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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: ALBANYMarch 23, 2018Stephanie ReidCassie OurslerCierra DillardAlbany, New York THE MODERATOR: Questions for our student-athletes. Q. Hey, guys, for all three of you, has this sunk in at all that you're in the Sweet Sixteen now, a chance to move on farther, you're playing four hours or so from Buffalo, and you probably have a lot of fans tomorrow that you're still playing basketball in the middle of March or end of March? CASSIE OUSLER: Yesterday I was going through the sports channels, and there's no women's games playing. So I think it hit me then also because there are no games to be played except the ones that we're about to play. So I think that's pretty cool. CIERRA DILLARD: Well, a little bit, I think after the games of USF and Florida State kind of hits you what you've done. But Coach does an amazing job of keeping your mind focused on what's going on next. We've just been locked in on playing South Carolina, and focus in on Buffalo. Focus in on what we're going to do to prepare for the game. STEPHANIE REID: Yeah, after the last win at Florida State, the next morning you kind of wake up and you wonder if it's still a dream. Then it kind of sinks in over the week. Now we're really focused on the game tomorrow. We're really excited to be here. It's really exciting, obviously. But we've got to get focused and compete at this stage. Q. Stephanie, Felisha was talking about how when recruiting international players, the assistant coaches weren't always truthful with what Buffalo was and how cold it was and snowy. So I was just wondering if you had a funny story about that. And, two, how did you learn about Buffalo and what convinced you to decide to go to school there? STEPHANIE REID: Well, firstly on the weather, Coach Cherie. It doesn't snow in Buffalo, apparently. Yeah, fun fact for the world. Doesn't snow in Buffalo. So that was a shell shocker itself. Like in December, like late December so I got on the plane in Melbourne, and it was 100°, then I got off at 0 with one pair of Brown Ugg boots that I still wear to this day that are salt stained to the core. It was funny to get off the plane, and everything was white. When my family came, they came in they came in February that year, and they didn't know it was a lake, they thought it was ice. Because they didn't know there was actually water underneath it. I didn't know that until when did it start snowing, April, maybe? So that was a bit of a culture shock. But I learned about Buffalo. My coach back home, he knew about Cherie personally, it's kind of cold there, but never told me anything like this. When I got in contact with Coach Cherie, I loved how she was, with her exclamation points, 100,000 per message. It's just that excitement. When I met Coach Jack, every word that came out of her mouth just seemed so inspiring, and I never met anyone like that. Buffalo was the only school I wanted to come to. When I found out that maybe it was possible I wasn't coming here, I didn't want to go anymore. I had planned my life out in Melbourne. I was like I'm going to work. I'll play at this league, and I'll just play in Australia. Because I didn't want to go anywhere else. When I finally found out on my way to school, I had to pull over and tell Coach Cherie. She said, you know, we want you to come with your best friend, Courtney. I said yes, without even telling my mom. I couldn't hold it in. I was on a FaceTime call or Skype call with Jack at school, and my teachers were wondering what I was doing. I had to tell them this was a bit bigger than school at that point. And I said yes. I didn't even tell me family. I told them after I verbally committed that that's what I was doing. This place is too good for my eyes. Now it's a destination. So I'm pretty grateful I made the opportunity to come here. Q. Cierra, Coach shared with us the Red Lobster story from last night. Mostly that you were laughing. That's such a part of your group, but can you talk about how that impacts the way that you guys play and the way that you're able to come to these big moments and not be fazed? How has that helped you? CIERRA DILLARD: I think it's just staying true to who we are. Like Coach said, we're a quirky group of girls, and we like to have fun and embrace everything. Yes, Red Lobster is my favorite restaurant. When she said we were going there, it kind of took me, overwhelming, because I just love Red Lobster. You know, just spending another day with my sisters and having -- continuing the time that we've had and along with knowing that a lot of other teams don't get the time to share like this, it makes me amazed, and it makes me happy. It showed -- I think it shows the chemistry that we have off the floor. That's what got us here today on the floor, because of the chemistry that we have. You know, we make jokes and we're going to laugh and embrace the moment, but on the floor, we're serious. Coach knows that it's fun, and that's what we go by. That's what she instills in this program. We just embrace every moment. We love to have fun, we love to laugh, and we love to enjoy each other's company. Like we said, a lot of us are not from the same country. So these are some of the last weeks we're going to be spending together? Of course not, because we're all going to -- ten years from now we're all going to have a little team trip, something like that. Or maybe meet at Red Lobster again (laughing). So just having fun. Just embracing the moment. Embracing this amazing opportunity, because we don't take this lightly. Q. Cassie, obviously there is no secret anymore about A'ja Wilson's game. Everybody has seen her play at this point. What is the game plan to try to stop her from having a huge day? CASSIE OUSLER: Just she's going to get hers. We do know that she's an amazing player. Our goal is just to make every single shot difficult. Just defend like I've never defended before. Obviously our guards are going to make the guard passing even harder for her to get the ball. It's just really going to be a group effort. Yeah, just make everything hard for her. That's the goal. Q. Cierra, you just have to beat the defending National Championship and perhaps UConn. Are you guys so loose that, you know, this moment's not too big for you? There