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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2019Nikki FargasAyana MitchellKhayla PointerGreenville, South Carolina Tennessee-69, LSU-66 THE MODERATOR: We are joined by LSU. Coach, an opening statement, please. NIKKI FARGAS: Obviously wanting this win for this group. They've fought hard the entire season. It's been an emotional day for our team knowing that we couldn't come away with a victory. A lot of credit to Tennessee. They stayed the course. Their go-to players stepped up and made big-time plays. The two young ladies up here next to me also played at an elite level. We have to obviously see what our chances are of post-season play, but we will learn from this and grow from this. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Khayla, what did you feel like was the biggest difference in the fourth quarter? You had things going up until that point. KHAYLA POINTER: We had a lot of defensive breakdowns, critical moments, like she said. Letting their go-to players get open shots, second-chance rebounds. We didn't lock in defensively. Yeah, some missed assignments. You can't give Tennessee second and third opportunities like that. Q. Ayana, how would you characterize the physical nature of the play in the post-season? How did this game compare? AYANA MITCHELL: I would say the last three to four games that we've played, I think the intensity and the physicality has definitely increased. Everyone is trying to get a win. They're coming hard. They're not stopping. They're coming very aggressive. I feel like Tennessee, they have great post play. Even with their guards, you have to attack the basket aggressively at this point in time, especially now that we're in the SEC tournament. Everyone is stepping up their game. Q. Khayla, when you think about the building blocks from this year leading into next year, what are those things? KHAYLA POINTER: I think overall each and every one of us, we need to get in the gym and improve our game. You can always get better. We learn from losses like this. We'll bounce back next year. Q. The last game, they really hurt you on the offensive boards. You were able to do a much better job this time. Were you handling things better inside? AYANA MITCHELL: I definitely think we did a lot better, but we still missed opportunities at times. With Tennessee, you can't give them, like KP says, second and third opportunities. In those critical moments, we did just that. Throughout the game I think we did a pretty good job. In critical moments, we didn't do our job. THE MODERATOR: Ladies, thank you. We will continue with questions for coach. Q. Your thoughts about the board work your team did today. Did you feel that was not as much of a factor? NIKKI FARGAS: Well, I thought there were critical moments in the fourth quarter where our defense, we didn't finish off our defense. We allowed some offensive rebounds that led to not necessarily offensive put-backs, but to kick-outs for a jumper to another reset of the possession. Those are all energy plays, when you're able to get offensive boards. Ayana Mitchell is one of those kids, she's a dream to coach. She's selfless. Whatever I ask of her, she's going to do it. She's going to give me everything that she has. Very proud of her effort on the boards. She's been consistent for us. She, too, is hard to keep off the offensive glass. She balances that out for us with board play. Khayla Pointer, last year being a first year, to see the growth of this young lady after the loss of her father, to see her come out today and play like they belonged, just really played well for us. You know, I'm very excited about these two coming back. We're obviously going to take every game. We try to get better from each game. I think that's what these young ladies are doing, they're learning how to compete on this stage. They're going to get better because of it. Q. You mentioned you're not sure what is next. Did you feel like you were playing for your tournament life today? NIKKI FARGAS: Well, I think you don't want to ever go into the SEC tournament hoping and praying if you're going to get in. I felt like we had opportunities in our SEC schedule to come away with some wins where we had four games regular season that we lost three possessions or less. You have to have a closer. Our closer that we've had in the past has been through our guard play. We're asking a young sophomore to do that for us. She did a great job. We're still hopeful. You just never know what the committee is looking at. We've been in a situation a few years ago where I think there was a cluster of us that went 7-9. We're going to, again, whatever our fate is, we're going to take it, own it, and we're going to move forward. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. NIKKI FARGAS: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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