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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: WACOMarch 20, 2017Kim MulkeyNina DavisAlexis PrinceKristy WallaceWaco, Texas Baylor - 86, Cal - 46 Q. Nina and Alexis, just talk about just your last home game and what it meant to go out like this, just to have a performance like this in your last game. NINA DAVIS: It was great. We wanted to come out, we just wanted to kind of do like we did in our first game, come out strong and aggressive and just kind of try to put them away early. As I say, it's a bittersweet thing. We wanted to just leave our mark here. Of course you wanted to give the fans the exciting thing, and just wanted my last game here to be a good one. Q. Talk about the fan reaction when all four of you got taken out at the same time. ALEXIS PRINCE: It really hit me once she said it was our last time going in here. I don't know. We had a good year. Played hard, finished it the way we were supposed to. Kristy, there were like six lead changes there early, and y'all went on a nice run and then had another run there in the second quarter where it went from like six points up to I think it was 35-16 maybe. Was that your offense, or do you feel like it started on the defensive end? KRISTY WALLACE: I think we got going on the defensive end. Yeah, we stopped kind of the big presence and kind of helped down and covered down, and we were able to run off that, and we're really good on the run, especially with these two on the wing. They can just create and do some athletic stuff. That's where the momentum kind of changed, and we kind of just kept pushing forward. Q. Kristy, y'all assisted on about 80 percent of your makes. What did you think of the ball movement, especially in the half court today? KRISTY WALLACE: Yeah, great. I think we played a good team game on offense. We didn't settle for just regular shots. We kind of looked to find some good shots, and yeah, we made them, so that was really great. Q. Kristy, there was the spurt, but there was also the two back to back threes by Natalie, but the first one you come over to the right side and she was there and you motion her over and a couple passes later she made it. Talk about what that sequence did for you, the two threes. I guess you were telling her to get open, right? KRISTY WALLACE: Yeah, Nat hit some key shots, and that was a huge momentum shifter. I show she's been working hard on her threes, so it was great to kind of find her, and she got herself open, and yeah, she hit them, which was really exciting. Q. Nina, y'all go back to Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City. You lost to West Virginia there, you lost to Notre Dame there a couple years ago. Does the arena matter at this point? NINA DAVIS: It doesn't. We've had losses there. We've shed plenty of tears there, but we've also celebrated in confetti there, as well. We're not really worried about the location where we're playing at, we're just worried about our next opponent, which is Louisville, and just focused on us and what we have to do to get to the next round. Q. Kim, talk about that stretch in the second quarter where y'all did take over the and the fact that Natalie hit those two threes and it seemed like the whole momentum of the game shifted at that point. KIM MULKEY: Well, Natalie, she's comfortable now, and I think when Kalani got in foul trouble, Cox, freshman, goes in, and was big. Beatrice played big. Jones came in, and then Natalie. We shared the ball, Kristy did a tremendous job of pushing the ball up the floor, but looking to the backside and finding shooters, and when a shooter makes one, find her again and let her make another one. Q. Kristy mentioned during that stretch that the defense stepped up. Was there one particular area that help side rotation ball pressure that stood out to you? KIM MULKEY: Yes, we want to hedge big on the on-ball screens. We didn't care if that post player slipped the screen, so the help side that's guarding that wing player over there, we made sure she came and helped. We didn't do that very good in the conference tournament, in any of the games. So we were able to come back and just work on us, just work on help side. You get caught up in this game. Look, this game has changed. When they started shooting threes, it's changed everything about your defense, and you get caught up in -- I got mine, you take yours, make sure you have your girl, and I just can't play like that. That's just not how I was taught the game. We just got back to being better help side defense, and I thought we took away all their transition baskets. A team that's as athletic as they are, take away their transition baskets. Q. Asia Thomas, I think she was the one that hit like five three-pointers for her. Kristy was on her most of the game. Talk about the defense, and what did they make, 3 out of 13 for the game; is that a good basketball question? KIM MULKEY: That's a great question, and you even knew her name. Kristy was assigned to guard her. We didn't want to help down ball side. When the minute Anigwe turned, then you could hit from the backside. If you were ball side and it was not Thomas, we covered down and we wanted them to make threes. We didn't want them to penetrate and get in the paint and get us in foul trouble all night, and she hit big shots against LSU. We knew that, but we were very willing to give them the three-pointers tonight. Q. The ball movement, again, 28 assists tonight; how impressed were you on that? KIM MULKEY: Well, very. I think sometimes -- there were spurts in that first half where we dribbled too much in the same place waiting for on-ball screens and they were trapping us, and I didn't like that. So I got out of our offense where we were setting on ball screens and just do the high-low look with the two bigs, and then Kalani got in foul trouble, so when you go small with Nina she can't see in there to get the big the ball, so just spread the ball, just move it, slip the screen, find the open player. Kristy does that as good as anybody I've coached. She pushes it up the floor to the wing players and lets those guys go find a post player in transition. I thought all of them were big tonight. I thought our depth has surfaced big time in these two playoff games. We knew we had depth. We've seen it all year. You've seen them play. But you don't know how they're going to produce in the NCAA Tournament. Tonight, while you don't ever want Kalani Brown to play two minutes in the first quarter and sit, it may have been a blessing in disguise because it allowed me to gain confidence in Cox, who went in immediately and defended a tremendous athlete. Beatrice has all of last year's experience, and we didn't miss a beat. And that's important for them and for me and for our team. Q. Obviously next is Oklahoma City. Talk about facing Louisville for the third time in the Sweet 16 in nine years and just how different is that team from ones you've faced in the past or if you know much about them yet? KIM MULKEY: Well, I watched a little bit of their game with Tennessee prior to our game. You know, the first time that we played Louisville, I thought they had the better team. You know, Jessica Morrow tried to take us on her shoulders that year, and we competed. We competed. And then we all know what happened the year that we were supposed to win that third National Championship when we had Griner and Odyssey and all those guys, and they were good. They made, correct me if I'm wrong, if memory served me right, 16 out of 25 threes. Well, you can win every game if you do that. And for us to have come back and even made it a close game and a shot to win it was miraculous because they couldn't miss. But that's history. So now you go to this game, and they're a different team, we're a different team. They have great players, we have great players. They're well-coached. I don't know if we are or not, but we'll see. But we'll compete. I think we have a size advantage, but really what does that mean at this level? If you can play, you can play. Our size is young, and I think people tend to forget that. Our size -- and Nina and KK are small, but our three bigs are a freshman and two sophomores, and I just think the more they can get NCAA experience, the better they get, and then maybe some day they'll win them a National Championship here. But two different -- three different times we've played -- this will be our third time to play them, and we'll prepare tomorrow and Wednesday, and I think leave Wednesday night and go to Oklahoma City. Q. Is Alexis -- her shot was off a couple times today. Is that a matter maybe of not having that practice time during all this? Or is her knee still bothering her? KIM MULKEY: No, her knee is fine. I asked her. When you get fatigued and you're not running up and down the floor, sometimes you're short because of your legs. But I thought she took good shots. I thought that she drove some to show you that she can get in there. She got her shot blocked. But she gave us 20, 22 good minutes, and if you look at her stats, they're pretty good. She gave us, what, six rebounds and eight points, five assists. She's good. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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