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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2019Mike NeighborsChelsea DungeeJailyn MasonNashville, Tennessee Arkansas-58, Texas A&M-51 THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Arkansas. We will start with an opening statement from coach, please. MIKE NEIGHBORS: Don't ask me any questions about how it happened because I honestly don't know. The last thing I remember Coach Schaefer saying is they made six of their last nine field goals and that can't happen any more. I don't think they made another one, maybe one or two. The sequencing of events, I'm usually pretty good at remembering things that happened. I don't remember the exact things that happened. All I know is that our timeouts were incredibly positive, were incredibly player-driven. All we did was make some tactical things, we stuck to it. Until Jerry said we closed on a 17-0 run, I had no idea that was the case. Was that right? 17 or 16? I had no idea. I just knew we buckled down. It seemed like in the fourth quarter we got every 50/50 ball. Then we created some we probably shouldn't have had 50/50. As far as going to the championship game for the first time in our school's history, couldn't be more proud that it's with this group of kids. We're a blended family. Jailyn stuck around in a time, in a climate where every kid has every opportunity to bolt on a university and a team, and she didn't. Thank you for staying. JAILYN MASON: You're welcome. MIKE NEIGHBORS: Along with the other kids that did, y'all can go through and list them. To get a few kids to believe in us from the get-go, like Chelsea did, IT did, like Raven did, Lex. I couldn't be more proud to be associated with them, get to fly around and ride on the bus with them. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes, please. Q. Jailyn, coach couldn't put into words or explain it. Can you? JAILYN MASON: No, I really can't. It's an unbelievable feeling right now. For the past three years, this is the first time I've been here in this situation. I'm extremely proud to be able to have Coach Neighbors be my head coach and have people like Chelsea come out and be so positive, have such a great impact on our team. We're really excited for where we're going right now. Q. Chelsea? Can you put into words, explain it? CHELSEA DUNGEE: I don't think any of us can right now. It hasn't even hit me yet that we're playing in the finals tomorrow. I'm sure it will tonight. But, no, like Coach Neighbors said, I'm so happy to be a part of this team, so happy that I chose this school, to be coached by Coach Neighbors, to play with people like Jailyn and our seniors. We have a special group, we really do. We fought through adversity together. This is something that we fought so hard for. Q. Chelsea, things weren't working for you early. They were keying on you. How did you stay focused and not force things? CHELSEA DUNGEE: That's just part of the game. I just let it come to me. I always let it come to me. My teammates do a great job of picking me up when I need picked up, and vice versa. Q. Chelsea, throughout the game, seems like three and a half quarters team was struggling, then it started clicking. Can you attribute that to anything? CHELSEA DUNGEE: We had to buckle down on defense. We had to get stops, put them together. That created offense. That created a 17-0 run. Q. Jailyn, Coach Blair was just in here, the Texas A&M head coach, he talked about how the Aggies were just out-hustled. At the end you were making the plays, out-tough them. How are y'all not tired right now? JAILYN MASON: This is extreme confidence in every single one of our players, five on the floor, the others on the bench, from our coaches. We knew exactly what we had to do. We knew the possession arrow was in our favor, how many fouls we had left to give. Having that conscious awareness of the game from every person on the floor and bench really helps us, just keeps us really motivated to keep our motor running. Q. Jailyn, coach mentioned how you stuck with the program. Now you're playing for an SEC title. Did you think that was going to happen? JAILYN MASON: I had extreme confidence in Coach Neighbors once he got here. He'll probably tell you we sat down and had an hour-long conversation because I had a list of questions. He's a champion. He went through them with me and told me what his philosophy was. I'm a part of it, I want to be a part of this. I knew his winning record. I was excited to have him as our coach. Q. Chelsea, you came to Arkansas in a different way. For this to happen this year after you were in so many close games, was this in your plans for the weekend? CHELSEA DUNGEE: I've always been a believer. With this group of girls, I know this is a special year. This is the year that we can accomplish so many things. Just like tonight, like I said, it's just a special group. MIKE NEIGHBORS: I want these guys to hear this. I know I'm not supposed to talk and answer. We started working for this specifically in mid December, taking an extra day on Fridays for what we call game after the game, where these guys actually get two days a week off, they don't really realize it, but they pretty much do. We start working for the post-season then. They'll figure this out after they graduate. They can talk to Heather, my GA. We lose a few games in the middle of the year because of the way we practice and prepare. But it's so that when you get to this time of the year, we're fresh, we're happy. It's the freshest we've been, the happiest we've been, the most together we've been. We dealt with things. We didn't back down from one challenging situation all year. We had some on our foreign trip. We had some at the pre-season. I'm waiting for it. Any time we're together six days, we start doing something. Isn't that right? But we're not going to do it this time because we can see. We fought through it. We've dealt with everything. A small deficit isn't anything compared to what this group has fought through and come out of on the other side, a team that I'm just really, really proud of and for. THE MODERATOR: Ladies, thank you. We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. Slow start to quarters. It took a while to get things in rhythm. Seemed like the end of the quarter was a culmination of all the previous quarters. MIKE NEIGHBORS: We were tired. I was tired. I called two plays tonight that we don't even have. I called two actions that we don't even have. We were tired. We were spent. A lot of energy. There was that timeout. We got in there and talked about buckling down. They were leading it before we got in there. From that point on, I was energized. They were energized. They energized us. You don't want Coach Blair to have the clipboard in his hand. If he can sit over there and