	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 8, 2019

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Texas Tech 104, Oklahoma 84

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by the Oklahoma Sooners Coach Sherri Coale and her two student athletes, Ana Llanusa, and our other student-athlete is Madi Williams. Coach, your thoughts about tonight's game?

COACH COALE: First I want to congratulate Texas Tech. I thought they played incredibly well. Brittany Brewer had an amazing night. She missed, what, six shots, seven shots? Averaged making three or four threes a game, and they hit nine tonight. They hit on all cylinders. They were just really, really good. I want to congratulate them. Zuri and Brittany played like juniors and seniors who are hungry and nearing the end of their career and don't want it to be cover.

I thought they played and led their team, and obviously that's where the majority of their points came from. We had a hard time rebounding against that size.

Otherwise we cleaned up our turnovers from Tuesday night. Did a better job there. Had a number of assists, but I thought we felt our inability to stop them, we felt it on the offensive end. I felt like the pressure of being unable to get a stop bled into our offense and we missed easy locks, layups, open threes that we usually make, and that's just youth. You cannot rush the farm. Kids grow when it's time for them to grow and they mature as they get older. And no matter how badly we would like for it to happen sooner rather than later, it happens when it happens.

I appreciate our team's diligence. These young guys have fought and they've never given up and they have continued to learn. I thought they hit a little bit of a mental wall in terms of adhering to the game plan tonight, just the moment was a little too large for them. But they're young and they've gotten some valuable, valuable experience this year.

They're going to use that as fuel, because I can promise you no one in our locker room ever wants to feel like this again.

Q. Ana, late in the third quarter you cut the lead to 4, I think, and have a chance to come back and cut it to 2 there after I think your steal. What happened after that that the game sort of started to get away from you?
ANA LLANUSA: I think that would be us not getting rebounds. They got their boards and went back up and got second shots. So it would be that, and then we did get a little sped up on offense. Like she said, missed a number of different layups, just easy layups that we needed to finish, and I think that was the turning point.

Q. Ana, I know she is tall, but what separated Brittany from being what she was able to do tonight? Why was she that difficult?
ANA LLANUSA: I think she just had a really good game. She shot the ball really well. I don't think we were -- we knew she could shoot but she hit a lot of threes, a lot of open shots. Just props to her for making those shots, knocking 'em down.

Q. Madi, what was it like trying to guard Brewer and some of the size that they had inside? It had to be frustrating at times for you, especially when they would drop out and she is shooting threes out there.
MADI WILLIAMS: The whole game plan was whenever she did get the ball inside was to dig it out. If anybody got the ball inside we were to go dig it out. I think we relied too much on our help side and we were just like, okay, let 'em catch and our help side would be there. And when it wasn't because we had to -- because they were hitting shots from the outside, then just kind of went downhill from there.

Q. Ana and Madi both, can you put into words what the season was like? I know it wasn't like what anyone wanted, and Sherri said no one wants to feel like that again, but speak to the challenges and how difficult it was at times.
ANA LLANUSA: I think it was challenging trying to find out exactly who we are. We went up, we went down, we played close games. We've gotten beat by a lot, but just the learning experience we got this year is really important, and I think it's going to accelerate us for next year.

MADI WILLIAMS: I think that this year was a great way for us to see our potential, and before we leave we're going to win a National Championship. I think we're all looking forward to that.

Q. With that, what's the biggest learning take-aways that you guys have going forward?
ANA LLANUSA: I would say just knowing that we can all score is really important. To have that confidence. Every single one of us on the floor can score, but we have to just really dial into defending somebody and fall in love with defending. We all know we can score, but can we all guard? And that's something for sure we are going to be working on, as soon as possible.

MADI WILLIAMS: We can't wait until the off-season to put in work. We all know we have some work to do so we can come back next year and have a better outcome.

THE MODERATOR: Ladies, congratulations on finishing the season and best of luck to you.

