the SEC. She does an outstanding job for them. And then you're looking at a future Hall of Fame coach right there in Sue Semrau. We've got our work cut out. But how we get ready, it's called the cold pool. That's where we're all headed right now except for the old coach. I'm headed to Napa Flats to eat some good Italian food. But we're going to the cold pool and try to ice down and rest up for tomorrow. We'll have more of a workmanlike practice where we're not having to use as much energy as we've had to use because we wanted to press Southwest Missouri. Now we've got to work against Florida State's press. But it's going to be a war, and it will be the best game on TV on Monday night. Two teams, it's a toss-up, and it's going to be a lot of fun. Q. Can you talk about setting the tempo early and how that helped your team throughout the game? GARY BLAIR: We're at home, and on paper, you're the better team. You don't want to sit back and run and try to run a perfect play. You want to allow your team their wheels, and we want to be able to run and make some mistakes, which we did, particularly turning over the ball. But we set the tempo. I don't think they were expecting us to run as much as we did or to press as much as we did. I think our kids handled it, and our bench was very good. I'm not sure what we'll do on Monday night, but we'll come up with something. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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