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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: SPOKANEMarch 23, 2018Gary BlairKhaalia HillsmanDanni WilliamsAnriel HowardSpokane, Washington THE MODERATOR: We are joined now by Texas A&M head Coach Gary Blair. Questions for coach. Q. You faced a lot of good inside games in the SEC and non-conference. Where does Notre Dame rank, how do you combat that? GARY BLAIR: There's not anybody in the SEC that's like Shepard. I can go from past experiences. My last year at Arkansas, Stacy Stephens who played for Texas, they went on to the Final Four, was very similar. If you can help me with this game, the girl that used to play for Nebraska, in the WNBA now. I'm trying to think of her name. Kelsey or something like that. But she was also a very versatile post player just like Shepard is. Shepard is not the perimeter post player that we faced at DePaul or Drake, so it's a different set. She's going to take you to the low block. They run a great 1-4 high set that they isolate her down low. She's a very good passer. She's a complete package. If I could go back to years ago, most of you guys are too young, Leslie Johnson who used to play at Purdue was that type of player. I've had other players. Norris at Stephen F. Austin, players similar to that. A little bit of Danielle Adams. She's a completely different thing than we faced when we faced McCowan at Mississippi State, Russell with Tennessee, A'ja Wilson, or even Coates last year of South Carolina. She's a very physical player that loves to duck her shoulder. She draws fouls very well. They do a good job of managing her time, taking her out to rest, to send her back in. They do not have a lot of depth. Muffet has done a good job of managing a short bench this year by keeping people fresh and also learning to play heavy minutes. I think we've done that for two straight years. People talk about Notre Dame's four ACLs, but I've got four kids out, too, that nobody has ever written a story about. I have two kids that are out, redshirted the whole year, because of injuries, then I have two McDonald's All-Americans sitting out because of the one-year transfer. I have four kids out, as well. It's a shame for her four ACLs. That's just unheard of. I don't think I've ever heard of four in one year. But they've overcome it. They're playing very well. If you go back and look at our last four games, Mississippi State was averaging 83 points a game. Drake was averaging 82.5. DePaul was averaging 83. Now we have Notre Dame averaging 85 and shooting 51%. Where are all the defensive teams that I'd love to face that are slowing it down? We just keep facing great, great offensive teams. Q. Did you envision the type of year that Chennedy Carter has had? GARY BLAIR: You dream about it. But how many can expect Kelsey Plum, Kelsey Mitchell, Alanna DeShields, Asia Durr? They're all that heralded coming out. But can they do it under the big tent? Can they do it under the pressure of defenses, the different schemes people will play at you, the triangle-and-twos, the box-and-one, denial back. She's overcome all of it. A lot of this came from she played for the state championship last year. She fouled out about with a minute to go and they ended up losing. She played for the gold medal against Russia this summer. Was the leading scorer on that team as a two guard. The year before she won the gold medal. This isn't just a kid just slipping in through the cracks. This is the most highly-recruited kid that we've ever had since probably Kelsey Bone played for us. But remember, she transferred from South Carolina after a year to come home. But Chennedy, her basketball IQ is off the charts. Sometimes when you're coaching a point guard, it's a love-hate relationship until they get on the same page as you as a coach. That's hard for an 18-year-old. I couldn't even get my own two kids when they were 18 to be on the same page with me and I was their parent. You have to have a give-and-take. Being an old-school guy, I cannot go in and talk about John Stockton and Karl Malone on the pick'n roll, all that type of stuff. She'll know who they are, but most of my other kids won't know who Malone and Stockton are. You have to adjust as a head coach. You have to let a kid feel her way. Sometimes as a coach, don't go in and over-coach, and take away what she does best, and that's be able to create her own shot, which the majority of the guards at her age cannot do. They're situational players or they have to grow until they learn how to handle, think, react, do all those things. But she can do it all. I'd like to take all that credit, but I can't. Actually, she was coached in high school by one of my former assistants who was with me at Arkansas and Stephen F. Austin. Her dad did a great job of working with her on her handles and everything like that. Her mom has done a tremendous job of raising that young lady, being with her on the discipline parts that you have to have. Q. When you saw Notre Dame would be the Sweet 16 matchup, did you think back to 2011? GARY BLAIR: I think back to 2011 every day I look at my right hand. But I'm not looking at Notre Dame; I'm looking at Stanford, I'm looking at Baylor, I'm