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PAC-12 WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 10, 2019Dijonai CarringtonAlanna SmithTara VanDerveerKiana WilliamsLas Vegas, Nevada Stanford - 64, Oregon - 57 COACH VANDERVEER: I think the competition that we played game in and game out really prepared us for today's game. We won with our defense, and we came in as the top ranked defensive team in the Pac-12, and people were really locked in defensively, whether it was Kiana, D, Alanna, her blocks, rebounding. Maya really helped us a lot, Anna Wilson had a great game defending Ionescu. She's a terrific player. I thought our associate head coach had a great scouting report. And our team just locked in, and we did what we needed to do, and I'm just really proud and really happy for these women that are sitting up here, and the rest that are in the locker room. Q. It was a month ago today that you guys had a pretty tough day against Oregon at home. How much of that went into this? ALANNA SMITH: I think that was something that we had in our minds ever since we lost that game. When you take a loss like that, you have no choice but to learn from it. So we were happy that we got to play Oregon today, because we wanted another chance at them. I think just from the result and how we're all feeling right now, it just shows how badly we wanted it. Tara says every time, every disappointment is a blessing. That was a huge disappointment to us, but this is a huge blessing right now too. Q. When she says that and you're in that moment, do you believe that? ALANNA SMITH: I think we do. I truly think we do. When you take a loss like that, you're forced to look at the mistakes you make. You're forced to. Sometimes when you win and you make mistakes, you're not looking at those. But when you take a loss like that you learn from it better. Q. You talked about her just a little bit, but she might not have shown up on the stat sheet other than the blocked shots, but can you elaborate on the presence of Maya Dodson down low? COACH VANDERVEER: Maya had, what, four blocks. You know, rebounds, six rebounds. But I think her presence in there and just her running the floor I think gave us another alternative, actually. A lot of times this year when Maya has been out, Alanna has had to play the five, but it allowed Alanna to play the four the whole game basically. I don't think we ever went small the whole thing. Alanna was our five. I think playing three games in three days is really tough. But our depth I thought really helped us. Q. For any one of the ladies, to go back to talking about avenging the loss against Oregon. I know one of the players mentioned yesterday Tara had said don't look in the rear view mirror and don't dwell on things either. So when you scouted this for this game, did you look at what they did in the first game, or did you try to concentrate on what your defense can do in this tournament rather than focusing on the previous game? DIJONAI CARRINGTON: Actually, we didn't look -- I mean, after we finished that week out, from then on we haven't harped on it. We haven't looked at that film, actually of what they did. We looked at what we did well and what openings we had on offense and things we could have done better on offense. When we watched film last night and this morning, we looked at the good things we did and the good things we know that we can get, the good things that other teams did against them, especially on defense. And we knew we didn't have a great offensive performance that day or defensive performance. But we knew that we were capable of it. Yeah, we didn't focus on our negatives at all, which was really good for us, I think. Q. Coach, is you've won 13 of these now, so I don't want to say it's old hat because each one I'm sure is special. But what's it mean to beat a team that you lost to 40 points a month ago, and to have lost to them last year in the title game? Does this one have a certain place now because of what you guys did to get it? COACH VANDERVEER: It's not really about that. It's more what you feel from the players that you coach. That they really care about each other. That they have each other's back, and that they get the big picture of this is a team game. These are our leaders with Kiana and Alanna, and DiJonai, and what great jobs they've done as captains and leaders. It's a team game. We don't win without going through the scouting report with Mikaela Brewer doing what she needs to do, or Estella or anyone. Shannon's stepping up big for us. I don't look at it like, oh, it's just another trophy or another net or anything like that. It's just another great memory. And I'm so proud of these women and the other women in our locker room. Not for just the basketball, which was great today, but just who they are as people. That's what makes it really rewarding. Q. Alanna, can I ask about your ankle? And also, in that moment when Alanna goes out and Maya goes out right after her and it seemed like things got a little shaky there and Oregon made a run at you guys? ALANNA SMITH: Yeah, I think I just rolled it or landed on it wrong. I think I landed on one of the other team's feet. But we've got a great support staff in our athletic trainer, Katelin, and she knows what to do in those types of situations. Yeah, she got me right back out on the court. I think when the adrenaline is pumping like that too, I didn't want to miss out. I wanted to be out there for my teammates. So, yeah, I just did what I had to do to get back out there, and I think Maya did the same thing as well. Q. Kiana, the three you hit with about a minute and a half to play was one of the only separators in that fourth quarter. Basically one-possession game the whole way through. What do you see coming up the court leading to that shot? And what's that moment going to do for you next time you're in a situation like that late in a game against this kind of team? KIANA WILLIAMS: I just knew they needed a basket, and they were guarding D and Alanna really hard because they played a great game. I think she went under the screen, so I had confidence. My teammates have confidence in me. My coaching staff has confidence in