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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: WACOMarch 18, 2017Johnetta Hayes-PerryJoyce KennersonBreasia McElrathChynna EwingWaco, Texas Baylor - 119, Texas Southern - 30 Q. Joyce, as difficult as this outcome is, what do you guys take out of this that you can move forward with and the experience of this game to move forward? JOYCE KENNERSON: Well, there's really nothing that we can take out of it. We did the best we could, which was to hold them accountable to their mistakes, which we capitalized on towards the end. But I think we should have did better. Q. Again, it was tough, but y'all played tough. What were you saying to each other on the court? How were you keeping your spirits up throughout the game? CHYNNA EWING: Well, we were just trying to keep each other uplifted even thought we were down and just do the things that we normally do and talk to each other and talk each other through it. Q. Obviously you're very emotional. Can you tell us what you're feeling right now? CHYNNA EWING: Well, I feel like we were blessed to have this opportunity, but I do wish we would have played better against them, and I think that we should have -- like at the end we played very well, like defensively, and I feel like we should have did that at the very beginning, and like the game would have probably came out better. Q. Breasia, did you feel like the game, the pace of the game, was faster than you would have expected? BREASIA McELRATH: A little faster, but no, I didn't think it was faster than was to be expected. We've played with fast-paced teams before. It was just they outscored us. Yeah, that's it. They outscored us. But we'll be ready next year. It won't be the last time you see Texas Southern. We took this experience, and we're going to capitalize on it and get better from it. That's basically it. Q. This team is young. This was an experience, a learning experience for everybody involved. What will you all take back, not just playing the game but all of it, the tournament itself, having your name called and being a part of your group, being a first? JOYCE KENNERSON: Well, since the team is young, basically the key is growth. We have a lot more learning to do, and this is just the beginning. CHYNNA EWING: And I feel like since we are young, we're going to learn stuff, and as we get older, we're going to finally figure it out and figure out what we need to do as a team in order to take the next step and to keep going and to just build as a team. BREASIA McELRATH: For me it was tempo. I liked the passion of the game. I took the experience on, playing at a high level, and I'm going to do that every time. I'm going to give my all every time because this is where I want to be next year, and you will see us next year. Q. We talked the other day about experience and teaching moments and learning from your experiences. Just talk about today, not just coming up to this point but just talk about this game today. JOHNETTA HAYES-PERRY: This game today was extremely competitive on the end of Baylor. I want to take my hat off to them. I told our young ladies in the locker room a moment ago that you've probably played a Final Four team for sure. Great in size, shoot the ball well, shot the ball extremely well today. Some of that was us, but a lot of it was them hitting shots early. They did. These young ladies have worked hard. They've worked really hard for me and for our university, and today was about them growing -- they say growing, experience, building, and we'll keep using those terms as we go in to postseason play. We're kicking their butt. Remember, you want to grow, you want to build, you want to get the experience so you can be back here and get another taste of it in the future. Breasia said it with confidence twice: We'll be back. And she showed me something different in her eyes with her vocabulary, with her leadership on the court, whether things are going good or bad, indifferent with her teammates, she's found a way to keep us in it, keep us locked in, engaged, from the athlete side. So that was important for us. That's important for us to have that. So I think that they took some steps forward. Even in a loss like this, they took some steps forward as a team today. Q. You talked the other day about being overwhelmed. It's hard not to be. Was there a little bit of that, maybe particularly early in the game, of being overwhelmed by maybe the size or whatever it was? JOHNETTA HAYES-PERRY: I'm sure they were. You know, they don't say certain things, but I could see it in their eyes earlier on, but as the game went, they realized, okay, I can get deflections here and there, and late in the game, I saw that. I may have been when the second-string team came in, but I saw them make some plays here and there defensively. I think the tempo is different. I disagree with Breasia a little bit. The pace of the game is definitely faster. In her mind maybe it's not, but it's definitely faster. So you have to learn how to control tempo, control pace, and I had a hard time trying to get control it from where I'm standing. I think that's something we'll take back, being overwhelmed and learning how to stay composed, having better composure to get attempts and looks and not have the ball come back so fast in transition or a dunk inside so easy. So definitely a little bit of them being overwhelmed, but eventually they settled down, and they will move forward knowing what to expect, the expectation for being in the dance. Q. As the game was flowing and kind of getting away, what was your thought process? What was your goal? Was it let's keep it under 100? Let's keep it -- let's try and close the gap to this? What were you telling the ladies? JOHNETTA HAYES-PERRY: I wanted them to actually take away something defensively. Whether we scored or not defensively, I wanted us to be better. Clearly we weren't, but down the stretch I saw us get a few deflections here and there, which felt like they could do earlier on with some things that they worked on. If someone is going to beat you, you can't let them beat you the same way. It was just dumb down, dumb down, dumb down. Like eventually, press up against her, push her out of bounds, do something. Don't hurt her, but be more physical, be more aggressive. Use your weight room. So that was some of the things I talked to them about. I know Nycolle Smith picked up a foul, and people probably wonder why am I cheering. I'm cheering because she was trying to do what I asked her to do, to be a little more physical. If you're a little more physical, maybe it'll wear her down a little bit more. But as you know, Baylor has about six bigs. They just run them in and out, so they're all pretty fresh, and they finish well around the rim and they do their job. But that was my biggest thing. Just sticking to the game plan and trying to take something away. If you can take something away, what will it be? Let's take away this pass. Have they beat us off the dribble from the high post yet? Nope. And I think hit one shot from the high post late in the game, but they keep dumping inside, so either take the pass away, or back up and help inside, things of that nature. And again, we're undersized, so we're playing without Shamiya Brooks, who's been here twice before today, but all in fairness, Kelena Morris probably played the most minutes she's played this season today. She averaged maybe 2.1 minutes a game, if that, Big Mo, and she had to play at least double-digit minutes today. So overwhelmed? For a freshman who hasn't been in this situation before, and the ball is being dunked over and over again? Yeah, a little bit. So they had to adjust to her, too. Like even with our offensive sets with her being out there. But again, it was a great time for her to have that because our future is wrapped around her, so that was important. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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