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PAC-12 WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 5, 2020

Las Vegas, Nevada

California - 71, Arizona State - 67

MODERATOR: Welcome to the Cal Golden Bears, head coach Charmin Smith, Jaelyn Brown and Cailyn Crocker. Coach, we'll have you make opening remarks, and then we'll take questions.

CHARMIN SMITH: Thank you. Obviously we're super excited to be extending this journey. It's just really special. This group has been completely bought in and committed for this entire season through all the ups and downs. And we knew, if we could just stay together, that we could have more special moments, and this is definitely a special moment. I'm so happy for our seniors.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions.

Q. Coach, they build a 15-point lead, and at some point you decide to press them and press the issue, if you will. Did you see something in them, or was it something in your girls that you knew if you were able to force them to possibly cause mistakes, or is it something that you saw in their game, some flaw at that point?
CHARMIN SMITH: Yeah. I think there was a time when I think Reili wasn't in, and Dale, my assistant, said let's try pressing them. We saw there was a lack of ball handlers from our viewpoint, and then it worked. And I think they got a little bit rattled, so we stayed with it, we stayed with it, no matter who was in the game.

You know, that's a credit to these players being extremely aggressive and having a fight mentality; that they weren't willing to go down. And it really sparked us. The press was great.

Q. What did you see in the second half, as the third quarter, you seemed to spark the team, getting to the line, throughout the second half your scoring ability seemed to fuel the team's run there?
CAILYN CROCKER: I think we just as a team knew that we weren't playing the way we wanted to play in the first half. So I don't know if it is really something that I saw that sparked it, but I was just like, you know what, we don't want to go home and we know that we can play better. So as a team, we just rallied together and took off.

Q. Jaelyn, in the fourth quarter, you looked like a player possessed. What were you thinking draining 3s, grabbing the boards, put-backs? You just took over that game. You were the star in that final ten minutes.
JAELYN GREEN: Cailyn said it, we don't want to go home. That would have been my last game here. I had to give it everything I had and just play for these guys next to me.

Q. Coach, you guys played ASU just seven days ago. What did you take away from that game a helped you get the win today?
CHARMIN SMITH: You know, in that game we got killed on the O boards, we gave them 20 second-chance points, we gave them 19 points off of our turnovers, and Ruden had a day with I think about 18 points.

The emphasis this game was to be better in those three areas, and I think we were better in one of the three areas. But we'll take it. It was enough. Really, you know, I have a lot of respect for how hard Charli gets her teams to play.

Really, we just wanted to be the tougher team, and that was really the theme. We can't let them want it more than us. We can't let them be tougher than us. And I think we showed up in that department, and it allowed us to be able to get the win.

Q. In a game like this, what did you see from them in the second half where your team kind of needed scoring and they seemed to give you exactly what you needed?
CHARMIN SMITH: It is really special to have freshman that you can call upon on and say hey, go make a play. You know, like you said, those two have been doing it all season long.

I turned to Kai, our assistant, at one point and I say, Cailyn plays with a ton of confidence. Kai says to her, We need you to knock down a shot. I got you. I'm going to do it. Yep.

We need you to make these free throws. I got you.

She has so much confidence, as does Jazy, and it's just great to see how they don't care who we're playing against, where we are playing, what we're ranked, how many losses or wins the opponent has or we have. They're there to compete night in and night out. It is just -- we have a really special freshman group.

Q. Coach, you have had two huge back-to-back wins against Arizona and now Arizona State. Then you have Arizona again in your upcoming game tomorrow. What have you been doing right over this last week, and what do you need to continue to do to be able to beat Arizona once again tomorrow?
CHARMIN SMITH: I think with Arizona we for sure have to take care of the basketball. We did a decent job there. We have to make sure that we have all eyes on Aari McDonald all the time. She's is a phenomenal basketball player. She makes them go.

And we have to bring that toughness. That's been the difference for us. When we play tough, you know, when we are extremely aggressive, it really changes the whole feel for us.

Q. For either one of you ladies, last year in the tournament, Kristine Anigwe had a big first game and then had that clash with Stanford. I think Stanford had a big fourth quarter. And a lot was said that Cal lost a lot. How much was it coming into the game, not in terms of the middle of the game and that non-intimidating factor, not wanting to end it, but in terms to prove something that, yes, this team may have lost from last year, but we can come into this tournament with just as much pride and play with just as much?
CAILYN CROCKER: I wouldn't say that -- at least for me, at least, that I was thinking about maybe last season coming into this tournament, but I feel like this whole season we have been trying to prove that.

So it was nothing different than every single game, every time we lace up our shoes. It is the whole season. We're going to prove something to the world because we believe in each other.

Q. With CJ, what was it when she went down there, and how could that -- what do you think the status will be for tomorrow?
CHARMIN SMITH: She just tweaked her knee a little bit. I think she's fine. Obviously she came back in the game. I asked her in the locker room was it pain or was it fear? Oftentimes when you feel something in your knee, you get a little scared. I think there was -- she said it was more fear than pain, and I'm hoping that she'll be ready to go tomorrow.

Q. Coach, can we piggyback on that, just -- the fact that she comes back in, not only does she come back in, but she hits two key free throws at the end to give a cushion?
CHARMIN SMITH: She didn't want Jaelyn to have to get another offensive rebound like she did at Arizona. I use that in the locker room, that's an example to me of our growth. A kid who missed two crucial free throws at Arizona turns around, back on the line again in a very crucial moment and she's able to knock them down.

And this team has just continued to get better and better every single day. I think that was a great example of that.

Q. There was just this beautiful moment of joy when you were on the set at postgame, Charmin, and your players came and just bombed the set. I was looking at clips on Twitter. Have you been involved in a set storm before? If not, or if so, what was this moment like today?
CAILYN CROCKER: I have not. One of our support staff was just like let's have fun. We have a lot of fun as a team. We like to dance. Chen, one of our teammates, she was like we do -- what do you want to get out of this game to move on? And she's like, I want to dance. So we went and danced.

CHARMIN SMITH: I think, you know, it is just like who we've been all year. Just through a really, really challenging Pac-12 season, we have always stuck together. We have enjoyed seeing each other each day. We have played hard for one another. They have stayed committed to what I'm trying to get them to do and to this program.

I'm just really, really happy that it paid off in this moment and we did get to dance again.

Q. One question for each one of you because you have all touched upon not just today but this whole season and about this team: One-word identity of this team from each of you?
JAELYN BROWN: Resiliency.

CAILYN CROCKER: I was going to say EDNA.

CHARMIN SMITH: Are we letting them know what EDNA means?

CAILYN CROCKER: No. It's just EDNA. It is a word we say to each other, along with resiliency, at halftime. Just when somebody may shake their head, be mad, we say EDNA, and everybody knows what it is. It is a little laugh, and just keep going.

CHARMIN SMITH: That's our in-house acronym. We're keeping it in-house.

For me, it is fighters. We're fighters.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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