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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: LOUISVILLEMarch 18, 2017Jeff WalzAsia DurrMyisha Hines-AllenJazmine JonesLouisville, Kentucky Louisville - 82, Chattanooga - 62 THE MODERATOR: We're going to have Coach with an opening statement, and then we'll have questions for the student-athletes for a few minutes coach, congratulations. COACH WALZ: Thank you. I'd like to start off by first congratulating Coach Foster and Chattanooga on a great season. They do a good job with that program. We knew it was going to be a tough ballgame throughout. We were able to pull away there towards the end, but it was never a game I felt really comfortable, especially with the way they shoot the three. But really, really pleased. Looking forward to have the opportunity to play on Monday night and see what we can do. Q. Asia, you had a fairly good game out there today. Your teammates were really finding you in some great spots, weren't they? ASIA DURR: They did, yes. Ra, she had a great game. She had ten assists. They just did a great job of finding me on the court. And Coach Walz called a few plays for me as well, and I was able to knock the shot down. Q. Jaz, you've had maybe two of your best games this year against the same team, Chattanooga. Would you like to play them maybe four or five times next year? JAZMINE JONES: Chattanooga's a really good team. I was just doing what Coach was asking me to do all the time. It just so happened that I had a good game. Q. If all three players would comment about this. You all shot 60% from the field, and if I can get my stat sheet up here, I think you had 28 assists on 36 baskets in an NCAA game. That's hard to do. Talk about that. Was everybody sharing the ball, getting the ball? What was it today? Asia first, please. ASIA DURR: Well, I think it starts in practice. Each day we have to get up a certain amount of shots, and that's where it starts. It doesn't start in the game. It starts in practice. Coach Walz says you can't just come in the gym and just shoot during practice. You have to get more shots than that. It definitely showed. Our bench, how many points did they have? We had 23 bench points or something like that, and that was really good. So our hard work is paying off. Q. Myisha? MYISHA HINES-ALLEN: Just to go off Asia, when we passed the ball, we were a great team. When we got in transition, we were a great team, and that's what we were able to do. Getting rebounds and pushing the ball up the court and running. We're just a great transition team. So that helped a lot. JAZMINE JONES: Yeah, just to piggyback off what they said, when we passed the ball, we passed the ball extremely well tonight, and we were sharing it well. What Coach says: Don't stand around and watch. Move when you don't have the basketball. We got easy lay-ups, and it was great. Q. Jazmine, you said you were just doing what Coach asked you to do. What is it he asks you to do, and how hard is it over the course of a full season is it for you to keep doing that all the time? JAZMINE JONES: Name them all (laughing). Well, he always asks me to go hard. He always asks me to go hard, be a player. Don't be a robot. And that's what I did tonight. Him telling me that every day, it gets stuck in my head so I can't lose it. So if I actually listen to him like I did tonight, good things happen. Thanks, Coach. Q. Asia, when Jaz is doing those things, how much different does it make you as a team because of her athleticism and opening things up for the rest of you? ASIA DURR: It makes us a hugely different team because she can do more than just shoot. She can crash, she can defend, she's getting better at that too. You know, she's just a great player, and she's finally showing that. We've believed in her since day one. Like she said during practice, Coach Walz stays after her at all times because he knows what she can do for us. And that's what she did. Q. Myisha, you all had -- points in the paint were 46 points in the paint. Their coach says, well, if you give up the points in the paint, do you sacrifice the outside and vice versa? They had seven blocks against you the first time. Only had one tonight. Was that the result of you just running your offense? What was it? MYISHA HINES-ALLEN: No. In practice leading up to this game we knew that she had seven blocks against us, so we were worried about that. It's basically just going up strong every time. Not really being afraid, but just knowing that she's there because she's capable of blocking shots. She leads the country in blocked shots. So we knew that going into the game. We just have to go up strong and finish through contact. We did that today with 46 points in the paint. Q. This is for anybody. 14 players got some minutes today. Was fatigue an issue today looking into Monday? Were maybe minutes a concern? MYISHA HINES-ALLEN: For our team? No, everyone's capable of playing. I think Coach Walz has a game plan, and just getting everyone in. Because you never know who you're going to need in this tournament. So just getting them ready for any game at any moment. So just having all these different players and trying to find the right ones to be out there so we could run the game, I think that was like the biggest thing. Coach Walz and the coaching staff having a game plan, and knowing who needs to step in at the game to have the right five out on the court. Q. Myisha, they started off really hot from three, and they were leading you by one point. I think you guys had a 13-0 run there in the first quarter. Were you starting to get worried the way the game was starting? What kind of caused that regroup? MYISHA HINES-ALLEN: No, like we said, they're a great team, so everyone team's going to have a run. It's just how you react to it. If we want to make a run in the NCAA Tournament, we need to know that teams are going to make runs, but it's how we react to those runs. So we held our composure. Our mad dog was really working. We were playing aggressive and able to get stops in that. And that led us to getting transition buckets. Q. Coach, what is the difference between Chattanooga as opposed to when you played them last time? What did they present one game versus this one? COACH WALZ: We knew they were very patient. We were trying to get the game a little bit faster. So even at the start when they were scoring, I felt it was still a good tempo. Like we wanted to get up more shots. We wanted to get it to be a little faster game. So by doing that, you're going to give up easy baskets. I thought we got the tempo where we wanted it. To score 82 points on that ballclub is not easy to do. I told them before the game started in the locker room, you know, it was probably going to be a 55- to 56-shot game for us. And it ended up being 59. Normally we're trying to get into a game where we're getting 70 in the possessions. So we knew they were going to be very patient. So we thought we were doing a good job defensively on them. But give them credit because they did shoot the ball well from the three-point line