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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: COLLEGE STATIONMarch 20, 2016Gary BlairChelsea JenningsCourtney WalkerJordan JonesCollege Station, Texas Q. Courtney, when you look at Florida State's defense, what jumps out at you? What do they do well? COURTNEY WALKER: They're really well at defending the ball screen. There are ways we could take advantage of it, but overall that's one of the things they do really well, really good help side, so we'll have to do a good job of reading the defense when we're coming off the screens and making our passes and running our offense because just to be able to find weaknesses is not going to be the initial thing that we normally get. Q. Jordan, what did the win yesterday do for you guys' confidence moving into Monday since you had lost the previous two games? I know there had been a lot of time between those games, but what did it do for your confidence, winning yesterday? JORDAN JONES: I think it helped our confidence tremendously. One for the fact that coach was able to play 10 players, and all 10 players did a good job of contributing and coming in and giving us what we were lacking at that time of the point in game. You talk about Danni and Coop coming in, hitting a couple big shots for us that we needed, some threes to open up the defense, open up the floor. But with this rotation that we have everybody is pretty much capable of coming in at any time and contributing to the offense and I feel like that was one main focal point that we got out of that game that everybody did come in and did help us and build us up in some type of way and when Coach subbed we were lacking nothing on the court at that particular point in the time in the game. So just realizing that all 10 players are capable of coming in and picking up the slack that the starters may not be doing or may not be doing well at that point in time, it has really boosted our confidence and trust in one another, even more so than we had before. Q. Chelsea, what do you think are going to be some of the biggest challenges to dealing with Florida State tomorrow? CHELSEA JENNINGS: Well, as Courtney Walker said, their ball screen defense is very good, but it's ways that we can take advantage of it. I feel like they lack transition defense so we can run on them if we get the ball out and we rebound well. I think those are some of the keys. Q. Jordan, after yesterday's game, did you maybe try to do too much to start with with Courtney out and the second game moving forward without her do you feel a little more cohesion starting out? JORDAN JONES: Most definitely. We talked about it as a team. We watched the men's game, in the first half they were a little bit out of sorts, out of whack. People tried to make plays and just real jittery, first NCAA game, and I feel like that's how we came out. Everybody just wanted it so bad and we just wanted it right then and right there and we were rushing things and we weren't settling down and executing our offense. As the game came along, we started to settle down. We knew that we were the veteran basketball team and that we knew that if we would just execute our offense, then everything would turn into our favor, and I felt like starting with myself and Courtney Walker, Coach talked to us halftime and told us that 11 of our 16 or 17 turnovers came from the two senior guards and we just really buckled down and settled down and came back in the second half and just really knew that we're Texas A&M and we're two senior guards and that's unacceptable if we want to get to the places where we want to go. Q. Courtney, what does it do for the team when the whole team is able to out-rebound the other team by 20 or more? COURTNEY WALKER: It gives us more possessions. Just being able to rebound the ball, like Chelsea said, get it out and get it out in transition, so we've really been working on our long outlets. I think we did a decent job of that yesterday, and that just allows us to get in transition faster and have numbers more than going into our secondary or into an offense. Rebounding is huge for possessions, not only them being able to get second-chance points, second-chance threes for Missouri, and second-choice points is an emphasis for Florida State, as well, so just turning our scores and our possessions into what could have been theirs. Q. Courtney, how do you handle the emotions tomorrow knowing that it's the last game and there's a ticket to the Sweet 16 on the line? COURTNEY WALKER: You know, there's a lot of emotion involved for all the seniors, and for the team, as well. We have a lot of young ones who haven't been to this point in the NCAA Tournament. It's just really an exciting experience. I think we see it more as excitement than pressure is how most of us are feeling, so just relaxed and being able to go out there and have a great night. Q. Courtney, what would it mean to you to set the all-time A & M scoring record? You're really close to it now. COURTNEY WALKER: I think it would mean a lot. I think last time I had thought about it was just the legacy that all of us leave behind. I mean, look at Jordan, you look at Chelsea, sixth man, C-Will got 1,000 points. We all have had just great individual careers and a great experience together as seniors, and so it's just another addition to all of our legacy that we're leaving behind. Q. Jordan, since Senior Day did not go so well for you guys this year and tomorrow being the final game, do you think back to that game against Kentucky and there's more motivation? JORDAN JONES: Definitely. Our coaches do a great job of giving us motivation on our scouts from the front page, and the first thing that we all recognize when we got our scouts was it was a picture of Reed Arena and it said, "the real senior day", and that really just resonated with all of us because this truly is the last time all five seniors will play at Reed Arena. We kind of took it lightly. I don't want to say we took it lightly when we played Kentucky, that that might be the last time that we would play at Reed Arena, but we all expected to get the first and second round hosted, so I feel like we kind of took that for granted. But knowing that this is the ultimate last time that all of us are going to play in this jersey, in this arena in front of these fans for