is a sense that you have nothing to lose and you're playing with house money and all that. What's lying ahead of you here? CIERRA DILLARD: I think it's the same mentality we've been using the last two weeks. I think going into the USF game we were considered the underdogs. Going into the Florida State game, we were considered the underdogs. Going into the South Carolina game, we were considered the underdogs. So I think it's just natural -- a natural feel that we are the underdogs and we are going to continue to focus on Buffalo. I think that's all we can do and all we will do. It's been working so far, just focusing on Buffalo. Focusing on our game plan and staying true to who we are. We can't look forward to any other game besides the game that we're going to play on Saturday. Just focusing on what we do and focusing on how we play and our identity is what we're going to do and what we have to do. Q. Cassie, you mentioned early in the week you've seen South Carolina play a lot, and I imagine these other teams. How do you go about watching these teams as a fan a month ago to now being a competitor? CASSIE OUSLER: Our coaches really prepared us for that. As soon as we finished last game, we were ready for this next game. So instead of watching it for entertainment, you figure out their tendencies. Once you see their specific tendencies, it's like a whole different game rather than, wow, that's a good move. You know exactly what she's probably going to do every time. So just looking at it from that perspective is a whole different viewpoint, and our coaches just really prepare us well for that. Q. Steph, going back to the MAAC tournament, you were asked about the MAAC team selections and maybe being slighted by not being a First-Teamer, but now being an 11 seed and being considered a, quote/unquote, Cinderella in this year's NCAA Tournament, it's not like you guys are winning these games by luck. You're blowing folks out. Do you feel slighted at all to still be considered an underdog in this tournament with how well you guys have played all season and even deep into the tournament? STEPHANIE REID: I think we honestly embrace the underdog title. You know, if the prognosis for our games is always that we're going to lose one, whatever, and then we go in and beat them by 20, that's exciting. We like to be considered the underdog, because you go in with no expectations. People that have the expectations we're going to win, we just believe in ourselves. That's something we've embraced from the first day of June running. Coach Jack's always instilled in us that no one needs to believe in us but ourselves. We're a foxhole. We're 14 deep. Our coaches believe in us, our athletic trainers, our media staff. Everyone in our foxhole believes in us. We've embraced the underdog. The reigning national champions, they have all the pressure on them. We don't have that pressure. We just getting to in and play free, and that's pretty exciting. That's what we've been doing the last two games. There was no expectation for us to win. We like that. That's okay. You can join us. We welcome you with open arms. After every win, we welcome the fans that want to come and support us now. We're not going to turn people away. If you didn't believe in us at first, that's okay. But we're going to keep proving every single day that we're a team that this country should believe in. We are a team that fights for everything we have. We lock our 14 horns and we go in and we fight. That underdog title is kind of fun, because you get to do that without that expectation. You just go in and do your thing. You do it your best, and leave everything out there every single game. We all know every game could be our last for our seniors. We leave everything out there every single time. I mean, we love doing that. Give us the underdog title. We love it. We'll own it. We'll embrace it, and we'll fight for 40 minutes and see where that takes us. Q. Cassie, Coach suggested that you guys would try a tickling approach on A'ja Wilson. Will there be any tickling, and what stands out to you about South Carolina? CIERRA DILLARD: She said what? CASSIE OUSLER: Yeah, we're going to tickle her (laughing). Well, if she's getting her points, we'll try anything. As a whole they stand out because, I mean, they won a National Championship last year, so that's a given. They do have a talented bunch, but I think we match up pretty well with them, and we're going to fight like we always have been and give it all we've got. STEPHANIE REID: She said tickling. Q. Your family, especially your brothers, have been very entertaining all year. We've heard them be vocal encouragement for you. But with that high-character and loud voice, what's the conversation been from them the last couple days leading up into this one? CIERRA DILLARD: Well, it's been still loud and vocal. We have a family group chat, and it's been blowing up. It's been crazy with messages, and it's actually during the game where I don't see it until the end where I just have 300 messages after the game. But it's weird because they're all together. So I don't know why they're texting the message when it's a watch party at our house together. But, no, I have an amazing, amazing support staff. My family's been everything to me. They're the reason why I play basketball. They're the reason why I actually came back to New York and I'm able to play in this amazing program, Buffalo. Not just my family and my immediate family and my brothers and my sister and my mom and my godbrothers and all those, but Buffalo is a family itself. We have an amazing support cast. It's overwhelming sometimes because of how much support we get from the town of Buffalo. How much we get from around the country who are Buffalo alums. Buffalo has an unbelievable fan of people that support us without a doubt. It's great to be able to be a part of that family. It's great to have that support cast where they love the fight that you give. They love the success. They love the amazing people that you are. That's what it is. I think we are able to be who we are as young ladies, as basketball players, as student-athletes. Whoever we are, they love that. I think that's what helped us get here to the Sweet Sixteen. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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