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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: SIOUX FALLSMarch 25, 2016Quentin HillsmanBrianna ButlerAlexis PetersonBrittney SykesSioux Falls, South Dakota Syracuse - 80, South Carolina - 72 THE MODERATOR: We're joined now by Syracuse University. COACH HILLSMAN: We're super excited to still be playing. I thought our kids competed at a tremendously high level. I think playing them two times gave us some familiarity with how they play, what to expect. We tried to combine the two game plans, do what we did well, make it into one game plan for success. It worked out well for us. At the end of the day, you have somebody on the sideline like Dawn. She's just an amazing person and a great ambassador for women's basketball and what she's done from every level in women's basketball. You really feel for her because she's a great coach with a great team. I hate for her to have to lose this game. But I can tell you, she has a tremendous team. They're going to win some championships. They're really tough. They really play gritty. They're a really good team. I can honestly tell you, she made me a better coach because she made me compete and be successful in that game. I have to give her a lot of credit. Overall our kids just followed the game plan. At halftime I thought Lex and Brit was playing better. I told Butler, Going home. In the second half, she was amazing. Amazing. Couldn't happen to a better kid, to a better person, somebody who really fights and plays hard. Just really happy for her. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. 1:35 left, what do you talk about? BRIANNA BUTLER: Coach said as long as we keep the game close, we'll have the opportunity to win. He gave us confidence and told us to play the game the way we've been playing all year. That's what we did. Q. Where does this rank in your basketball careers? BRITTNEY SYKES: It's a great win, you know. We've been making history all season. Of course, we celebrated. We're very happy. That was a great team. That was a great basketball game. We're very happy that we won that game. We're moving on to the Elite 8. It's a great feeling. I don't know how many words I can use. It's amazing. I'm overwhelmed. I'm still overwhelmed. I'm just ready for Sunday. BRIANNA BUTLER: It's a great feeling beating a great team, a well-coached team. They had a lot of great players. Tiffany Mitchell stepped up big for them. It's a great feeling and we're ready to go on to the next stage. ALEXIS PETERSON: Like they said, it's a huge blessing just to still be sitting here. Like they said, they came out and competed hard. It's a great feeling when you can finally get it done the third time around. They're a great team and they're going to win a lot of games in the future. Q. Brianna, we talked about the best way to get out of a slump is to keep shooting. The slump was not over in the first half. You kept shooting. Did you have no doubt at all that if you kept shooting you would get the big threes? BRIANNA BUTLER: I have to give the credit to my teammates and coaches. They gave me the confidence to come out in the second half and fire. Lex told me they're going to fall. Even coach gave me the confidence. Even if I was missing, he wanted me to keep shooting. Q. Brittney, you talked about it after the last win after all that you've been through. You're playing in the Elite 8 now. What is it going to be like? BRITTNEY SYKES: It's another game on our plate. We prepare for every game the way we prepare in the beginning of the season. We take no team for granted. We're looking forward to whoever we play on Sunday. Yes, I've been through a lot, but that's behind me. It's a blessing I'm still here and still playing. I'm ready to make more history with my team. Q. Alexis, at halftime and in the third quarter, you had one of the heavyweights of the sport leaning on you, no problems. Gradually it turns around. What did you see happening? Did you see it coming all along? ALEXIS PETERSON: What I saw today was just a team who's been through so much really just pull together. We never got down. We closed it to 10. We knew if we could stay within striking distance, we had a chance. I thought today, over any other game, we really stuck together and we never gave up on each other. Coach talked about before the game we have to trust each other. That was one of our keys to winning the game. I thought we stuck together and we continued to make big play after big play. We never got down. We stuck together and believed in what our game plan was. Q. Brittney, this is the first time for this community that they've hosted an event like this. What was your impression of the environment? BRITTNEY SYKES: It was a great environment. The people of Sioux Falls, they showed a lot of love, especially the hotel staff where we stayed, the fans here. We got a really nice crowd. Whatever team they're cheering for, they made this Sweet 16, the Sunday game, an enjoyable experience today. We're looking forward to seeing them support us and any team on Sunday. We just thank them. We thank South Dakota and Sioux Falls for allowing us to be here. Q. Alexis, what is it about tournament settings that makes you so dominant? ALEXIS PETERSON: Well, I mean, I think it's my surrounding cast, coaching staff. We've been together for now my fourth year. We just know what we need to do. I think we trust each other. I think they trust me. I trust them, too. I just want to do my part, you know, hold up my end. I think they count on me to do that. Q. Brittney, their coach mentioned they took the bait. She was referring to their inside players missed three or four shots, but don't feel like they shot enough inside. Was that part of your strategy, not to give them inside points, hurt them on the outside? BRITTNEY SYKES: Credit to South Carolina. They're a very great team. They have a very dominant inside presence. When we were going through scout, coach told us to limit their touches on the inside. They're a great team. They're going to find a way to get the ball inside. We just had to limit that. We did that. That allowed us to win the game. We guarded the perimeter to the best of our ability. We followed the game plan and trusted our coach's word. Q. What was the key with the two big shots late in the game? BRIANNA BUTLER: The twins set me up with a good screen to get me wide open. The confidence behind my teammates and coaches told me to shoot the ball. Knew it was going in. That was a great feeling and gave me confidence, too. THE MODERATOR: Ladies, we'll excuse you back to the locker room. Congratulations and we'll see you again tomorrow. We'll continue with questions for Coach Hillsman. Q. What was the atmosphere like from your perspective for the first regional here in Sioux Falls? COACH HILLSMAN: It was amazing. When you come to a venue that's a neutral site and you have fans that are just cheering for every good play, it makes you feel good. I think it was an amazing atmosphere for women's basketball. I think it was great to have a lot of fans that were interested in the game. I thought fans from all schools were there and they were very, very energetic, into the game. Makes us feel good. I think our game is growing and it was amazing. It's been awesome