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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: LOUISVILLE

March 23, 2019

Kim Barnes Arico

Louisville, Kentucky

COACH KIM BARNES ARICO: We are excited to be playing basketball for another couple days for sure. We have a great group of seniors and they don't want their season to end and we want to try to advance as far as we can. We know that we have an incredibly difficult challenge ahead of us. Louisville is a great basketball program. They have great players. They have great coaches and they have great fans. I know the environment will be really exciting here tomorrow.

I think it was Naz that said before, it's great for women's basketball. So our kids will be excited about the opportunity to play in this environment and excited for the opportunity to play one of the best teams in the country in Louisville.

Q. You guys are obviously going to be a huge underdog tomorrow. What's the feeling like in the locker room right now? How would you describe it?
COACH KIM BARNES ARICO: Yeah, I think the kids are excited to play. We really challenged ourselves in the non-conference schedule, as well as in our conference, to play against the best opponents and to put ourselves on the road as much as we possibly could.

So you know, earlier in the season, we played Missouri. We played Texas. We played Washington. We played N.C. State, all away from our home court. We played at Marquette. So we really challenged ourselves in our non-conference.

And then in our conference, we had an opportunity to beat Iowa. We beat Rutgers. We played Maryland to a one-point game.

We've tested ourselves against the best teams in the country in hopes for an opportunity like we're going to have tomorrow. And I think our kids, you know, they know they are the underdogs, but they have a belief in themselves and they have a belief in their teammates that they can achieve something that probably 99 percent of the world thinks that they can't.

So they are excited about this opportunity, and I think they just have a lot of enthusiasm and really excited to play tomorrow.

Q. A little different than yesterday's game because this is a team that you played last year on this floor in the preseason WNIT. How much did that help with the preparation and the short turnaround? And also, you know Coach Walz a little bit from time with USA Basketball. So just talk about your relationship with him, if you could.
COACH KIM BARNES ARICO: Yeah, the quick turnaround, I think it definitely helps. I think it gives our kids at least, you know, hey, we've played against them, they are not invincible. We hung around for a period of time. We've got to get better at some things, but they have already seen Asia Durr live. They have seen their team live, and I think that definitely helps.

They are a team loaded with talent and she obviously leads the way. Really a special, special player, but they have a lot of special players in their program.

So we are a little bit familiar. Plus you get the opportunity to see them on TV a lot. We've had the opportunity to watch them a ton.

I've known Jeff for a really long time. Actually we were in the BIG EAST together. So when I was at St. John's, you know, he first got the job here at Louisville and I had already been at St. John's. So we've played against each other for a number, a number of years, and then we had an opportunity to coach together with USA Basketball.

He's one of the best in the business and I think that he's proven that in his time at Louisville. He has done a tremendous job on the recruiting front. He's done a tremendous job raising this program to a consistent national contender year-in and year-out.

He's a really good coach and they are a really good program, and like I said, you know, that's what we're aspiring to be, and we talked about it a lot this week, how to build that and how to get there, and we want our kids to have the opportunity to see tomorrow, okay, this is -- test ourselves against the best, and this is a chance for us to test ourselves against the best, and if we come out on the winning end, okay, that's great, and if we don't, now we know, hey, between tomorrow and next year, these are the things that we need to do to be a better seed and a top seed in the country.

Q. You lost Katelynn Flaherty in the preseason and a lot of people counted you out. What changes have you seen to the way the team's run and been able to succeed without her there?
COACH KIM BARNES ARICO: Yeah, I mean, Katelynn Flaherty is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime player. She just impacted our program so much. I mean, leading scorer, man or woman, all-time leading scorer, over 2,700 points and I think for the rest of the country, we finished the year strong. We lost to Baylor in the NCAA Tournament, and we didn't receive a ton of national recognition through the course of the season this year.

But I think what spoke volumes to our team was our league really -- our league voted us in the preseason to be one of the top leagues in our league. I think our league had a tremendous amount of respect for the players that were returning in our program, such as Hallie Thome and Nicole Munger and Deja Church and Hailey Brown, because with the loss of Katelynn and Jillian, I'm sure there were many people: How is Michigan going to survive this and where is Michigan going to go at this point.

But the rest of the team really rallied. Our freshman class has made a tremendous impact but I think the players that came back really committed themselves to improving and really wanted to show that you're a program and we are building a program and not just a one-year team; and without Katelynn, we're going to be okay and we're going to be able to still be a really successful team, and we've proven to be able to do that.

Q. One thing that Coach Walz has said about his team this year that he's hammered home that they struggle with their interior defense. With your advantage, do you think that's something you're going to look to exploit?
COACH KIM BARNES ARICO: I think we definitely need to take advantage of that, and that was kind of a theme of ours yesterday, as well, going into the game yesterday. We have a tremendous post -- tremendous post play and we have four that complement each other so well, and it's such a diverse group.

I think we can hit teams from all different angles. I mean, coming into the year we now Hallie Thome, a 2000-point scorer, just has had -- a three-time first-team all-conference player has had a tremendous career for us.

But Hallie Brown, a kid that plays for the Canadian National team, a kid that's a stretch four can face-up and knock down threes but can take you inside; we knew she was coming off an injury last year. She didn't get to play in the NCAA Tournament. She was going to have a great season for us.

Then you add a Kayla Robbins, who is a junior for us, and just is so explosive and has incredible balance and incredible motors with the basketball and really can affect the game with her length and her ability to offensive rebound.

And then you get a freshman like Naz Hillmon, Big Ten Freshman of the Year, Big Ten Six Player of the Year, had an immediate, immediate impact for us.

That package of four is really hard for other teams to guard. When other teams, one and two are getting tired, or when Hallie and Hailey are getting tired, we bring in Kayla and Naz. Our team doesn't miss a beat and we are able to continue and take it to another level.

That's really been an effective thing for us all season long, and I know that's something tomorrow that we've got to look to take advantage of, and I'm sure Coach Walz is preparing to stop that.

But we need to make sure that we are getting our post touches and we need to make sure that our posts are trying to get some second-chance opportunities, which they did a tremendous job of yesterday.

Q. In all likelihood the crowd tomorrow is going to be Louisville fans. Is that something you're a little bit concerned about?
COACH KIM BARNES ARICO: Well, we had a nice crew yesterday. It's nice that the game is drivable and our managers, our practice players, our families, our friends -- I mean, we had a decent crowd yesterday travel, but it's not going to be a Louisville crowd.

I think one of the things I touched on earlier is we did go to Marquette and we did go to N.C. State and we tried to put ourselves in positions. We've played at Iowa and we've played at Maryland where we were going to be some situations where the crowd was going to be against us and we weren't really going to be able to hear our play calls, and we worked on some noise things during the course of the season.

So we know that it won't be easy. We know that it will be challenging playing on Louisville's home court and we know that the crowd will be for them. But it's still just tremendous to have a great crowd for a women's basketball game.

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