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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: LOUISVILLEMarch 24, 2019Kim Barnes AricoNaz HillmonHallie ThomeLouisville, Kentucky Louisville 71, Michigan 50 COACH KIM BARNES ARICO: Louisville is a great basketball, that's for sure. Playing them here just adds to it. What a tremendous crowd for a women's basketball game on a Sunday morning at church time. So Asia Durr came out of the gates just really attacking us and we didn't handle their pressure exceptionally well early on and by the time we settled down we kind of dug ourselves a little bit of a hole. But I said to my team in the locker room, there probably aren't very many teams, and I can probably count them on one hand if I can count all of them, that can come into Louisville and play in this environment on their home court and not lose by more than 20. So we have a really good basketball team. Our seniors, I'm just proud of them, and we had a great run. Just going up against one of the top teams in the country on their home court is tough, and Louisville was great tonight for sure. Q. Do you guys feel like the crowd affected the way that the offense is run? HALLIE THOME: I thought the crowd was outstanding. Definitely a fun place to play in. We played here last year. Knew what we are with coming into. We practiced yesterday with a speaker and a lot of loud noises. So yeah, the crowd sometimes can feel a little shaken up. But I thought we did a great job on handling it. AKIENREH JOHNSON: I think it personally affected me because we couldn't really hear, like our defensive switch-up switches or offensive plays or things like that. But that's why we practice in practice echoing, so if one person hears something, then everyone else hears, so you echo it so we can get it through. Yeah, it was difficult but it was nothing we couldn't handle. We worked through it all year long for moments like this. I think we were pretty well prepared after we got our nervousness out the first couple minutes of the game. Q. 19-4, did you feel they were trying to speed you up? Do you think that's what they did to you then, but for most of the game? HALLIE THOME: For sure, I think definitely a big stat was in the beginning, the first half, we had 17 turnovers. So kind of came out and pushed us into doing things we didn't want to do and turned the ball over, but I think we did a great job the second half coming out and handling that. Second half we only had five turnovers total. That just stands for a lot, I think we got our confidence and knew what we were going against, but I think in the beginning they definitely did speed us up. AKIENREH JOHNSON: Yeah I most definitely think they sped up a lot. That was their game plan. That's their game plan against most teams plays that -- they like to take away the point guard. Most teams take away the point guard, it messes up everything's offense, so I don't think they did anything different against us. I think they played their normal game, but they definitely brought a lot of intensity the first couple minutes of the game but we most definitely started to adjust to the pressure. Q. With that being your final game for Michigan, what are you most proud of over the course of your career? HALLIE THOME: I was waiting for that question, so I'm prepared. I think just the group of girls I got to finish it with. I think a lot of us doubted us this year with losing Katelynn Flaherty, a person who scores so much. But we proved so many people wrong. I think what I'm most excited about is to see this program continue to go on the rise once I leave. I was just talking with Sara, I'm in a lot of -- No. 2 for scoring, rebounding blocks. But the best part is I know Naz Hillmon is going to break all those and I'm waiting for her to break all those. I definitely want have traded it for the world to have gone through Michigan and had my time here, but I'm excited to see them only get better and continue to break the record. Q. Talk about the 17 turnovers, the max that y'all had all year was 25 and you had 17 at halftime. Obviously it was not the way you wanted to start. HALLIE THOME: Yeah, that's obviously not how we wanted to start, but I think -- all year we've had turnovers, but we've always found a way and we've always stuck together, and I think that really shows the Michigan team that we are. All that matters this year is that we stuck together and when you're having turnovers, instead of getting annoyed and mad at each other, stick together and then you end up winning out games. I think an important stat, although the NCAA pointed it out and we were annoyed with it: We average 16 every game, so it's not anything we're not used to. So having turnovers sucks, but I think that's a credit to our team for being able to stick together and win important games. AKIENREH JOHNSON: From a guard's perspective we talk about we get a lot of our turnovers from trying to force passes, but the forced passes that we make, we see those. So I think in practice, we try to practice making those passes like over-the-top lob passes or dump-down passes or trying to get their person to pass before their defender comes up. So yes, we have a lot of turnovers but we also have a lot of assists with those turnovers. And we just do that because we are trying to find our teammates the best look, and sometimes we try maybe one pass too many, and I think that's one thing that we're going to really improve on for next year. Q. For AK, you came off the bench about five minutes left. You were down 19-4. You finished the first quarter down 19-11. How do you think the team was able to respond to that run in such a hostile environment? AKIENREH JOHNSON: We already talked about our ability to come off the bench and make an impact. A lot of times, we sit on the bench and if something isn't really going our way, we talk like, okay, we're going to turn this around; or okay, we are in the going to