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

March 24, 2019

Stanford, California

THE MODERATOR: We welcome the BYU Cougars, Sara Hamson, Paisley Johnson and Shaylee Gonzales.

Q. Shaylee, Stanford recruited you out of high school. How does that change your mentality going against this match-up tomorrow?
SHAYLEE GONZALES: Being at BYU means a lot to me, and playing against somebody who really wanted me makes me more competitive and to want to play my best against them.

Q. Tell us what kinds of problems Stanford gives you, how you're going to match-up against them and what you are going to take away from them?
PAISLEY JOHNSON: I honestly think we will be able to match-up pretty well against them. They have tall posts, and we obviously have tall, posts and I think we will match-up well against them. Our point guards and their guards all match-up pretty well.

Q. Sara, were your take aways from the result against Auburn and how you can apply those lessons tomorrow?
SARA HAMSON: I thought we did pretty well. I don't think it was our best game per se, which just means that if we could pull that off not playing our best game what can we do when we do play our best. It's exciting to see that we did well on this big stage and we can even do better and that we have room to grow.

Q. Paisley, how positive was it for a relatively tournament inexperienced team to have a game like Auburn right out of the gates, to handle that 40 minutes, to move on?
PAISLEY JOHNSON: It's promising. Like Sara said, we didn't have our best game, but I think that just shows the potential of our team, not even just this year but in the years to come. It's exciting for me, and I know for the girls sitting next to me just to be able to know that we have much more to offer, especially in this tournament. I'm just extremely excited for Monday.

Q. Shaylee and Paisley, tell us about Sara and what kind of advantages she gives you with the 6'7 post in there and defensively and offensively what she is able to do for you guys?
SHAYLEE GONZALES: As a point guard I absolutely love having Sara in the post. When she sets a screen on my defender and she rolls, I can always count on her to catch the ball. I throw it up high and I know she'll be there for it. She creates a lot of blocks and is really good at defense inside.

PAISLEY JOHNSON: Not just does she become such a big presence in the post but she is able to disrupt a lot of the opposing players that try to go in there, not just guards but also the posts, and she is not blocking the ball, she is disrupting it, so that's what I love about that, and she has our back if a player gets around us or has a fast break, so it's a joy to play with Sara.

Q. Paisley, you guys don't have many opportunities to have a Monday game and of course without practicing on Sunday, but it happened in the conference tournament and it's happening now. What about preparing for a game on Sunday becomes certainly unique for you guys in this situation and against a team as good as Stanford?
PAISLEY JOHNSON: I think it's a lovely experience to play on Monday, because sometimes when we come in after a long week during the season, Monday practices weren't always our best. But I think having the focus of us all being here together this afternoon -- we all went to church together this afternoon, as a program, and I thought it was lovely that we could come and bring the spiritual side of our school to the tournament with us.

And maybe we weren't able to prepare on the court, but we've been preparing all season and just preparing with God to bring the excitement and the game tomorrow. It's a good experience no matter what.

Q. Shaylee, it sounds like you expected to be here even as a freshman with this team. Now that you've gone through a game, did it meet your expectations and how do you think this team settled into the tournament after one game?
SHAYLEE GONZALES: Before coming to BYU I set a lot of goals for myself, especially as a freshman I wanted to do a lot, and I didn't know how I would fit well into the team at first, but I think going to Europe, we did a two-week trip where we played against pro teams, and that really got my feel for it.

Just being here, it's an honor and it's a blessing. I feel very blessed to be in my position.

Q. You guys got off to a little bit of a slow start rebounding yesterday, and obviously Stanford is a good team with a lot of rebounders. How are you going to rebound from the start tomorrow?
SARA HAMSON: Focusing on a body and disrupting how they rebound and going and getting the ball and grabbing with two hands and focusing on that from the start. I think it was good to have that first game to get used to just the atmosphere that it was so loud, and it's going to be even louder tomorrow, and it was a good start to get us warmed up for this game.

Q. Sara, you sat there and listened to Paisley and Shaylee say nice things about you. I'm going to give you a chance to reciprocate. You guys have had a good habit all year of finding somebody to step up in every game, and it's often somebody very different, Paisley or Shaylee, whoever. How does that make you feel in terms of putting together a scouting report? (Away from mic.)
SARA HAMSON: No, it's so hard to guard. There are so many weapons we have. Paisley off the drive and Shaylee on the pick-and-roll, we are so hard to guard, and Brenna's shots. There are so many things and you can't account for all of them because you have to help off on Paisley's drive and Shaylee's drive and both of them can shoot, too, and Brenna shoots and drives. They all do all the things, and we all do all the things and it's great. It's just hard to guard everyone at once.

