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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 5, 2020Joni TaylorJenna StaitiGabby ConnallyGreenville, South Carolina Georgia 68, Alabama 61 THE MODERATOR: We welcome Georgia. We will open with a statement from coach, then direct questions to the student-athletes, then we'll finish with questions for coach. JONI TAYLOR: I'd like to start off by tipping our hat to Alabama. They were playing really, really well. I have a lot of respect for what they do. Kristy has them playing really hard. It was tough to watch. Really, really proud of our effort, how we played. I think everybody who came in really contributed, did something to make a play. This was a tough game. I told our team before the game started that effort was going to win the game because these are two teams that play extremely hard. Talent wasn't going to determine the outcome. It was going to be our effort. I thought we were really locked into the scouting report on both ends of the floor and really did a good job of executing tonight. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Jenna, it seems like the beginning of a tournament can always be pretty intense. You got more and more comfortable as the game progressed. Talk about your mindset before the game, how it settled down. Were you nervous at all? JENNA STAITI: Before the game I wasn't nervous. I knew that this was going to be a tough game. I had to give all that I had in effort, just playing hard and stuff. The first half I was not happy with the way I played. I mean, I was doing the little things by grabbing rebounds and blocking shots. I felt like I had more to contribute into the second half. I just told myself in the locker room, I got to get going. Just that self-talk in my head, I think it translated over to the court. Q. Jenna, over the last eight games you've been on a tear. What do you think has been going well for you? JENNA STAITI: I just think playing strong and just my coaches, my teammates give me so much confidence. They tell me all the time: The only one that can stop me is me. Just keeping that positive mindset, doing what I can, just giving all the effort that I can. If I mess up, I can't get mad at the one play, got to move on to the next play. That was hard for me at the beginning of the season. Now I think since I've translated into the second half of SEC play, it's gotten a lot better for me. Q. Gabby, Jenna pulls down 14 rebounds, 20 points. What do you think is the difference in her transformation? How much confidence does it give the rest of the team? GABBY CONNALLY: Extreme amount of confidence. Jenna is a great player. I'm glad she's on our team and we're not playing against her. She's special. She can score all three levels; she can post up, shoot the three, shoot the midrange. She does a lot of the dirty work for us. I think a lot of people don't even realize. I'm just really happy for her that she's starting to play how she knows she can play. Q. Gabby, when Jenna was struggling in the first half, you were the one carrying the offensive load. What was your mentality going into the game? GABBY CONNALLY: I think that's really what it is, what you just said right there. Just coming out aggressive, being aggressive, having that aggressive mind state. Kind of me and Jenna are kind of the same in the fact that sometimes if things aren't going early for us, we may drop our head, but the coaches always tell us to keep shooting, keep being aggressive, stuff like that. My teammates have an extreme amount of confidence in us. I think that really helps us, as well. Q. Gabby or Jenna, you have a short turnaround time. Things don't get any easier now, South Carolina. Describe what your schedule is going to be like the rest of the day. Will you watch any of these games? JENNA STAITI: I think we are going right back to the hotel. Everybody is going to shower. Then we got to get right to work on South Carolina. We celebrated a little bit in the locker room, but we got to move on. We know it's a tough matchup, we know what it's like to play South Carolina. They're the No. 1 team in the country, they're going to bring all that they have their first game. We just got to change our mindset to South Carolina. It's got to be a tough mindset. THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. Chloe, she came out really strong today. She's had to step in with big shoes to fill. How do you think her performance went? JONI TAYLOR: I'm so proud of Chloe. She really got thrust into a role. I'm not going to say she wasn't prepared for it, but she's had to grow up really quick and really fast. She's accepted that challenge from day one. We knew she was an exceptional athlete coming in. It's more than that. It's understanding schematically what we want to do defensively. Let's just remind everybody that she missed half of our season playing soccer with the preseason schedule. She literally has made the adjustment and says, Coach, I'll do whatever. On the offensive end, she's learned our offense, distributing the basketball to the people who need it, playing a lot of minutes. I'm just really proud of her ability to take on whatever it is we ask her to do, whatever form that comes in. Just the future is really bright for her. Q. You went through a tough stretch at the end of January. What has been going so well of late? JONI TAYLOR: I think it's a few things. I think number one, all four of those games were against top-25 teams in our conference. That's why you come to the SEC. It's extremely tough. You want to play against the best and with the best. That's why you come to Georgia. I think also we're growing up. We're a young team. We have two starters returning. Jenna didn't start last year. Maya didn't start last year. The only two starters on the floor were Gabby and Steph. Que back and forth coming off of an injury. So this team is just growing up. We're peaking at the right time. I have to give the credit to our young ladies for that. Because they come to work every single day no matter what the stat sheet said the night before, they're anxious to learn, they're willing to be coached. It's starting to show up for us now. Q. The little spurt at the beginning of the second half almost made the difference. Did you say anything specifically at halftime? JONI TAYLOR: Not specifically. We made some tweaks offensively and defensively. Then we just always tell them coming out of halftime the score is 0-0, especially in a game that's that close. We knew it was important to maintain the lead, to try to stretch it out, to get stops. We were able to do that. Q. Defensively forced 19 turnovers. What type of effort did it take defensively to pull out this game, especially without Que? JONI TAYLOR: Everybody always asks me how are we going to replace Que. It's replace Morrison by committee. There's not one person that can do what she does. Maya got in there and rebounded the basketball. Chloe steps up really big defensively. Everyone who comes into the game. Kaila Hubbard has been excellent our last few games in the minutes she's played from a defensive standpoint. Just making sure we're sound. Last time we played Alabama, they really got downhill on us penetration-wise. That's something we really focused on. She do an excellent job of dribble handoff penetration, ball screen action. We were able to kind of contain that today. The other difference was we didn't send them to the free-throw line as much as we did last time. That was a separator for us. Q. Now you face South Carolina. Daunting task as a coach. What is your schedule going to be like the rest of the day? JONI TAYLOR: We'll go back to the hotel, they'll shower, we'll eat, give them some time off. As a coaching staff we'll meet. Bring them back this afternoon, watch film, walk through it. We will not take a shootaround tomorrow with a 12:00 tip, but we'll spend the rest of the day-evening watching film and talking about what we need to do. Dawn, this is probably, in my opinion, the best team she put on the floor since she's been at South Carolina. They're extremely talented at all five positions. We have our work cut out for us, for sure. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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