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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: WACOMarch 16, 2018Kamie EthridgeKianna WilliamsSavannah SmithSavannah ScottWaco, Texas Michigan - 75, Northern Colorado - 61 THE MODERATOR: We'll begin with a short overview from the head coach then questions from the student-athletes. KAMIE ETHRIDGE: Obviously just congratulations to Michigan. I thought they played a great game. Clearly their size and their length really bothered our team, especially in the first half. I just thought we played really a badly executed game plan maybe or just game based on the fact that we really just couldn't take advantage of mismatches or I think the way they were guarding our on balls, we just didn't handle that we well. I thought we got some good looks, had some slips to the basket the way they guarded our on balls and we couldn't make the plays because of their length and size. It's something we don't see much in our league. We tend to be able to play small and succeed. You clearly can't do that against a team like Michigan. I just think that put us behind the eight ball a little bit. 15 turnovers really kind of doomed us. We recovered and did a little bit better in the second half. It was just too much of an uphill climb. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Savannah Scott, looked like you had some success against the Michigan defense. What did you see they were doing out there? SAVANNAH SCOTT: They were just long, as coach was saying. Just trying to get past their length, any open shot that you could get, trying to take advantage of that. Q. Either one of the Savannahs. How difficult was it in the first half to get good looks from the perimeter? UNIDENTIFIEDSPEAKER: It was hard just because like we said before, their length, kind of their aggressive defense, them hedging out on us guards. Not being able to throw it over to the open post player was kind of difficult. Just kind of threw us off. I don't know, I think just again their length was the hardest part. Q. You were finding some open cuts late in the second half especially. Was that more of a halftime adjustment in running an offense? UNIDENTIFIEDSPEAKER: Yeah, well, we went small definitely in the second half. But I think it was more just us settling in, being like, Okay, we can score and get good looks. Q. Kianna, can you speak to what it was like trying to guard in the post in the second half? KIANNA WILLIAMS: It was really hard because she's really big. But I think I had really good help at times, so that makes it easier, a little easier. Q. Savannah and Kianna, you're both controlled right now. When is it tough knowing it's going to... UNIDENTIFIEDSPEAKER: It already hit me. Q. Did it come out with your fifth foul? UNIDENTIFIEDSPEAKER: Yeah, I was pretty mad. UNIDENTIFIEDSPEAKER: It hit me kind of when I came out, but I don't think it's going to hit me until we get back to Greeley, when they start practicing again and we're not there. Q. Any of the three of you. These last four days, has it been more of an eye opener, exciting, then playing a game on top of everything? Is that a lot to consume over a short period of time? UNIDENTIFIEDSPEAKER: Yeah, because there's a lot of attention, which is not really what we're used to. To play a game, I don't know, just really exciting though at the same time and really nerve-wracking. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. Did you at any time in the first half think of going smaller sooner than you did? KAMIE ETHRIDGE: I didn't really think that was the answer. I thought we could just settle in. Even if our posts can't score, I think we're young in our five spot. Even if we couldn't score it, I just thought just keep us in offense. A lot of the things we talk about, let's not turn the ball over. When you have 15 turnovers at halftime, you don't have much of a chance to see a shot, if you wanted a shot. We just kept forcing balls to players that aren't ready to catch or weren't ready to catch or in bad position when they did catch, just couldn't simply catch the ball. A little bit more structured offense that we tried to run in the first half, and we didn't succeed at it very well at all. I thought we loosened up a little bit and played better in the second half. A little bit more athleticism let us pass, cut and catch better. Q. You talked yesterday about not being able to go out and recruit 6'3", 6'4" type of players. How much going into today did you feel like they may start pushing it inside and taking advantage of your inexperience down low? KAMIE ETHRIDGE: Well, there's no question we knew they had an advantage in the post. It was going to require us doubling in the post and keeping it out. Ultimately, in this tournament you have to be able to score the basketball. We didn't give ourselves a chance in the first half to score the basketball with 15 turnovers. The game ends up being in the 70s. But good teams can score 70, 80 and 90 points in this tournament, and you have to be able to keep up. Defensively I never thought that was the worst thing ever. It was just offensively I thought we were just not good enough. Same old story. Savannah Smith has trouble when people put real long, lengthy athletes on her. They did that. That made her game a little tougher in the first half. I thought we managed that a little bit better in the second half. Again, they're not just long in one position, they're long in a lot of positions. I thought that disrupted our offense a lot in the first half. Q. You talked a lot about their size and rebounding. How difficult is it with no second-chance points? KAMIE ETHRIDGE: Well, that's not completely out of -- we're not great at that no matter who we're playing. Against this team, you just knew we were going to rely on first shots. I thought we would get better shots than we did. Again, we regrouped a little bit and did better in the second half. Our offense is pretty finesse, it's pretty open, the open court. You have to pass, catch it, cut it pretty well to be successful. We didn't do that with the big lineup. That just put us in a tough situation to be able to run our stuff, much less get any kind of offensive rebounding. They're a good team. They make you pay, get the rebound, push it up. Their kids run the floor well. They got some easy baskets in the first half that we tried to make an emphasis of not letting them have. I think I'll look back and just know that we really hurt ourselves in the first half and didn't give ourselves a chance. Q. Did you fear at all or think you can't let them jump out and have to play catch-up? KAMIE ETHRIDGE: Well, yeah, you don't ever want to get behind. I didn't even think at halftime it was insurmountable. I think as the game went on, we went small, it made for -- we couldn't get three and four stops together in a row to put much of a run on them. I think we may have gotten a 5-0 run, they came right back and got a three-point play. Seemed like we made enough mistakes to get them to the foul line or get them something easy while we were trying hard to be better on the offensive end. Again, we scored it better, but it was pretty much an even game in the second half. It all goes back to that same old thing that's hurt us all year. We've had numbers of quarters where we score eight points or we score 11 points or we have a real low-scoring quarter, and that comes back to bite you. It did. Two of them for sure can certainly put you out of the tournament really fast. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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