which caused some problems. Q. I'll ask you the same questions I asked the players about the 28 assists on 36 baskets. Is that good enough for you? COACH WALZ: No, it's great. We passed the ball well and made open shots. It's no secret. We found each other open with wide-open looks, and that's what you have to do. If you want to continue to advance, you've got to be able to take open shots. It's not the contested shots, the tough ones, it's the open ones. I was very pleased with how unselfish we were with the ball, how quickly we moved it at times and we're willing to make the extra pass. Q. Was that what you wanted from Jazmine, and when she's on, how different does that make your team? COACH WALZ: Jaz and her athleticism and ability to do things with the basketball, it's one of the reasons we had recruited her. She's young. She has a lot to learn still. But she's going to continue to get better. For us to continue to move on, we're going to have to have Jaz, Kylee, Ciera, players come off the bench and give us some numbers. And that's what happened tonight. I feel pretty confident right now with what we're going to get from Myisha and Asia tonight. I thought Mariya played well tonight. But she struggled the past month. She goes two of three from the three-point line, which was encouraging to see. We're going to need to continue having solid bench play. Q. Jeff, what kind of read have you had from this team over the season? Have the bumps been where you thought they'd be? COACH WALZ: It's been a good year. We're sitting here 28-7. We've kind of stayed around the Top 10, top 12 the entire year. But we've had some ballgames that were right there. N.C. State here at home goes to overtime, we lose. It's a five-point game at Florida State, you know? And we lose. Duke, a three (indiscernible). So we've had a lot of -- Maryland here at home is a six-point game. We've had a lot of ballgames that we have to be able to close out. That's going to be the test from here on out because no matter who we play on Monday night, I expect it to be a great basketball game and one that's going to go down to the wire. You know, when you're playing for a chance to go to the Sweet Sixteen, you know, nobody's going to go out there and not give 100% effort. I'm just really going to be excited about how hard we come out and play, because you have to win every 50-50 ball. You've got to be the one who comes up with the 50-50 balls. I actually thought Chattanooga started the game doing that. One of the highlights to me on Chattanooga was the end of the first half. And I pointed it out to my players. When they took the shot and their two kids went up after that offensive rebound and knocked each other on the floor, they went after the ball. I pointed that out to our kids, that's how we have to go after it. I thought we did that in the second half. Q. Your assist to turnover ratio was obviously great. The number of points you got off the assists was obviously great. But two things have to happen. Your players have to be able to see that they have players open to get the ball to and do it quickly. Are you surprised that that happened today? Is that the type of effort you'll need in that next game coming up? COACH WALZ: Oh, yeah, we're going to need that same effort on Monday night. You know, I'm not really surprised. We've actually been playing much better the past month. Shooting percentage has been up. We've been getting the ball moving. Instead of holding it and occupying the ball, we're getting it out of our hands quicker. So now your teammates open. We're making somebody flying at us. Now we put it on the ground and it's a one-two pull up, an open shot. The longer you hold the ball, the worst things that are going to happen. So we have been preaching to them, get it moving, get it moving. And we had a week to work on it. That two-week break between the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament, we had a solid week to work on half court execution, transition game, which it paid off for us today. Q. Whoever you play, I know you don't get a choice, but you've got history. In the next round last year, DePaul knocked you off, and the year before, Dayton. Will you use that as any kind of, hey, look, this is a time the last couple years this has been a bugaboo for us? COACH WALZ: Our kids know. Last year was a second-round game. The year before that was a Sweet Sixteen game. At this point in time, everybody you play is good. It's new teams. It's a new year. Our ones that got beat last year by DePaul, it hurt. They understand that. But you can't look back and worry about that and think, oh, my gosh. I don't want that to happen again. You've got to go out and play and play as hard as you can for 40 minutes and see what happens. Our kids are in a good place right now. They've competed today, which I was really excited about. We've just got to continue to get better. Q. Everyone's kind of doing something different tonight. You had Asia knocking it down from outside. You had Myisha on the board, Mariya with the assist, Jazmine in transition. Are those the strengths that you think you should be playing to from now on, or is there something else you think this team can bring out? COACH WALZ: No, that's what we have to do. I thought everybody played to their strengths. I thought Kylee did some good things for us. Kylee can run the floor. She catches it in transition. She's able to finish. Just constantly working on her, getting more aggressive and more physical. I thought Sam Fuehring did some good things for us too. It was a team effort. And then when you're getting the team like Chattanooga that's going for guards a lot, that's why we had to go with four guards. I thought Briahanna Jackson being back was a big help for us. It gave us more depth, which is what we need. She ends up with five assists and a turnover and six boards. I was really pleased with what she was able to bring. I thought Taylor Johnson gave us nine solid minutes. So we have to have that play from our team. Q. Between Tennessee and Dayton, who is one player you know you'll have to stop going into the next round? COACH WALZ: All of them. Both teams have very talented players. I mean, it's a group of kids that play hard, that know how to play. It's going to be a challenge, one that we're excited about. It's always nice to have the opportunity to play the next ballgame. Q. Obviously you aren't going to argue with ten assists and two turnovers. Are you comfortable she's in a place mentally where if she needs to look for her shot, she will? COACH WALZ: I am. I think her making those two shots were a big relief for her. Seeing the ball go in was really important. I thought today she really did a nice job. She didn't force up any shots and she was able to find her teammates open. That's what we need. Now it might present itself on Monday that she has to take more shots. But I thought today she didn't force anything and did a great job of finding her teammates. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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