Q. Sara, your sister Jen is playing professional volleyball?
SARA HAMSON: Yeah, in Germany.

Q. Have you been in touch with her? Has she given you any advice?
SARA HAMSON: She just told me go and have fun and do your best. She is really awesome. She is so supportive.

THE MODERATOR: Sara, Shaylee, Paisley, thank you.

We are joined by Coach Jeff Judkins. Coach, congratulations. If you would begin with an opening statement and thoughts in preparing for Stanford?

JEFF JUDKINS: Sure. First of all, we're very excited to be here and of course yesterday was a fun day for the BYU team. We played a very good Auburn team and being able to win that game was a big plus for our program. We really have enjoyed our time here at Stanford. We've been treated really well, and my team is excited for this challenge.

You think women's basketball, Stanford comes into mind. Tara is a great coach and has won a lot of games, so it's going to be great challenge for us, but as I know with my team, my team likes challenges, and they're excited to really get out here and play against a top-10 team. Hopefully we can do our best and be able to be victorious.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach.

Q. Coach, talk about what you see on the tape or video or whatever we call it these days. What kind of problems does Stanford present for you guys?
JEFF JUDKINS: They cause a lot of problems. They have probably one of the top five players in the country in Smith, very versatile, can shoot it from the three, can post up, can run the floor, can defend. She causes a total nightmare, and unless you have a player of that caliber, it's very difficult. Their guard line is really solid, and what I mean by that is that they have great penetration through their point guard, but their wings can all shoot, and they're very physical, both in the post and also with the guards, and lastly, then they execute and run their plays to perfection.

I've watched the early tapes and I've watched the latter part of them playing in the season to try to get a good feel of the team. They're running the same stuff they ran in December, they're just running it better right now than they did then.

She has made some changes to the starting line-ups for her team to get better, and that happens. I did the same thing. You make changes to improve your team, but they're very, very solid, excellent defense team. They're not going to pressure us like Auburn did, but their it defense causes a lot of turnovers because of the way they play. They play position and they make you force things that you really don't have. There is no question they have advantage playing at home. I would like to change it and play in the Marriott Center; it would be a little better for us, but this is a great challenge for our program.

This is where we want to be. For us to play Stanford and to be able to have an opportunity to compete is exciting for us.

Q. Jeff, you guys don't get many opportunities to play on Monday during the season but you had one at the tournament for the conference and now. What's the Sunday preparation like with this team, especially going into the obviously the biggest game of the year?
JEFF JUDKINS: We prepared. We've had opportunities like this before in the NCAA. We've had this during our conference tournament. What we do as a team, this morning we went to church together, enjoyed being with each other. We will go back after this media and spend some time with their families and then we will probably go out to dinner as a team and just enjoy each other. Then we always -- no matter what night it is, we always meet together at night and we just talk as a team, either read scriptures together or talk about the gospel in our lives.

Especially Sunday, today, will be fun for me because I'll have an opportunity to maybe talk a little bit spiritual things to them today. Tomorrow is when we are going to pound it. So we're kind of lucky the game is at 8:00. That gives the coaches more time. It gives us time to get a shootaround and walk through it. We have had in the past where we don't get a shootaround in the morning, and that makes it a little bit difficult.

You know, we believe, and I think all of us do, that we've done this, we've prepared for it, and, you know, we will be blessed by doing it the way that we need to do it. My girls, when they walked in they were like, Stanford is practicing, yeah, but they know that we're not going to do that, and they're fine with it, so we're excited to get going.

Q. Coach, what do you feel like your strength is, or your advantage will be against Stanford, and how are you looking to exploit that tomorrow?
JEFF JUDKINS: I think our advantage is we have three guards that can score in many different ways. Like last night, Paisley did not have one of her best offensive games, but somebody else steps it up. Our guards can shoot it, they can penetrate, they can pull up, they can run the floor, no matter who you put on them, they seem to find whatever clicks the best in the game, whatever match-up. Second, we have size. Sara is definitely a force in there.