looking at Georgia, and I'm looking at Notre Dame. A team that was not a Cinderella team, a team that played well, that defeated a lot of No. 1s and 2s to win the thing. But when you win it, it comes so few and far between, you better enjoy it. Our football team is still enjoying 1939, when they won it, okay? It's hard to do. When I was at Arkansas, Nolan Richardson won it in '94 by beating Duke. They're still enjoying it. Then the next year he loses it to coast-to-coast because Dabney goes coast-to-coast on a basket for UCLA and wins it. You better enjoy. Yes, I think about it every day. But I don't think about the game itself. To be honest, I've never seen the complete game after the fact. I've only seen the highlights. It was time to turn the page and start thinking about next year's team. One of these days, whenever I do retire, I'll sit back and I'll watch that whole game and enjoy every single minute of it with a beverage or three. Q. Last game in the first half you guys really found yourself in a hole. You used Chennedy Carter's 32-point second half to get out of that barely. How are you going to get your girls going early in the first half so there's no hole, no performance needed like that to win the game? GARY BLAIR: You got to make shots. We had good shots in the first half. It wasn't what DePaul was doing to us, it was what we were not doing to ourselves to execute. Chennedy was 2-9, and Danni was 1-8, and Khaalia was 1-3. Jas Lumpkin didn't score at all. Anriel Howard kept us in that game with her heart, with her rebounding, with her put-backs. Sometimes you have to have a different person step up every night. I have a team, everybody wants to talk about Chennedy Carter. I have a team of stars, okay? It's a frigging galaxy out there. I don't know which one is going to shine the most that day, will it be Jas Lumpkin's defense and rebounding or Hillsman ruling the paint? Unfortunately in this business, y'all have got to write about the story. The story right now is Texas A&M in the Sweet 16, and I've got the best freshman in the country. But I've got a pretty damn good team that goes along with her. Very similar to 2011 when everybody wanted to talk about Danielle Adams. They needed to talk about Colson and Carter and Tyra White and Adaora Elonu because those were very good players. You know what's funny? All those kids are still playing pro ball seven years later. So there was a lot of stars on that team, just like there is here, as well. So we're not going to get off to that bad of a start again, I hope, I hope. But I appreciate you guys coming out and covering it for the student newspaper. I really appreciate that. Q. First time for all these players to be in the Sweet 16. What do you see from them that enables them to handle stuff off the court, get ready for the spotlight? It's a little bit bigger this week than last week. GARY BLAIR: Well, due to social media, those kids are in it every day, okay? Even in 2011, it was nothing compared to today. The stuff that's going up on Instagram or instant chat [sic], whatever you guys do, I don't understand it. The thing that the SEC is putting together, the players tribune thing that just came out on Chennedy, an interview with her, the thing in the Spokane paper was very good this morning, talking about four great players, Anriel Howard was mentioned as our great player right there. All that stuff is tremendous, okay? This is where we're going. We're standing on our own two feet. You people here in the audience, y'all want to be here. This was not an assignment that you had to cover. You want to be here to cover women's basketball. This is what makes this game so special. It keeps growing and growing and getting better and better. I'm just lucky to still be doing it. I'm getting to go against a Hall of Famer in Muffet. She's done so much for the game. She's Coach of the Year this year with six players. She's been doing one heck of a job. I really admire what Muffet has given back to the game. She's a former WBCA president. Last week I faced a former WBCA president. It's just good to be here back in the Northwest. The last time I was here was in about 1990 at an AAU tournament, okay? I got to learn how your golf courses were. I played 36 at Spokane Country Club. I recruited hard. Went over to Coeur d'Alene to play. It was a great time. But usually we're over on the other side of the mountain range in Seattle, which is also a beautiful town. One of my favorite towns is Seattle. But after eating at the Italian Kitchen last night, that was pretty good, too (smiling). Q. What do you see as keys to the game tomorrow? GARY BLAIR: Two keys: Shepard and Hillsman, both of them need to stay out of foul trouble. How is the game going to be called? The DePaul game, the refs let the kids decide it. It was a very well-called ballgame by veteran officials that didn't try to over-call. I think once you get to the NCAA tournament, you got to let your bigs play a little. You got to let your bigs play a little. I think that's going to be important. The other thing is, who is going to do what? Are we going to see the triangle-and-two? Are we going to see the zone? Are we going to see the man that she played against Villanova