me. Yeah, I just knocked it down. I think Shannon set a great screen and I knocked it down. ALANNA SMITH: She has ice in her veins. Q. Kiana, to follow on that, you guys closed the game on a 16 to 3 run or used the 16 to 3 run to take a double-figure lead there. In a game like this and situation like this, what are the key components of going on a run like that in crunch time in high-pressure situations? KIANA WILLIAMS: Just execution. I think our last media timeout, we were talking about it on the way here, I think we had four minutes left, and we were just saying four minutes, just two minutes at a time, one minute at a time, one possession at a time. So credit to my teammates for just locking in. After that media timeout, I think D got a lay-up and a steal, and that took us the rest of the way. It took us the rest of the game. Shout out to D. Q. Coach, I would imagine quite a few teams going forward are going to look at this tape for how you guys shut down Ruthy Hebard. What was the big key for kind of limiting someone who coming into this had been playing really light's out all the way through the tournament? COACH VANDERVEER: Well, again, I guess I got to watch it to see what we did. But a lot of it was not just having a plan. It was people making the effort, believing in what we were saying to do, and then working as hard as they could to do it. But both Shannon and Maya worked really hard to get good position on her. They studied film on her and knew what she liked to do. We got some help from other people doubling in a couple times. Just, you know, she's shooting 77% basically or 76%. I mean, that's not rocket science. You've got to do something about it, right? People really did what we needed them to do. But they're not a one-person team. Other people had to -- guarding Sabally was tough, Erin Boley was tough, they're a really talented team, and we needed everyone playing well to do it. Q. Coach, been addressing the crunch time in the fourth quarter. But you guys came out blazing right away. How important was it to attack this team as far as the emotion it put forth in an overtime win yesterday, establishing and setting a tone for yourself for that confidence to come out on a 10-3 run and building that confidence for yourself? COACH VANDERVEER: I think actually in our game against Cal we did that. I think people just realize, wow, it's ten minutes. Can you do anything for ten minutes. We went hard and ran hard. We have a great floor leader in Kiana. She pushes the tempo. You know, they let mistakes go better than I do. You know, they let it go and move on to the next thing. With Alanna knocking down shots, I thought D's steal, first, the lay-up was great because there were only 4 seconds on the shot clock on that one, and then the steal was great. Then Ki had a three. I think at some point the clock is going down and we're going up, and it just got away from them. Q. As a follow-up on the question about defending Ruthy. It seemed like Maya was really making it a point to sprint up court on offense and force Hebard to get back. They are not necessarily the fastest team or most athletic team. I'm not suggesting that Maya did something that was revolutionary for her, but was it a point of emphasis? COACH VANDERVEER: Definitely, definitely. Q. To make Hebard sprint? COACH VANDERVEER: Yes. I don't know that we ran as hard as we're capable of, but, again, we wanted to really push the tempo. Third game in three days. We're, what we call, tag teaming with Maya and Shannon. If Maya got tired Shannon came in, if Shannon got tired, you know, we just switched them back and forth. We also did that, I thought, really well with Lacie and Anna. But Anna's defense was fantastic. She worked so hard and came up with so many big plays for us. Q. When you guys get the scout, obviously, Tara, for years been knowing about what great scouts they put together and how they take players out of games and things. When you guys get the scout and Tara says about executing, can you talk about the trust you have in that scouting report? KIANA WILLIAMS: Yeah, we just have total faith in our coaches. They know what they're talking about. Tara has been here for quite a while. So, yeah. They're really like open to what we see on offense -- I mean, defensively, what we're seeing knocked down the floor. So it works both ways. We trust them and they trust us, so we just have like a system. Q. DiJonai, at one point it was tied at 51, and you had a tough bucket take. Then on the next possession you were (indiscernible) strip Maite and go away, and it was a four point, two-possession game. Tell me how you saw those two plays? In the back of your mind when you were trying to pick Maite, did you hesitate at all? DIJONAI CARRINGTON: I would say, like Kiana said earlier, right when we came out of that media timeout, we huddled up, and just said there's 4 minutes and I want to say 10 seconds left in this game. It was like: We want this, and we need to show it right now. Coming out of that huddle, I saw it on everyone's face that we wanted it. And we knew we had to do whatever we could to get it. On that lay-up, I tried to use my body. But on the steal, yeah, earlier in the game she was very comfortable, and we liked that, and we knew at some point we were going to get one of them, right. So I took my chance. I didn't have any fouls either, so, I had one to give. Q. Going back to Anna Wilson's play and the way she defended Sabrina, it looked like she kind of wore her out a bit and made her fatigued. Was that a point of emphasis to maybe try to tire Sabrina out and take that part away from Oregon? COACH VANDERVEER: I think we were just trying to keep someone fresh on her. Actually Lacie picked up two quick fouls, and Anna just stepped in, it was her name, and we've talked about it all year, and just be ready. When you go in the game, do what you need to do. She, I think, showed a lot of just confidence, and she's always at practice early, working on things. Just it worked out, and she really took advantage of her opportunity, and we're really proud of her. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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