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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2019Gary BlairCiera JohnsonKayla WellsNashville, Tennessee Texas A&M-64, Auburn-62 THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Texas A&M. Coach, if you could give us an opening statement. GARY BLAIR: Texas A&M has always been built in every sport next-man-up mentality. We've done it all year. After big losses, we've rebounded. We find a way. That's what Aggies do. There's a motto that you have on your slogan out there. Tell me again what it is that's on the wall, the first key on the board, Ciera. CIERA JOHNSON: It's not what we do, it's how we do it. GARY BLAIR: That came from a few other coaches in this tournament as well, but it started at Texas A&M. What we do is we play extremely well and we share. We shared the responsibility of 18 turnovers in the first half. We made some adjustments at half. I have a great staff that made some adjustments. We did some things. Yes, we turned it over a few more in the second half, only three in the third quarter. All of a sudden we had played so great for the first eight minutes of the third quarter, but here comes Auburn again. We had a nine-point lead. They went right back in front by one, got to two, three. We kept making plays. We kept making plays. I know this tournament has been run tremendous. I'm asking all those people that are out there that have tickets from South Carolina and Tennessee, some of the other teams that have been eliminated, the best day of basketball is always on Friday when you have eight teams playing that are all going to a tournament, NCAA or WNIT, we're all going somewhere. You saw some of the best basketball in the country being played today. Every game today was that special. I'm just proud of these young ladies. Yes, I was in her ear to come get the ball on the last second. I said, Don't you give it up. She was going to shoot it or she was going to dump it in over there. There was no other option. We did a great job of first making the stop on the defensive end to be able to set up that play. Questions for my players. Q. How did your conditioning pay off tonight when you had to play so many minutes? CIERA JOHNSON: I guess you could say we're kind of used to it. Coach Blair, as everyone knows, doesn't like to sub that much. Got to kind of suck it up and just keep going. Q. Kayla, Chennedy Carter is not available for the SEC tournament. Take us inside your mind when you hear that news, know that's going to mean more responsibility for you. KAYLA WELLS: It was tough. What I was thinking was I'm going to have to step up, I'm going to have to have the ball in my hand a lot of the time. I knew playing a team like Auburn, that was really going to hurt us. I knew if we came together as a team, we were just tough, we were going to win the game. Q. Kayla, looks like an offensive breakdown, then all of a sudden there's four seconds on the shot clock, making the shot. Is that exactly how you drew it up in your mind, what coach scripted out? KAYLA WELLS: It was either going to be me or Ciera. Ciera wasn't open. I got the ball. I drove it, knew I was going to go to the basket. I made it. Q. Ciera, looking ahead to the matchup with Arkansas, what challenges are you anticipating? CIERA JOHNSON: They're a very great transition team. They can keep the floor very spread. They have a lot of shooters. We got done playing them, we beat them, they are going to come out ready to play. Transition defense will be a big focal point for us tomorrow. GARY BLAIR: Just think, Unique Thompson and Ciera Johnson, two very good post players. One had 13 and five boards, played 33 minutes. This one had 12 points, eight boards, played 37 minutes. They're not even on the first or second team all SEC. That's how good this league is. Their time is coming. They're both sophomores. There's so many good juniors and seniors in the league, sometimes you have to wait your turn. That was a great effort by both of those two fives. The rest were letting them bang a little. It was good. Ciera switched off on McKay, contested that shot, didn't give her a good look. That's a great defense by Coach Starkey. They knew how to play that defense on the last-second shot. I thought they might give the ball back in to Alexander, but she wasn't having a great shooting night. McKay needed to make the shot. Give us a little bit of credit for how we played defense. Shot 59%, which is the highest we shot all year. Take the 26 turnovers away, we played pretty damn well. I'm so proud. But now we got to recover because we're going to face the hottest team in the tournament, Arkansas, by how they played. They also know to get to the NCAA tournament, they probably need to get to the championship game at least. They're going to be playing their hearts out. We're going to be ready for them. Chennedy Carter will still not play tomorrow either. The ones that I have here are going to play very well. THE MODERATOR: We can dismiss the student-athletes. We'll continue with questions for coach. GARY BLAIR: Jada Walton hitting the big three in the corner, I think that's the first one she made in conference. She was playing with cramps with her legs bad. She showed a lot of guts coming back in. Jas Williams gave us some good defensive minutes in there. That's all we have, folks. We got three guards that have to play 40 minutes. Jas Williams has to come in and be able to spot us and give us five to ten minutes somewhere down the line. Just think, the transition game tomorrow. Arkansas is going to want the score 90-88. We want the score a little bit lower because we got to rest people. We're going to the ice tub. I'm going to somewhere where there's ice in something else when I get home. Questions, anybody else? THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach Blair. GARY BLAIR: Let's go home, folks. It's been a great day of SEC basketball. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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