because she had to? Villanova's own offense is about as good as anybody in the country, so she had to play man, and she knew she had the better team and eventually it would work out like it did in the second half. Their guards are outstanding. NCAA games are won with your guards. Post players set the tone and everything like that, but you win championships, you win everything at the guard position. I believe we've got three or four pretty good ones there. I know she does, as well. THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time, Coach Blair. GARY BLAIR: Thank you. THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Texas A&M student-athletes. Questions, please. Q. Khaalia, can you talk about what is going to be some of the keys you going up against Shepard, if you're not going to do man-to-man, what do you see as the keys? KHAALIA HILLSMAN: I mean, I've been watching film on her. She's very fundamentally sound. She has great hands and great feet. I'm going to have to have great feet to be able to defend her. I know she's very strong, so I can't let her muscle me down there on the block, do whatever she wants. I'm going to try to wear her out with that, try to run up and down the court a little bit, tire her down a little bit. I've been watching film on her. She's very a good post player. I'm very excited. I love a challenge, so she's definitely going to be a challenge. She can drive the ball, she can shoot the high post, she's very strong, can finish under the rim. I'm very excited to play her. Q. Danni, after the come-from-behind win, do you feel like you have some momentum going into this game against Notre Dame? DANNI WILLIAMS: Absolutely. I think we've been putting it together recently towards the end of the season. We feel confident coming in. We know we can't get down 15 points to a team like Notre Dame and have that comeback. We have to be ready from the start, ready to go. Q. Anriel, talk about getting to the Sweet 16, being you guys are all upperclassmen, this is your first time. What about handling everything maybe off the court, one more level than last week. ANRIEL HOWARD: Right. For all of us, this is very meaningful to us because we haven't been here before since we've been here. So we're very honored and blessed to have this opportunity, but we're definitely handling our business off the court as well. Even though we're out here, it's a business trip. We have to take care of things first, so... Q. How are you as upperclassmen stepping up to help out with the younger girls, like Carter? How are you using your role as a leader to help her in this big situation? DANNI WILLIAMS: Personally, I feel like she doesn't in a sense need that mentorship. She's played in big games just like this. For her, I think it's just playing her game. But for the other people, I feel like, you know, we have to be telling them this is do or die, we got to be mentally locked in and focused, ready to go at all times. Q. Khaalia, Coach Blair was saying one of the biggest keys to the game was keeping you out of foul trouble despite what he expects to be a physical matchup tomorrow against Shepard. What is going to be the key to being physical and locking her down but staying out of foul trouble? KHAALIA HILLSMAN: One of the things that Coach Starkey teaches us on post defense is to meet the post up the lane. I saw a lot of clips when I watched the Villanova game of Villanova just letting Shepard go down there and just post up and turn around, shoot a layup. I definitely want to make her work to get down there. It's definitely going to be a feet game, a footwork game. I can't just reach around her, because that will be a foul. I have to move my feet. I have to focus on that in practice today so I can transition into the game tomorrow. But it's definitely just going to be a feet game, just not letting her set up shop wherever she wants, yeah. Q. Danni, a stretch for eight or nine games where you're probably shooting the best you ever have. Last game, 1-10, looked like you were getting your shots, they were just not falling. Why were you shooting so well the last eight or nine games? DANNI WILLIAMS: I think I just been relaxed, doing whatever I can do to help our team win down the stretch. I got the shots. I got good looks in DePaul, they just didn't fall. As a shooter, you're going to go through that. I'm not really worried about, you know, thinking about that. I can't dwell about that. We have a game tomorrow. That's a new day and a new opportunity. ANRIEL HOWARD: Yeah, D (smiling). Q. Danni, you've played a ton of minutes this season, played the whole game last game. Does that take a toll on your body this time of year? Have you had time to regroup? DANNI WILLIAMS: It does take a toll. But we've had almost a week to recover and get ready. So you just got to be drinking a lot of water. You got to be prepared. You can't take anything lightly. You got to stay on top of your recovery to be prepared for these type of games. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Good luck tomorrow. KHAALIA HILLSMAN: Shout out to my mom. I love you (laughter). FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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