the last time is just going to be special for us, and we're not trying to lose this game. Q. When you look at Florida State, particularly defensively, anybody they remind you of, and what is their style defensively? GARY BLAIR: Kentucky. They rotate in four post players. Kentucky basically rotates in three post players. They're very solid. Romero is a great point guard, and Brown, they sort of interchange at the 1 and the 2. When you look at their 4 player, she's very good, because I recruited her, too. I didn't get her, Thomas. She's great over her left shoulder. She runs the floor. She's just a tremendous athlete that plays the game up in the air. If you allow her -- we're hoping that Anriel will be that good offensively at the end of her sophomore year like this kid is right now for them. But I would say very similar to Kentucky. But I think in certain ways, they might even be a little bit more disciplined than Kentucky on how they run their set offenses. Everything is pretty simple what they do, but they just keep executing, and they dare you to beat it. So like when they hedge a screen, they don't need to trap it. They keep the hedge on it for a long time to see if you can make the pass across while they're rotating down. Now, when I say that, you look at Middle Tennessee stayed in the ballgame because of their post play. They didn't turn it over early and they kept getting the ball inside and they got great touches. That's what we've got to do is have enough patience to not just live and die on Jennings and Walker shooting jump shots, but get it inside and see if we can draw some fouls and to be able to score, as well, like Middle did. Middle was in the game until basically the end of the third quarter. But Kentucky, closest thing. Here's an analysis while they were talking: Notre Dame, Louisville, Syracuse and Florida State, that's the big four, and three of thumb are all newcomers. Notre Dame, Louisville and Syracuse all came from different leagues. Duke and North Carolina are the ones that have kept that league together for so long. Now you look at the SEC and you look at South Carolina, A & M, Mississippi State and Kentucky. Those four teams used to be bottom feeders of all the conferences we used to be at, and it used to be Tennessee, Georgia and LSU. And so the worm has turned a little. But when you look at the two leagues, both leagues are very, very good. Each of us has our strengths of our leagues what we do. I think they might be the better offensive league. I think the SEC might be the better defensive league. But it's still all about players, all about moving parts, and all about kids making decisions and finishing, and I was very proud to get up here and hear these three seniors being able to talk to y'all now going into their last year. It's a pretty special feeling to have these three up here next to you. Q. Do you think your players have gotten their first-game jitters out of the way and will go into tomorrow's game more calm like they did in the second half of yesterday's game? GARY BLAIR: I think that's good. We had a whole lot of pressure on us the first game because if we'd lost the first game we'd have been up selling popcorn, okay, I promise you. We would have been selling popcorn while the others were playing, and we didn't want that. Our kids handled the pressure. We made the adjustments at halftime. We stayed in the ballgame the first half because I think Missouri State had as much jitters as we did early, and they missed a lot of wide-open shots. And then I think we took over with our run in the second half, in the third quarter, when you hit 13 out of 18. It's hard not to be ahead by double figures. Our kids realized we were trying to run early, but we were screwing up our transition by our passes. Normally the ball is always in the hands of Jordan Jones in transition and set offenses and everything. We were having a whole lot of people handle it, and we were not making good decisions. We tightened it up in the second half. The jitters are over. I think we're more relaxed. We hope to have a big crowd, and I think we finished ninth out of 16 in attendance. Okay, ninth out of 16 in attendance, fourth in the SEC, I believe. South Carolina was No. 1 in the nation. Steve has those stats if y'all would like that for your figures. But ninth, knowing our team was playing in Oklahoma City in spring break. I thought 4,000 was very adequate. Now I want to get up in the 6, 7 and 8,000 range. Q. How impressive was it for Howard not to only set the NCAA Tournament rebounding mark but also she had more rebounds than three entire teams in the first round. What does that say? GARY BLAIR: I had no idea during the ballgame, and I'd taken her out, playing some other kids at the time, and Erika Wak came up to me and said, hey, she only needs two more rebounds to tie the record. I had no idea the most she's ever had is 14 this year, and all of a sudden, I said, I think we can get her two more. So actually she went in there and got, I think, three of them on one possession. She missed, missed, missed, got a few rebounds that way, but I'm happy for her because I hope it builds up her confidence. It gave her some national attention, and this is a kid that's really worked hard. Her offense still needs work, but that's what -- the most you ever improve is between your freshman and sophomore year, and before she hits 43 feet in the triple jump, I want her to develop that offensive game. Q. How will you handle your players tomorrow with the emotions that they'll have, especially for the seniors, their last game, and for everybody a trip to the Sweet 16 on the line? GARY BLAIR: Well, first I'll handle it by telling them to get to their 8:00 class, because school starts tomorrow, and spring break is over. We're regular students, and we have to do our thing and get to that first class. It changes a lot because we've been working out at 11:30 due to so many seniors have 3:00, 3:30 classes because they're close to graduation. So I don't know how that's going to translate into can we go to our first class or not. But the emotion, playing at home, we didn't lay an egg against Kentucky. I think Kentucky played so well, they just took everything that we wanted to do away from us. They were on a high there. They were playing on a mission, trying to get an SEC top-four seed, and