draw something up, they're going to get the ball where they want it, to the person they want it. When we were able to string together some consecutive stops, he wasn't able to call his plays over there. I think that's one advantage to having sat on his bench for a couple of years and followed his career obviously very closely. We wanted to make sure he didn't have the clipboard in his hand at the end. I thought the play when Chelsea hit the three coming out that stretched the lead out to a two-possession game was massive. Our execution was so good. They were so locked in. I think that was the difference in the end of the game and the beginning of the game. Q. Would you say they as a team took over the game in the fourth quarter by themselves? MIKE NEIGHBORS: Sure. They've been doing that, though. I don't have any problem saying that. That means we did a good job in practice. If we're having to coach a team at this time of the year, we didn't do our job in November and December and January and February. They see things. They're our best source of information. They know how they're feeling better than we do. We ask them what defense they want to be in, double-team or not. They all had great answers. The less you have to hear from us the better, I think. Q. They appeared to be more active defensively in the fourth quarter. MIKE NEIGHBORS: I think we were tired to begin. We never did anything. Once we did something good, that adrenaline just took over. Then that belief came back. It all stayed positive. It was never a time when they were on each other. It was very positive the entire time. I think that's what kept it going. It was everybody. There were a few people that had every reason to get down because they did something that was a tough play, got their shot blocked, threw the ball away, something. But they never did. I think that's a huge sign of maturity in a team that does believe in each other. Q. You said last night this tournament is harder to win than to get to the Final Four. MIKE NEIGHBORS: It is. Q. Are you seeing the residue of that? MIKE NEIGHBORS: Four games in four days, you never have to do that when you're trying to get to a Final Four. If you have a good seed in the Final Four, you're not playing somebody like Georgia on day one. You're usually playing a team that got in the tournament some different way. Then the next game... It's just so hard. I've never been a part of a team that's done this. I don't know what tomorrow is going to feel like. I know they'll be running on adrenaline. We have the best strength and conditioning coach and the best athletic trainer in the country. They're going to be the MVPs tonight, getting them ready. We have to turn to a really tough Mississippi State team who presents challenges that you could have a week to prepare for and not have a plan for, so... I'm glad it's kind of a quick turnaround. Q. Is there any way to avoid the slow starts you had here? MIKE NEIGHBORS: I don't know. If you know, tell me. Our video coordinator has been doing a hype video every day for us. That's something we haven't been doing during the year. Maybe the hype video needs to be a little extra loud or the song choice needs to be on point, as the players would say. I don't know. This is foreign territory for me, too. Four games in four days. I know we're going to go home, get in bed. We are going to take a shootaround tomorrow. Our seniors, everybody agreed to do it. We've not taken a shootaround in two years on a game that was 2:00 or previous. But they all said, We're going to go home, we're going to get in bed, we need to get up and come shoot. Q. You and Coach Blair have a history. He had nice things to say about you. How does it feel to get a win over him? MIKE NEIGHBORS: It doesn't feel as good as if it had been somebody that didn't give me the chance to start coaching. There was no reason in the world to hire me as a high school coach. I didn't have any players that he was recruiting. I didn't have any future players. I didn't have any experience. I just kept on him until he finally said yes. Of course, I took a $58,000 pay cut, too. Did he mention that part? Q. He did. MIKE NEIGHBORS: Good (laughter). But every day was worth it. I wish we could have played in the finals. Now you have Vic sitting there who I'm just as indebted to. I'm not going to be coaching at any level without those two guys, so... To be doing it at the SEC, the three of us being the last three kind of left standing, it's something that will sink in. Kind of like they're talking about, it hasn't hit yet. To me, what Coach Blair has done for our game, the positive ambassador that he's been, how many people he's helped, his coaching tree and roots are so deep. To be a part of that is an honor. Now he treats me like a colleague. I used to feel like I worked for him still. I don't feel that way any more. I don't know if that puts it into words well enough. It's hard to describe how proud it makes me to make him proud. Q. Conversation earlier tonight, what does it say for a team that's the hottest team in the league, that's made an incredible run, put the numbers up, state your team's case for the NCAA tournament? MIKE NEIGHBORS: Just look at history. I know there's a tremendous challenge this specific year. I follow this because of Coach Blair, as closely as anybody. It's going to be a really hard year in that room to decide. But look at what we've done late. I always heard, how you're playing late. Who can you beat in the field? I think Texas A&M is in the field. Probably hosting. I hope we didn't knock them out of that. Chennedy Carter will be back. They're a different team. We haven't even addressed that. She'll be back and they're a different team. We played them a week ago. Trust me, she was trying to come in the game that day. She'll be back. Am I making his case or mine (laughter)? I just hope they take an honest look at us and look at the whole body of work and who we've played, what we've done, what we're doing lately. Regardless of what happens tomorrow, I think we got to be on that board being talked about because of who we've played throughout the year, our non-conference schedule, exactly what we should have scheduled for being picked 11th in our league. We drew a tough draw in the Big 12 Challenge. We played Iowa State. I think they finished runner-up in their league. We've had a lot of tough things. When you line that up, you're looking for an at-large team, if you don't look at who the schools are, I think our case is going to make itself. I just tell them, I know how hard it is. We're going to try to win tomorrow so that we don't have to worry about it. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. MIKE NEIGHBORS: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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