It's sad she got in early foul trouble. She couldn't be as aggressive as I would have liked her to be, but she causes a lot of problems in the middle with her length. Then, of course, I think our bench, with our bigs, we bring a lot of physicality with Shalae and Jasmine and Babalu. Those three can bang with anybody. When Stanford goes big with one of their bigs, I'm going to sub one of my bigs and get it equal a little bit.

And Maria played so well last night. For her to come in and do what she did when Paisley wasn't as good offensively was a real plus, and I feel comfortable with her because she can handle the ball and move without the ball. All those things are great.

I think right now if we can move the ball and really get it spread out, we can cause some problems.

Q. Coach, you followed you're only dip in the season of three straight losses with now nine straight wins coming into tomorrow. What's been most consistent do you think or among the consistencies in this current nine-game run you're on?
JEFF JUDKINS: I would say first it would be defensively, the intensity to detail and doing the things that we needed to do. It's so funny how this works. Your team is successful when they start listening. It's like you're a parent and you tell your kids to do all these things, and they don't listen, and finally they listen to you.

They're listening; not just in practice. They're listening on the court when you say something to them. You kind of say they're "tuned in". I think that's been a big part of it. I think the second part of it is a lot of players have really accepted their role. Look at Jasmine. Jasmine was starting for me, and she knows now that our team is better by her coming off the bench. Maria started a lot, same way with her. Shalae was a starter until she got injured, and Sara has come in and brought something, so the team has joined together in whatever it takes for us to win.

Probably the next thing is we're really moving the ball a lot better, getting more people involved, and I'm probably coaching better. I'm putting my team in a better position to be successful.

Hopefully we can just keep it up. This has been incredible but we're not satisfied with just winning one game. My team wants to advance. They want to go as far as they can. This will be a really, really good -- a big opportunity for us. I mean, Stanford is one of the top six teams in the country. I know they won't be afraid of them because they weren't afraid of some other teams.

I'm excited to really coach this game, so it will be good for all of us.

Q. A lot has been made of the chemistry and how well they get along with each other. How has that helped your success? How is does this team's chemistry compare to others?
JEFF JUDKINS: When you have 80 people going out to dinner every night and hanging together and wanting to be with each other instead of running to their families or somewhere else, you know you have great team work and chemistry.

This team has been this way for, really, the start of the season. They just want to hang with each other. They like to do things together. If people know me very well, I don't like cliques. This team is not cliquey at all. They hang with different people. As you know, we have a lot of young players; maybe that's part of it.

The seniors and the upperclassmen have done a fabulous job of just letting them understand what's going on with BYU, and I think the players that have been the stars. They're team players. They don't care about all the recognition. All they care about is this team winning. So for me it's been a joy to really coach. People that have been around them during the season, you can just tell when they say things to me like, "Hey, you can tell" -- we had a great football player, Steve Young, say something to us yesterday. He said, "You can just tell your team is really on the same page and they just love each other," and that's the first time he's seen us in person.

To be able to have his analysis to that means quite a bit. So it's been a lot of fun. This season has been a joy to coach them because of that.

Q. Can you talk about Hamson's development? Obviously a legacy, her sister, her mom, so big for BYU in the past? Highly recruited and all that. The legacy part but how she has developed in the last couple of years.
JEFF JUDKINS: This year, a lot of people don't know it, she tore her meniscus in August playing volleyball. So she missed our trip to Europe and really missed about six weeks of practice. The young lady worked her heart out to get back and she came back two weeks quicker than we thought. But we had to be really careful with her, lower her minutes and really watch what we had to do in practice. She just has gradually gotten better and better and better.

I would say the last month maybe month and a half she's played like she was playing last year and she's start to go develop a lot more confidence in the offensive end. I think part of it is we're running an offense that fits her style and that is where she screen and rolls to the basket and comes out and pops and can pass it.

But her family, whatever -- I never really saw their mom play but her older sister, Jen, was just developing and got better every single day. They are very, very smart. They understand the game. So when you coach them and teach them things they remember that stuff. I'm excited because she's not going to play volleyball next year; she is going to focus on basketball. So now I've got her in preseason, lifting weights, getting her stronger.

I've had about 20 people send me texts, this is very interesting, kind of shocked me, said you better sign her up for ballet lessons. So I think I'm going to get her in ballet at BYU, try to help her get her balance better. She has gotten so much better. In that game yesterday, I saw a little fire in Sara. I kind of liked that, where she lost the ball, and they shot it, and she rebounded with fire in her eyes. If I can keep that up with her, she's going to be a great player for us.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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