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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONALS: AUSTINDecember 9, 2016Jerritt ElliottMorgan JohnsonEbony NwanebuMicaya WhiteAustin, Texas THE MODERATOR: Good evening, we are joined by Texas head coach Jerritt Elliott, student athletes McKaya White, Ebony Nwanebu and Morgan Johnson. We'll take a statement from coach Elliot and then we'll open up to questions from coach and the student athletes. Thoughts on tonight win? COACH ELLIOTT: Well, first of all, what a battle that was with BYU, and kind of back and forth, and you know, give them a lot of credit. But they are a very good defensive team and they caused us a lot of problems with our transition game. But overall, you know, everybody thought we were down and out, down 12-7, and I give my team a lot of credit for the belief in making plays and executing at the end. You know, BYU was playing extremely well. That last hitting error they made was I think the first hitting error they have had in quite some time. They just continued to put pressure on us from the defensive side and were able to side out a high level and control the ball. We started to make some plays at the end and transition for points, which was a really good job, our best rotation has been rotation one serving; they went on a big run, and we needed it to be alive today. So it's part of this tournament, as I told my team, is that some games come down to one or two points. But we made those plays, and at the end, to give us an opportunity to advance. And so we live to breathe another day and keep pushing on. Q. For any of the players -- EBONY NWANEBU: Kind of feels like I just woke up from something. It was really emotional and I think I'm more emotional about the fact that we fought so hard. It's nice to be around a group of people that never for a second thought that we were going to lose, even though most people would believe that if you're down 12-7, you can't come back from that. Coming back from that and with all of these girls, it's my dream team. MICAYA WHITE: Yeah, to reiterate what Eb said, most teams, 12-7, they would have given up on themselves and up on the season and said, well, let's try for next year. You won't find many teams like ours that will fight back from that deficit and get a W. MORGAN JOHNSON: Yeah, just the way like Chloe and our seniors led during the time we were down. Like Chloe looked at me and she said, "No balls are dropping." And I was like, "Yeah, okay, no balls are dropping." Just having that leadership was really the reason that pushed us to beat them. Q. What were you guys telling each other and how did you rally back? EBONY NWANEBU: We kind of looked at each other, even though we were down by that much and said, we're not looking at this game. Every time, I said we're not losing this game, Pal is like, we're not losing this game. So we never had the mind-set that we were going to lose the game. Erik always says, like, don't look at the scoreboard. And sometimes you have to. But the score doesn't matter until it's the final point. MORGAN JOHNSON: Vera (ph) always tells us, look each other in the eye, and we were all making eye contact, communicating, every single point, 5-0, 12-7, it didn't matter. It was like 0-0 the entire game. The score didn't matter and we knew we were going to win the game no matter what. Q. Can you talk about the competition of facing BYU? COACH ELLIOTT: Yeah, we had to swing to win it and go 3-0 and feel pretty good about ourselves. We didn't do that. But we talked in the locker room, it's 0-0, we've got to come out and play. But you look across the country right now, I think the other three regionals I've seen, they have all gone five. The level of volleyball is getting so -- the quality of the play is such a high level and everybody can play. I thought BYU had a lot of nice players and caused us a ton of problems. You know, I thought they served very well and got us off balance, and we just never got into a great rhythm all tonight. You know, that's what this tournament is about. Sometimes you need a little lucky break. Sometimes you've got to make things happen, and those are the momentums that keep you going and surviving. Q. What did you say to your players going into that set after -- COACH ELLIOTT: Yeah, we talked about emotional intelligence. Like these matches are very emotional, and we've got to be -- the one that's going to win this match is the one that's going to be able to keep their composure for the longest period of time; and let everything go that's happened in the past. Right now, we've played one point at a time. And our emotional stability is by looking at each other in the eye and taking one contact at a time, and doing what we've done training all season. You know, they did that at the end of the match. They just took it and they were patient and they made plays and you've got to be able to make plays to win. There's a lot of credit due to our backcourt, I thought Autumn as a freshmen coming in and serving and making some plays; but our backcourt did a great job. We just grinded. Q. What was working in the first game? EBONY NWANEBU: Honestly, Pal, a lot of people don't see the leadership she does. And in the middle I think of the first set she looked at me and she said, "No one's dropping you." And that just gave me a confidence boost, like, all right, no one's dropping me. So I'm just going to keep putting the ball away. So I have to give a lot of credit to Pal (ph). Q. What does this do for you heading into the next game? EBONY NWANEBU: It's a confidence boost a little bit, but at the same time, we're playing a different team tomorrow. There's no guarantee that we'll win that game. So we just need to get the mind-set that it's another day and have a short-term memory and forget today and move on to the next game. Q. Talk about the first five -- COACH ELLIOTT: Yeah, you invest so much with these young women and there's so much that goes on behind the scenes in terms of how hard they work and the grinding they go through and all the team meetings that they have. To be in that situation, and culminating for a whole year -- it becomes emotional. I was emotional -- I was so proud of this group, down 12-7, and found a way. I was like, let's see what we can do and we just kind of made point after point. That, to me, as a coach, that's where my emotion comes in because I'm just so proud of them. Obviously the mental capacity that they had to be able to sustain that and not give up and throw in the towel, and to make a way for that to happen, I told them in the locker room, they are never going to forget that. Q. Morgan, what as clicking for you? MORGAN JOHNSON: It was Chloe. So like how Micaya had Pal, I had Chloe. Chloe is the one who gives me so much confidence. She's like, I'm coming to you, be ready. And knowing that she has this much confidence in me, I know I can put down any ball she sends my way. So I didn't care where the block was; I could hit around it. I wasn't afraid to make aggressive shots, and Chloe really helped me with that. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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