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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: MIAMIMarch 21, 2019Katie Abrahamson-HendersonKay Kay WrightNyala ShulerCoral Gables, Florida THE MODERATOR: We are joined by UCF. We will start with an opening statement from coach. KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: Well, welcome everybody. Thank you for being here. My team and coaching staff and administration, just everybody around UCF, is really excited. There's been a lot of great things happening at UCF with all of our teams. A lot of credit to Danny White and his staff. It's been three years, last year we went to the WNIT, first year, too. Our players, this is a new beginning for them, especially for our seven seniors, we have seven seniors on our team, they're super excited. This is one of their goals this year. They accomplished it. This is going to be a great opportunity for us going into this tournament. I think with the next two young ladies coming up, they're definitely the pillars of our program in terms of leadership, captains. They played probably the most on the team. They do a lot of special things for our team. I think our team is really excited, thankful for this opportunity. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Abe. Q. The system is different now. With 26 wins and three losses to one really good program obviously, an RPI of 15, were you upset to hear the words 'last team in' on Monday night? KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: No. We just wanted to -- to back up. Our team has always been let's do one game at a time. We can't worry about the future. We can't worry about the past. We have to worry about one game at a time. As we were going through this process we knew pre-season games, we had to kind of schedule up, get some good wins in the pre-season. We knew that our conference is just tremendous. We have phenomenal coaches in our conference. We just really try to not focus on the future, we just try to focus on one game at a time. When we finished our game, got to the championship game in the conference tournament, which is the first time ever, I think with our RPI being what it is, we felt really good about that. We're just really grateful and thankful to be here. Q. We all know the success that football has had. What is the vibe in Orlando right now? KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: I mean, a lot of excitement. Tremendous energy. It's all of our teams. Volleyball is tremendous, baseball is tremendous, soccer is tremendous. I can go on and on. I think there's a lot of excitement, fresh energy. Everybody is a true family there. We all back each other up. We go to each other's games. Johnny calls me, I call Heup. We call each other and say good job. We're all doing that at UCF, it's not just one team. We're all excited for each other. Q. When you look at Arizona State on film defensively, what impresses you? KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: I think the biggest thing that impresses me is Charli Turner Thorne, for sure. She's always been a role model for me. I know she's a tremendous coach. I've watched her for a long time. She's been a mentor to me through my career. She's a great coach. She's going to have her team prepared. Going back to our conference, we have a lot of great defensive teams in our conference, too. Obviously UConn is one of them. South Florida is one of them. They're going to play all man. We're going to play all of our matchup. Neither of us are going to switch it up. We have to be comfortable playing how we're playing. We're actually really excited that somebody is going to play us man. Not a lot of people play us man. We also know it's going to be a tough task to get ready and find ways for us to score. I'm sure the same thing for her. I would imagine both of us have been working on offense for these last few days to figure out how we're going to score against each other's defense. Q. Obviously tons of veterans on the team, but one extremely special one. What makes Kay Kay so special? How special has it been for you to watch her ascension? KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: I mean, the word I would use for her is 'selfless.' She is humble, selfless. Big-time family. She's so proud of her hometown team, Orlando. That's the reason she went to UCF. She a lot of schools recruiting her. Her family, they're all going to be here. What makes her so good is that she's a perfect point guard, everybody likes to follow her. She leads everybody in a certain way. She has great energy. They really like her. She's probably one of our hardest workers. If you have a great player like that that is your hardest worker, your team will follow. She's earned it. She's worked really hard. We inherited her, thank goodness. Danny White and her staff were good about keeping her comfortable with the new coaching staff. Obviously we met them all. When I came in and talked family, academics, basketball, I met her family, all the players' families, it's a perfect fit. Last, I have a really good point guard coach in Tahnee Balerio. After Kay Kay's freshmen year, it wasn't that she didn't feel like she was good enough, it was like she didn't help the team enough. That's how she felt. She was in the gym right after her freshman year and right after her sophomore year, I mean, every day. Obviously she's the hometown young woman. She could work out every single day. She made a program and decided she was going to be good. Off-season really made her good. Q. You talked about your coaching staff, a lot came from Albany, five NCAA appearances. How important can it be that you know the grind? How much confidence that can instill in a team who has never been to the tournament? KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: Obviously great coaches know that they can't do it without great assistant coaches. I've been lucky to keep them. They actually like me, so... Isoken Uzamere is our post