here. Q. What was going through your mind when the buzzer goes off and you know you're advancing to the Elite 8? COACH HILLSMAN: Honestly, it was two things. I think the first thing was just really happy that we won the game, obviously, and that our team really, really trusted us and trusted our game plan. When you're in the first half, they made seven threes. We said, Listen, we have to pack it in, do what we have to do, stay disciplined, poised into our system. They did it and stayed with it. My second thought, to be quite honest, was with Dawn. She has a great team, have a lot of respect for her. I want her to be successful. Everybody expected to see her in the Final Four. We won the game. They weren't going. Seeing their seniors' heads down and not happy, it did hurt. I have to admit that. I have a special place in my heart for Dawn. She's really good people and I thought of her a lot. She was so good, so gracious in losing that game. Q. Could you summarize in a couple sentences how far this program has come to get to this point. COACH HILLSMAN: Oh, my goodness. I remember I was joking with someone the other day. My first game coaching at Syracuse, it was an exhibition game. We lost in double overtime. I remember going home thinking, I mean, this is my last year, I'm quitting when this is over. It was too much. It was an excruciating feeling. It was an exhibition game. It was unbelievable. I think from that point forward, we just knew we had to get players, we knew we had to build our program piece by piece. We got some players in. I take no credit, guys. I'm not confused. You have to get good players and they have to play for you. Once they stop playing for you, it's over, you lose. Our players is tough kids. They come and compete. We stay the course and try to get the best play we can get, get the best coaches we can get, we have amazing coaches, to build our program. Q. You mentioned how the first half obviously they were draining the threes, but you had to take away as much as you could inside. Was that hard? You weren't tempted to come out a little bit, change anything? You were hoping they would start missing the threes? COACH HILLSMAN: No, because they had an Olympian in the paint. No way we were coming out. If they make threes, we'll get our food and go home. That was the game plan. I think once you put a game plan in place, you have some things you may adjust to. We did. We started going out on Roy a little bit more. But we still played the other four players in the paint. You can't have a game plan that you know is going to work and start deviating from it. They solid. We always use (indiscernible). Just keep touching them, stay there, keep touching them. The closer the game gets, that rim is going to be like the top of a soda bottle. Keep touching them. That's what happened. We stayed there and pulled it out. Q. Throughout last week you talked about embracing that underdog role. What was the mindset this week? What were you telling the team? COACH HILLSMAN: It was much of the same, to be honest, because we understand South Carolina is a great team. We knew we weren't favored. We had a 7% chance to win. That was the whole thing. We had 7%. That's not a lot, you know (smiling). We just said, We're just going to go and play basketball. They can give us the 7%. We were 100% confident if we played our game we had a chance to win the basketball game. I tried to sell our kids on our system and what we've done. We tried the first half to stay into our zone, pressing. About the 13-, 14-minute mark, we're going to get them. So we came out after that last media time out in the third quarter, I said, Let's go, let's go get them. We forced some tough shots on them. I thought that was the key to the game. Q. What was it like to see Alexis take over the game at the end? COACH HILLSMAN: Well, she's a very good player with the ball in her hands and when we're winning. She will keep the ball. She'll come off ball screens. She'll probe. She'll put it back out and get a rescreen. She did an amazing job of controlling the game, keeping the ball in her hands. After the last game we played, I said, I trust you, I need the ball in your hands. We have other good players on this team, but I trust you. Go get the ball. I didn't have to tell her. She went and got the ball and got control of the game down the stretch. Q. How big was Briana Day's performance today? COACH HILLSMAN: Huge, because she didn't get in foul trouble. That's the whole game for her. First half she didn't have any fouls. She was able to be aggressive in the second half. In the first game we played South Carolina on a neutral site, we lost that close game, she wasn't in foul trouble. The second game we played, she was in foul trouble, she was on the bench the whole game. This game she wasn't in foul trouble, we pulled it out. I thought Briana was unbelievable inside. She came in and played some tough minutes for us. Those kids are becoming dominant defensive players in the post, and offensively they're starting to make some plays for us, so I'm really happy for them. Q. You mentioned it was the third quarter when you turned to zone, let's go get them. Was that out of necessity because of the score or did you figure later in the game it would be a good time to turn it up a little bit? COACH HILLSMAN: Well, I thought it was twofold. I didn't want to blow our legs out in that first half. I knew if we could stay within a distance and we could touch them, I felt good about it if we could touch them. The third quarter, 56-50, I looked at the clock, I said, That's two possessions, so let's get up and go get them. I could look in their eyes and could tell they were ready to go get them. That was me having a good feel for them. They looked very excited. They was finally going to get them. They really bought in and went and did it. Q. They're a heavyweight team. They were leaning on you pretty heavy. You pushed back and won. Did you sense that game was going to turn around like that? Pretty tough competition. COACH HILLSMAN: It was about us rebounding the ball in the paint. To be honest with you, it was about Brianna Butler making points. She had no threes. We weren't matching their threes. We're big about matching threes. We have to at least match the other team's threes. I said if we're not going to match their threes, we're not going to match them. I think in the second half, she was four for six behind the arc. She was amazing. We don't win that game without her. She's been that way her entire career. When we need her to step up, she's been tremendous. She is a kid that is a team player. I know it sounds crazy, but she is a reluctant shooter. I have to make her shoot the ball because she wants to make the right play. I'm okay with that. Sometimes she comes off the ball screen, I said, You need to shoot. She says, I'm not open. I said, Double pump it, shoot the ball. You have to give a great shooter confidence. The more confidence that I give her, the better she shoots it. She really won the game for us the second half. I really believe that. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you and congratulations. We'll see you back here tomorrow. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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