|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 4, 2020Stephanie WhiteKoi LoveNashville, Tennessee Auburn 77, Vanderbilt 67 THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Vanderbilt. We're going to open with a statement from coach, then take questions for our student-athlete, then questions for Coach White. STEPHANIE WHITE: I think first and foremost, we want to continue to ask for prayers for our national community, to know that our thoughts and prayers continue to be with them, the aftermath of the tornadoes. We want to maintain perspective certainly. Incredibly proud of our three seniors. They left the program better than what they found it. Each one of them has helped us in terms of our growth process tremendously. Really proud of how far they've come and what they've been able to accomplish, how they've led our team this year. In terms of our young kids who got a taste, the steps that we've taken in our program, now we know what to expect, we're ready to take the next step. The execution, the mentality, consistency, and put ourselves in position to keep moving forward. But I'm really proud of this group. We have faced so much adversity with injuries and such. Through it all they've continued to just step up, continued to be resilient, continued to stay together. Sometimes that's really hard, especially for a young team. They've done an outstanding job of doing that. I'm so proud of them. Really just looking forward to getting into the off-season, getting better. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athlete. Q. When Jordyn went down, how much did that change the game plan of the team? KOI LOVE: I don't think our game plan changed as much. I think our fight and the head of our snake defensively. That's tough. That's just really tough for us. She leads this team in defense, leads the SEC in defensive steals. That was just really tough. I think not to put pressure on her or anything, injuries happen, but I think that was the defining point in the game. I think we have Jordyn, we win by 5, at least. Q. Talk about LeaLea as a teammate, all the adversity she's gone through. Of course, started the second half, things looked good. KOI LOVE: LeaLea is awesome. No matter what, through whatever she's going through on and off the court, she's going to play hard, she's going to be a good teammate, she's going to vocalize when she thinks things are going wrong, how we can fix them. She's a very positive person on and off the court. She's just someone you want to be around, someone you want to have on your team. You got to love her. We love her. Sad to see her go. Q. Coach White mentioned the impact that the three seniors had on the team. When you think about how to frame that, what is your perspective? What are some of the things they've done for this group? KOI LOVE: Everything. We're such a young team. We have seven freshmen that came in. I think they just kept us grounded all year. Fas with her scoring ability, just her dependability on and off the court. LeaLea, just her experience, her playing hard, her mental toughness, her physical toughness. Then Sarah, she doesn't do a lot on the court, but on the bench off the court, so much of what she does goes unsaid. We appreciate them so much. We're going to miss them a lot. Q. Coach mentioned taking the next step for the program. As you're going to be a part of that, what does that look like for you? KOI LOVE: Me? Well, I'm looking at the paper here, seven turnovers. Turnovers have been a problem for me personally and our team all year. I think it starts there. I think off-season, it's just going to have to be a lot of hard work to get better in everything that we do. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Koi. We'll continue with questions for Coach White. Q. Jordyn going out really changed things, didn't it? STEPHANIE WHITE: Yeah. She was playing at a great pace offensively. Four assists, no turnovers. Really doing a good job leading our team. But she really is the head of the snake for us defensively. Everything that we do from an intensity standpoint starts with her. That makes it tough. It makes it tough. We had to collectively be able to raise our intensity level on the defensive end. Plus we're down another guard. I don't know how many we have over there on the bench with injury, but at least three. That's another one. Our depth was certainly impacted. We weren't able to have a rotation, sub out. We had to keep changing defenses. Without having Jordyn's pressure and another defender on the floor, it certainly opened things up for Unique inside. Q. Is there a specific injury that you can tell us about? Was it a leg or knee? STEPHANIE WHITE: Yeah, we don't know yet. It's lower leg, but we don't know exactly what it is, where we go from here yet. Q. You played Auburn three times, beat them handily the first time, led the start of the second game. Beyond the injury, was there anything else? STEPHANIE WHITE: Well, turnovers. I think the injury is part of that. We have another ball handler with experience on the floor, one year of experience, but she still has experience. We're asking freshmen to go on the floor and handle the ball in situations like this. We're logging Chelsie so many minutes. She's having to handle the ball 94 feet, be a scorer for us, defend 94 feet. It's a lot. But there's just no way to make up for 31 points off of turnovers. Q. LeaLea, her career. A lot of adversity. Talk about that. STEPHANIE WHITE: I'm so proud of LeaLea Carter. She's a person that you said it, she's been through a lot of adversity on the floor, off the floor. Every year she's grown so much from a maturity standpoint, from a basketball standpoint, from a life standpoint. She's somebody that is a great teammate, a great friend. In terms of individual personal growth, in a four-year span, this kid is at the top of the list. She's grown exponentially. I'm so proud of her. We're certainly going to miss her. She stuck it out through the adversity. She continued to battle. That takes a lot. It says a lot about her character. Q. Your opening statement about the tornado, talk about where you were, trying to find your team. STEPHANIE WHITE: We were here already. We had come Monday. We were delayed a little bit, but got here Monday evening, had dinner. I woke up at, gosh, about 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning to a lot of text messages. Trying to make sure everybody's family is safe, folks in our athletic department was safe. We had a kid still at home, trying to make sure she was safe. Once we locked in and made sure everybody was safe and sound, then it was just for us mourning loss, praying for those who were still missing, praying for our community who is going to have to be strong and rebuild, not just tangibly rebuild but emotionally rebuild. There's strength in our community. We wanted to be able to represent Nashville well today. We wanted to play for something bigger than ourselves. It's really humbling when we're in the sports world, we think wins and losses are of the utmost importance. Not just because it's our livelihood, but fans, friends, family, everyone, it's about winning. When something like this happens, it teaches us it's not really about winning at all. It's about representing something bigger than ourselves. It's about doing everything we do with pride. It's about for us in the collegiate model helping young people understand empathy, helping young people understand community service, helping young people understand servant leadership, helping young people understand lending a hand, and helping young people become future leaders who go out and make a difference in communities like ours. It gives us a great reminder of what's important. We're very fortunate that our family, our friends are safe. Not everybody got to experience that. So we're grateful for that. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. STEPHANIE WHITE: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|