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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 3, 2017Matthew MitchellAlyssa RiceEvelyn AkhatorGreenville, South Carolina Kentucky - 65, Alabama - 55 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Kentucky. Coach, if you would start us out with an opening statement, please. COACH MITCHELL: Really proud to win today. Played some tough defense. Had to really battle an Alabama team that played great the first two days. Really, really went at it. Proud of our players for finding a way to win the boards today, won the turnover battle. All those take a lot of hustle. We were able to take some charges today that were really key. A tough, physical game that I'm proud we won. THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions for the student-athletes, please. Q. Alyssa, what was working for you guys inside, especially in the first half? ALYSSA RICE: We were just looking to be aggressive and dunk in on their post players because a lot of times they were playing behind. Just playing with poise. We worked on that a lot in our practice. Even when they sent the double-teams, looking for our opposite post player or guard, just being poised and patient. Q. Evelyn, you had some success against Alabama last game, again today. Did you have some confidence going into this game because of that? EVELYN AKHATOR: I mean, every other game, as long as we're practicing, I mean, I just have to be patient. Coach tells us we need to be patient and poised whenever we have the ball. If we can't decide, we just need to, like, faceoff and see what we've got, just take it. That really boost my confidence. Q. Alyssa, South Carolina tomorrow in the semifinals. What sort of challenges do they pose for you guys? ALYSSA RICE: Obviously they're a great team. They play very well together. They have a great post presence. They have a good high-low game. We're definitely going to have to come out and play our best, just go out and play our game. Try to shut down their high-low game, their post players. Try to win the boards, because that's a big thing they do well. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. Matthew, are there any updates on Taylor Murray? COACH MITCHELL: Alabama ran a nice set play in the game there. We weren't ready for it. The other four were sprinting back, trying to get the defense set. Taylor and I just talked about pressuring the ball on the way up, got into a speed dribble. It was a legal play, a good play. We didn't handle it well. She ran right into that kid full speed. She doesn't feel great right now, but it's too early to tell what's going to happen. It was a terrible, terrible collision. It was a clean, legal play, just unlucky. We probably didn't need to pressure the ball. We thought we would take time off of the clock. The kid got into a speed dribble. Taylor was hustling, and it is a bad break for us if it is anything that lingers. We don't know right now. Doc is checking her out. Q. Talk about your dribble-penetration. COACH MITCHELL: Yeah. Great job getting to the line and converting today, one of the real keys to the game, because we certainly looked a little disjointed offensively, just missed a lot of wide-open shots that we don't make all of them, but we make more than what we did today. Just had a really, really difficult day from the field. To go 85% from the line was huge. That was a real indication of toughness and hustle. That was a big, big key in the game. Q. Tomorrow South Carolina. Talk about that matchup. COACH MITCHELL: Yeah. I thought we had a real hard time with them in Lexington. They had us on the ropes in Columbia. I liked the fight our kids had. It's going to be a real challenge. They are such a talented team. The little bit I was able to see today, they played with tremendous energy and effort. Looked spectacular today. Extremely talented. Champions of our league. It will be a big, big test for us. We came down here with our goal to win the tournament. I think you have to go through the champion, whether it's tomorrow or Sunday, you're going to have to beat them to have a chance in it. They are outstanding. We'll have to play hard tomorrow. Q. Is there anything you can pinpoint on some of those offensive struggles you had, open jumpers that weren't falling? Is it tournament nerves? COACH MITCHELL: Hard to say. We have been in this position before in our program. None of these kids have had to sit a day, sit two days, and play on Friday. Maybe it was. I can't tell you. We had some great looks, created some great looks. I'll have to go back and look at the film. I just tried to talk to them at halftime about getting their footwork right. You can't let the jitters get to you. It was a difficult day for us offensively from the field. But one thing we know is we didn't shoot it that great on Thursday last year, then scored 92 on Friday. You never know what's going to happen in this tournament. The key for us today was to take care of today. Now we can be happy about that and start getting ready for tomorrow, get our best plan together. It's been less than a week since we played them. It's not unfamiliar territory for us. We'll have to go back and rest up and get ready to play our best basketball tomorrow. Q. Eight straight trips to at least the semifinals of this tournament. Talk about the success your program has had overall. COACH MITCHELL: Well, we've had a bunch of great players come through. Hard-working young women have come through. They go to practice, go to work every day. This team's really worked hard, really brought it every single day. I think we have great respect for this tournament. I have great respect for this league. I think it's a privilege and an honor to have one of the 14 seeds in this league that gets to lead a team in here. We have a lot of respect for this tournament, want to play well. It's time to be playing well. So our team always has high expectations. Part of meeting those is playing well in post-season. Q. Talk about your inside game today. COACH MITCHELL: Real, real proud of Alyssa Rice. Proud of Evelyn. Two great students, great people, high-character people, the kind of people you want in your program. They are just hard workers. Both of them have worked extremely hard. Alyssa is just blossoming in front of our eyes right here. Every day she gets a little bit better. Those were not poor players she was scoring against. Those are really good, tough post players in our league. Just thrilled for her and her progress. She's put a lot of work into it. I know Evelyn wants to do extremely well. I thought she showed some really good poise and patience at times today. She limited her turnovers. I was so proud of our turnover margin today. If anybody was going to turn it over a lot, it was going to be our bigs because they were trapping them in the low block. They had to make some decisions. Just real steady, good effort. We needed them on a day when our perimeter game was not shooting the ball well. We needed their production. Real proud of those two. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. COACH MITCHELL: Thanks, everybody. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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