sometimes you've got to give the other team a little bit more credit than what you want to do is just say, your team sucked and all that. We didn't. I think Kentucky played very well. So sometimes it's just not your night. But we will be high with emotion. The carrot is to get to Dallas, okay. The carrot particularly was many recruits that we have up in the Dallas area, as many seniors that we have from the Dallas area, and from an old coach that would like to go back home to have his relatives see the game, also, in Dallas. But Florida State is as good as anybody we've played in the SEC except South Carolina. That's the bottom line. They're just as good as any of our top teams. That's why they're No. 10 in the nation in the coaches' poll, because the coaches know more than the writers, excuse me, how good Florida State is. Q. Another one of your seniors tomorrow, Courtney, has a chance to break the record for points. You've been around here for a while and seen a lot of great players, but what does it say about Courtney that she's up near that break and will likely break it unless she has a poor game tomorrow? GARY BLAIR: Well, if she doesn't break the record, we lose the game. That's simple math right there. That's what happened to Curry last night for San Anton, right? They guarded him. They guarded him. Good defense can take great shooters away from what they want to do, and sometimes it's the flow of the game. I think Courtney would be glad to get the record next weekend and her score five points and everybody else go for 20, as long as we were surviving and advancing. There's times I think Courtney is doing it this year in less games than was expected. We didn't expect to be one and out in the SEC Tournament. We didn't play an extra game like other teams did on a three-for-one situation. And to get this done, we're not going to talk about it. That's y'all's job. Everybody reads the papers and listens and everything like that, but I will never mention it. I will not call certain plays for her to get the record. It all has to be in the flow of the game, just like when Starks got the record here. It was in the flow of the game. Q. You touched on this yesterday a little bit, but I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the athleticism of Thomas and Howard going against each other and what you expect to see there. GARY BLAIR: You can see why I recruited Thomas a year early, because that was the perfect type of 4 player that we wanted, a kid that could run the floor, get to the rim, defend, could actually play some at the 3, whole nine yards, but she wanted to stay closer to home and she made a good decision. Sometimes it's hard going into somebody else's state. We were able to go in and get Anriel, who was a little bit under the radar. She was recruited a little bit by South Carolina, but it boiled down to Kentucky, Arkansas and ourselves. Sometimes it's the need, what the other people are looking for at the time. Believe it or not, she wasn't interested in going to Georgia or Georgia Tech, and so it worked out for us. Our 12th Man video and the program that we have over there meant more to her than perhaps even the basketball program that we had here. What we had to offer her for life after college really made a difference for this young lady. I think it's going to be which one can stay out of foul trouble, and that's going to be the key, and I know Thomas got two fouls early. For once we were able to keep Anriel out of foul trouble. And the other thing is Anriel was not having to guard one of their top scorers, and that allowed her to go to the boards. But Florida State has no weaknesses. All five of them can score, and then the three that they bring off the bench can score. They've got two more posts and two more guards, so they've got a great eight-man player rotation. Q. What's your history with Sue? You usually have some good coaching stories. You haven't said about Sue. GARY BLAIR: You go back to the -- first, she used to be the WBCA president about two years ago. She's still on the board there. We played Florida State in a home and home. They played here first. My good friend, Joe Smith, had just passed away, the writer from Queens, New York, the guy that weighed about 380 on a good day. The funeral was at 11:00 the next morning in New Jersey. I couldn't get there, not by commercial. Florida State allowed me to ride on their charter back to their home, then they had a car waiting for me to take me to Jacksonville, caught a 6:00 a.m. out of Jacksonville into Newark, took a taxi to the funeral, and got there on time for the funeral. And I appreciate Sue allowing me -- and here they were, we beat them here, and I'm sitting on the first seat, and Sue had to go recruiting, and so her assistants were sitting there looking at the game film and just getting so mad, and I was having to sit very quietly because we had just won. But that's the camaraderie that you have in coaching. She's meant a whole lot to the game, and a whole lot of coaches just want to coach the game. She's trying to make the game better on the administrative end by doing the little things right and serving on committees and getting her players to play at the highest level. So I've got a lot of respect for her. She's one of those coaches, once a top-10 job opens up, if she's not in, she's not leaving Florida State, and that's what the difference in the women's game is. They're not going to leave to go take another University of job. That would be the same with Sherri Coale or Charli at Arizona State. They're just saying there can only be one Geno and one Connecticut, but there's a whole lot of us that have quality of life and have a chance to get to the Final Four and take our chances, and I think that's where she is right now. I think she's been under the radar for a little bit too long, and thanks to President Obama, he just put her into the Final Four. Beating us, beating Baylor, beating Louisville, and then getting beat by Connecticut. So let her try to live up to that. I don't have to live up to it. Obama is not -- he couldn't even remember Texas Tech or A & M, who had been to his White House. I'd love to remind him of that one more time, but it's up to me and our team to get the job done. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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