coach, she's phenomenal. Tahnee was a player for me. All my coaches, even my director of basketball, played for me. She has been to the NCAA tournament. If they didn't play for me, they played for really good coaches. Obviously Nykesha Sales. That's their mentality of winning and championships because they don't know any different. Having them on our staff, I have a former player that played at Albany on my staff. Everybody on my staff has been to the NCAA tournament, knows what it takes to get there. I think that really helps. Q. Can't be a lot of coaches in the women's game that have taken three different schools to the tournament. You're focused on tomorrow, but does that mean anything to you? KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: It does. I mean, when I started this journey, I think we tell our story to our recruits a lot. When I was going through the process of what I wanted to do the rest of my life, it definitely wasn't to be a college basketball coach. I actually wanted to get into administration. When I played at Georgia, then I transferred to Iowa, I got the opportunity to play for two Hall of Fame coaches in Andy Landers and Vivian Stringer. My mother wanted me to go to grad school, I went to Duquesne. Right after that I had to do something, I got into coaching. The first place I was a full-time coach was Maine. I left Maine and went to Iowa State with Bill Fennelly. Listen to the coaches I'm saying, I've had some great role models. I went to Iowa State. We rebuilt that program. Every place that I've been, it's kind of like embedded in me a little bit to rebuild the programs. I've been blessed to have great staffs that have really helped me. When this job opened up, I don't want to really rebuild another program. It doesn't scare me. I'm not afraid of it. Orlando and Florida was someplace my husband and my family really vacationed all the time. We wanted to live there. Then I met Danny White and his staff. I was just amazed of his vision, what he wanted to do with our program, the rest of the programs. I had to lean on some voices like Joanne McCallie, people that knew the White family. Then I got a call from Johnny Dawkins. I'm going, I got a call from Johnny Dawkins, really cool. I think Danny White's vision really made me want to do it. It's hard to leave a winning program like I did at Albany and Missouri State. I wasn't afraid to tackle it, recruiting would be easier with the palm trees, the sunshine, pools and everything. Academically UCF is a great academic school. They have every major. For young women, that's super important. Coming down here, I came on my press conference, I was calling Iso, This is awesome down here. Ever since I day I stepped on campus, it's been phenomenal. THE MODERATOR: Thank you for joining us, coach. KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: Thank you, everybody. THE MODERATOR: We are joined by student-athletes from UCF, Kay Kay Wright and Nyala Shuler. We'll go into questions for the student-athletes. Q. Could both of you just speak to how, with the success of football, men's basketball, every team at UCF, how one team feeds off another, the sort of thing that y'all are part of building at UCF? NYALA SHULER: It kind of started off with our football team obviously going undefeated. They set this notion of going 1-0 each game, taking it one step at a time. Us and men's basketball tried to feed off of that. It obviously worked for us. It started with football. We're trying to bring it to basketball and hopefully we can bring it to our other sports as well. KAY KAY WRIGHT: I think we all just want to do great for our program. We all have new changes in coaching staffs. We have a great AD. I think we just want to do our part and make our program proud. Like Nye said, one game at a time, that's what got us here. Q. Kay Kay, a lot of programs in women's basketball have this issue, conference tournament, then you wait forever for the NCAA tournament. What have you worked on in the last couple of weeks? What have the priorities been? KAY KAY WRIGHT: We were just focusing on us in the beginning until we knew who we were going to play. We were focused on Knights basketball, our press, halfcourt defense and offense, just to get back to what we do, how we can stop any team that we're going to face. The last few days have been focusing on ASU, how we can beat them, things to accomplish, our game plan. Q. Nyala, the two of you have played a significant role in the team's success this year. Another member who is not here right now is Kayla Thigpen. How important is it and how important has it been for the season this year to have someone that can come off the bench and provide the kind of impact this year? NYALA SHULER: In the beginning of the season, Coach Abe said our slogan was 'strength in numbers'. It was really nice to see her coming off the bench, she could easily be a starter, but giving us that spark off the bench was really helpful. She can change the momentum of the games. Q. Kay Kay, the win total has gone up each year with Coach Abe. How fun has this been for you personally to have been on this trajectory, first at-large bid? KAY KAY WRIGHT: It's been really amazing. I just think back to when I was a senior, I would come to the games, the number of games they won. To come and be a part of something so great, it makes me proud. We put in a lot of work to get here. It wasn't easy. But we did it. It's been great ever since. Nye, she's a great player. I wanted to come here and play with her. It's been great to be a hometown hero, both of us, get some great wins for the program. NYALA SHULER: It's meant a lot. Obviously I wanted to come to UCF to build and obviously to be here where we are today. My first year we only won about seven games. To come from seven games to 26 now is really amazing. I'm just thankful for Coach Abe and her staff for bringing us here. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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