lose momentum, and we have doing that the whole year. So all we do is talk about coming in doing our press, our 12 defense and getting stops, getting rebounds, getting deflections and the offense will come later. So I think that's one thing we really improved on and a lot of teams, even this team, struggled with a little bit was getting through our press. I think that's one of our strengths is our press and our defense for people that come off the bench. Q. What some of the things you'll use from this one to get yourself ready for next year? COACH KIM BARNES ARICO: Yeah, definitely. You know, we talked to our team in the locker room, and especially on the women's side of things, your seed is really important and we finished the year really strong and now we know how important it is to get a higher seed so you're not playing a 1, it's really tough to matchup against Louisville at Louisville early in the tournament. We know from their press, they speed us up. We have a freshman point guard and we have a sophomore 2-guard, so those guys were handling most of that, and they are going to improve on that. And I'm sure that they are going to try to watch that film and learn from that experience so they are never in that position again. Q. You talked about how you scheduled difficult road games deliberately to try to help your team grow. How do you think this team is going to help some of your younger players grow down the line? COACH KIM BARNES ARICO: Yeah, just what we talked about, the things that we need to get better at, we need to be able to handle that pressure and handle that environment from the start. I think we settled in and we handled it as the game progressed. But you can't put yourself in a 19-4 hole against a No. 1 seed and try to climb back from that. We had cut it to six, but it's not easy to climb back from that deficit. So definitely a learning experience. I mean, we are losing some outstanding, outstanding seniors, outstanding leadership. But our freshman, sophomores and juniors really contribute and made an impact all season long. So we are excited about what the future of Michigan women's basketball holds for sure. Q. Obviously you had known about Asia Durr coming in, but what about her performance today impressed you from an opponent perspective? COACH KIM BARNES ARICO: Yeah, I don't think we did a good job on her initially, and she was able to get going, and when -- any time, you know, a great player, any player, gets going early, you know you're in trouble because once you get some open looks and you get them to fall, holy cow and I think that happened with her. The bummer for us is they weren't off of initial offense. She got her first couple threes off of offensive rebounds, and we were running to get a rebound and they found her. I think they do a tremendous job of finding her and shared basketball really well. She's a heck of a player. I mean, she's an All-American. But she also is the kind of kid that let's the game come to her. She doesn't press too much but her team did a great job of finding her and she's just an outstanding player and did a tremendous job for them tonight. Q. In regard to the first half turnovers, how many of them did you think Louisville was responsible for, and how many do you think you made some mistakes that were unfortunate and uncharacteristic? COACH KIM BARNES ARICO: It was definitely a combo. We knew they were going to speed us up, but we practice against that every day. I just think we got -- and when you're a young kid and you make a couple mistakes, you have a tendency, it's kind of like a young kid that makes their first two shots. They usually make three, four, five. If you make a couple mistakes early, usually make three, four, five. So it was just trying to settle down and get us to relax and just play confidently, but you know, we talk about Amy Dilk. She's a freshman. This is her first time in this kind of environment and they have great defenders and some really, really quick kids. The same with Deja Church, first time in this environment. So handle the ball; they took the ball out of Amy's hands early, and that made us have to have somebody else handle the ball that is not accustomed to doing it the entire game. So it was a combination, and I think when we got shook and rattled, it took us a few minutes to get out of that. Q. Heading into next season with a lot of young players, what are you most excited about? COACH KIM BARNES ARICO: Yeah, I mean, I might have said this in the last couple days in the press conference. We've just finished practice number 103, and at most times when you're at practice 103, the horn ends to end practice and the kids go scurry on their way and can't wait to get out of the gym, or the coaches go home and can't wait to get home. And this is probably one of the first teams in my career that I have to throw them out of the gym after practice 103, because they want to continue getting shots up or they want to continue working or they want to get better. So they are hungry. They are hungry. They are driven. They are Michigan kids. They want to be the best that they can be in the classroom, on the basketball court. As a coach, there's nothing more you can ask for, and that's exciting to be around every day. They are energy givers. When you have a freshman point guard like Amy Dilk coming back and you have a freshman post player like Naz Hillmon coming back and they have the kind of freshmen seasons that they did, that's reason to get excited. I mean, Kayla Robbins, Akienreh Johnson, two juniors on our team that you guys had a chance to see tonight, the sky's the limit for them. Hailey Brown, a Canadian kid who can absolutely shoot the basketball. I mean, we have a lot of great pieces coming back and our kids know that they are hungry to take those next steps in the NCAA Tournament. Thank you, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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