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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: MIAMIMarch 22, 2019Katie Abrahamson-HendersonNyala ShulerKay Kay WrightCoral Gables, Florida Arizona State 60, UCF 45 COACH KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: The first thing I want to say is I'm very proud. I mean, what these young women have accomplished this year is just overwhelmingly, I'm just filled with joy that they pretty much have accomplished every single goal that we set out at the beginning of the year. You know, this program is only -- with me here at UCF, we've only been here three years and third year in the NCAA Tournament with an at-large bid which doesn't happen very much. You know, I think a lot of people will say, well, that's the coaches. Well, it's not. It's the players. The players bought in. The players worked really, really hard. Yeah, we gave them a really good system to play in but they had to do it. They had to step up there every single night and go out there and play and just fight and be great teammates and stick together and have great energy. Our slogan for this year was "energy, effort and selfless," and I mean, if you watch our team and you watch the bench and you watch how we play, that's what we were all year long so I'm very, very proud of them. I told them -- you know, it hurt really bad because they don't want to lose. They didn't want to lose but I told them to get their heads up because especially our seven seniors, what they have done for this program is just really amazing. Obviously we're fortunate to have Kay Kay Wright coming back next year and months any and some of our younger players, and it's kind of funny and fitting that our freshmen, that's all they know. That's all they know now is winning and going to the NCAA Tournament, which is awesome, right. They don't know anything different. But Nyala and Kay Kay were here our first year and they had to go through a lot of changes to get to this point, so I'm just very proud. Q. Their tournament experience, they are tournament-tough and you guys haven't been the last three, four years. Did that have a different in a high-pressure game like this? KAY KAY WRIGHT: I don't think experience was a downfall for us. I just think some shots didn't fall early on and we didn't get enough stops as we should have but I think we are prepared for this moment. Our coaches had a great game plan for us. We were ready for this game and I think if we would have hit some more shots early on, it would have been different. Q. Seemed like you might have been a little uptight in the first quarter or they were keying on, high scorer on the team. Do you feel they were keying on you more so than the other players in? KAY KAY WRIGHT: I think they had a pretty good game plan to deny me the ball sometimes and they were successful at it. I just had to be more aggressive in the second half and really focus on getting open and my teammates did a good job of handling that pressure, as well, and running the plays. Lawriell and Jamesha Paul, they ran the plays for me, so I think it wasn't so bad. Q. For either player. You guys were down 22 I think with minute to go in the third and a lot of teams would have folded the tent at that point, and you guys kept fighting. What's it say about this group that you guys -- I think you got it to 12 at one point in the fourth, even getting down that big, that really seemed to be the best effort of the night. KRISTEN YOON: Nyala, maybe you could start with that one? NYALA SHULER: Well, Coach has -- we would huddle whenever there was a dead ball and we were just talking to each other, whenever somebody was down, we had a great teammate, somebody was picking us up and we just decided that we weren't going to go out on a bad note and we were going to play hard and give it our all. CAMRON GHORBI: Thank you. You guys are dismissed. Q. The two 3s to start the third quarter, how big a momentum shift was that? I'm sure you're hoping to win the first five minutes but when she got loose for those two 3s early, what did that do to the game plan at that point? COACH KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: Exactly what you saw. I just think they set some good in screens on us and she got loose -- I don't know her name, No. 1, does a great job of finding No. 22 and getting some open shots. Obviously the shooter that she is, those are big shots to, hit those shots and games in this atmosphere and this gym, those are big shots for her. Q. How tough do you rate their man-to-man defense? Is that the toughest you've seen all season? COACH KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: It's not, but obviously we play that other team in our conference and their defense is really good and Cincinnati's defense is really good and I can go on. People play Kay Kay like that all the time. I think what hurt us honestly is we got in some foul trouble, and we had a lot of people on the bench and that doesn't really help our situation. Kay Kay had some fouls, but we weren't doing a great job of scoring in there when Mass -- because you saw when Mass and Nyala were in the game, we were getting high-lows and getting a lot of options and Mass is going to work offensively. Brittney Smith is going to be a great player for us, No. 32, she's. A freshman now, but we have a lot of confidence in her. She was getting the ball and make something moves, but she was missing her shots, right. So you saw the difference a little bit between her and Moss. So I think it really just hurt having those two in foul trouble. Q. Back to 22. Do you feel like her UCONN experience showed tonight, two years with UCONN before she transferred? COACH KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: Okay. Wow. I don't know. You'd have to ask her that. Q. I know you're 20 minutes removed from the game so it's probably unfair to ask a broad question, but -- COACH KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: Sorry, I can't hear you. Q. 26-7 this year, and at-large, like you said, they are not easy to get. COACH KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: Yeah. Q. Are you kind of ahead of schedule, do you think? COACH KATIE ABRAHAMSON-HENDERSON: My team or me? Like my -- you know, we did this at Albany, too, pretty quickly and I think I talked to you about it at the beginning. Just I've been pleased to be around a lot of great coaches that have had to rebuild programs, Bill Finley; Joanne P. McCallie, I've been part of rebuilding -- twice with Joanne. So I was kind of used to going in and doing that kind of thing. And so did I think we could get here immediately in the first year and second year like we did at Albany? No. But I thought maybe we could have last year but our injuries really hurt us. Fifi and Tolu were out and Kayla Thigpen had to play the four for us and we had some great players in Saunders and Gregory, they were phenomenal scorers. So if we would have had more post power, I'll call it, last year, maybe we could have been here, and I think that stung a little bit for our team. It really helped us this year, just preseason, getting in shape, getting in the gym, everybody being focused. Just knowing we had strength in numbers. My coaching staff are doing a great job of just repeating that a lot: Strength in numbers, strength in numbers, strength in numbers. It didn't help that we didn't have Fifi again this year to play a lot but every team has injuries and things, and I just think our team and our coaches did a great job of just sticking together, working hard, staying focused on our goals. And it's really the hard work. I kind of joke at our team and say, it's an old cliché, but at the end of championships or the end of people's great careers, you know, when they win that championship or they get to where they want, they are crying, not just because they are so happy, but they are crying because they have worked so hard and they have accomplished so many goals and they don't want it to be over because it feels so good to win a championship or feels so good to be into the NCAA Tournament, feels so good to win the game they never thought they could win. It because they worked really, really hard at it. CAMRON GHORBI: Thank you, Coach, and congratulations on your season. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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