Q. Coach, I know you spoke to the youth of your squad. What are some take-aways from today's game and this season that you want to bring into next season?
COACH COALE: Well, the list is so long I'm not sure you have time for me to talk about it all. What our guys got was exposure. Exposure to talented teams, exposure to size, exposure to athleticism, exposure to the pace of Big 12 basketball, Division I basketball. They got exposed because there was nowhere to hide. We didn't have a guy to go to. Every team we play against has a guy to go to and we didn't have that.

They were so young that our preconference schedule was probably way too tough for them and where they are in their career, but you can't -- that happens way ahead of time. It knocked our confidence a little. Not having Ana early and we didn't have her the entire first semester affected us a little because she probably would have become the guy and has developed so much as a leader. I could talk for a long time about how Ana Llanusa has grown. She is obviously a talented offensive basketball player, but she has grown in terms of her ability to lead the people around her.

There are a number of things that we have to get better at, but we're not as far away as it might appear. There are things that come unraveled because there's just one slip here or there or just an understanding but an inability to apply an understanding yet. It's a whole bunch of yet. It turns out and it looks ugly when you look at that score and when their two post guys combine to miss seven or eight shots on the night it looks ugly, but we're not that far away.

We have some young guys doing some impressive things. We have to get tougher and find some size and fall in love with defending. The laundry list is long in terms of things we have to do. I'm proud of their fight, and they're going to look back on this year and realize what a pivotal -- we all are. We're going to look back on this year and realize what a pivotal year it was for our program and their growth. They're not going to soon forget how hard this was, and that's what will propel them to make it different.

Q. Sherri, you mentioned in your opening statement that you thought maybe they got overwhelmed a little bit with the game plan. Is one of the reference points maybe when you pulled within two or one in the third, you make a rally, looks like you're getting into this game, and then all of the sudden you don't make a bucket or two and you're down five or six and it gets away from you?
COACH COALE: We panicked. We talked at the timeout about our momentum we had momentum. You have to continue to hang on to that and make this next play. This play coming out of the timeout is an important one, but I could sense it even in that timeout a little trepidation. They wanted so badly to win and advance here and to play beyond the first day here, and. When we missed a couple of easy shots I felt it really -- you could just cut it with a knife.

Again, I think the inability to stop them sort of bleeds into that, and it did turn into a snowball and they took advantage of it.

Q. Sherri, same question to you. You spoke on it, but the difficulties and challenges for you this year, personally or professionally, what was it like for you? It's been a long time since this program has been -- you know, 8 wins for a year. What was this like?
COACH COALE: It was hard, very hard. At the same time, there were lots of rewards in the growth of these young guys. My job is to teach, not to be frustrated or talk about how difficult it is for me. My job is to teach and coach and lead, and I've tried really hard to do that.

We as a staff have tried really hard to model realistic optimism. Here are our weaknesses. Here is where we need to get better and this is what we can do, and hopefully we can do that and we have cemented that mindset that you have to believe and you have to be realistic about what your shortcomings are and how you can shore those up. I'm proud of them. Nobody likes to lose. I put myself at the top of that list. There is nothing fun about it.

But at the same time, our job is to grow kids, and that's what we're trying to do.

Q. Sherri, along those lines, how confident are you -- you talked about how close you believe this team is. How confident are you that this can get turned around relatively quickly, whether it's the players that you've got now, the ones you've got coming in, and the job your staff has to do?
COACH COALE: Well, I'm very confident about the future, you know? Again, this is a team that had two seniors that played sparingly, no juniors, and everybody else is freshmen and sophomores. I don't know of another team in the country that's in that situation. This is -- yeah, it's been tough. Yeah, we feel like we hit rock bottom.

But from there you spring forward. There are lots of guys who are close. When you add that up and they continue to get better, things can happen really quickly, you know?

It's a lot of work ethic in the off-season where guys have to figure out how to work on their weaknesses and how to compete and how to get tougher. It's also going to look entirely different after these guys have an off-season together and can come back next year. There is no doubt we need to add some size. There is no doubt about that. We return all of our scoring, all of our rebounding. We return everything, all of our assists, and we have three guys joining us. I'm excited about that. I'm excited about the potential of them.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much for your comments.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297