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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2020Dawn StaleyDestanni HendersonAliyah BostonGreenville, South Carolina South Carolina 90, Arkansas 64 THE MODERATOR: We are joined by South Carolina. We will start with questions for the student-athletes. Q. Destanni, career high tonight. Tell me about this game and your performance. DESTANNI HENDERSON: It felt good having an early start, knocking down shots. Just staying in the flow of the game, moving up and down the court really. Q. Destanni, I think you've said before you consider yourself a starter even though you don't technically start. How good did it feel to get out there and just start making all those shots? DESTANNI HENDERSON: It felt good. It can be hard sometimes coming off the bench, not knowing the flow of the game, having a slow start. But today I came out ready, confident, ready to shoot the ball, running up and down the floor, playing good defense. Just like communicating and playing with my team. Q. Destanni, is it something about Arkansas that gets you going? DESTANNI HENDERSON: Looking back last year, yeah, I had a really good game that game. I just had to come out. I knew they were going to come out and play their best game against us. I just had to do the same. I had to match the energy, stay ready, stay focused, just win the game. Q. Aliyah, you guys are up 19 at the half, then Arkansas comes out and cuts it to 7. How did you get yourselves back? Was it all your three-pointer that you hit? ALIYAH BOSTON: No, they did go on a run. When there was media timeout, Coach just emphasized she wasn't startled and we shouldn't be either. We should just continue to play our game, play the way we know how to play, so we did that. Q. Aliyah, this is your first SEC tournament. How do these first two games compare to your expectations coming in? ALIYAH BOSTON: Honestly, I didn't really have any expectations. I was kind of just excited. It did well. Tournament's been good. THE MODERATOR: Ladies, thank you. We will see you tomorrow. We'll continue with questions for Coach Staley. Q. Aliyah's three, was that designed or maybe an option on the play that it happened to go that way? DAWN STALEY: It wasn't designed. They were playing so far off Aliyah. We really couldn't get her the ball in the paint. Any time we feel like we can't get the ball in the paint, she is free to take that shot. I mean, she practices it. She's knocked down I think one -- this is our second, the one before tonight. I'm comfortable with that shot because it's something that I see every day in practice. I don't want her to get too comfortable being out there, though (smiling). Q. Aliyah said you told them that you were not startled. Were you not surprised they came back on you guys in the third quarter? DAWN STALEY: Oh, I wasn't surprised. I mean, my message was I didn't flinch, neither should you. We knew it was coming at some point. I thought we did a really good job in the first two quarters of just not allowing them that big stretch of going on a 10-0 run or 15-2 run. I felt good with what we were doing, although we were turning it over. I knew at some point we were going to wear them down. I just think taking the timeout for me would energize them to give them rest. I wanted our team to go full speed, continue to push the ball down the floor, take open shots, rebound the ball. I knew we had an advantage in rebounding the basketball. I just wanted our players to get shots at the basket. We had a couple of ill-advised passes in the third quarter. Q. Coach Neighbors said your team has no holes. What do you think about that, the team that you have this season? DAWN STALEY: I do think we have some weaknesses. But the weaknesses that we do have are strengths on the other side of the ball. I won't say what they are until this season is over. But we do. I think what we do a really good job is we camouflage it with our ability to defend and rebound. Q. You hold Alexis Tolefree scoreless in the first half, six for the game. Talk about the team's defensive effort on her tonight. DAWN STALEY: She's a First Team All SEC. She's had a tremendous year. We know what she's capable of. Obviously if you watched the last two games, she's pretty much capable of single-handedly beating teams. I thought we just did a great job of making sure we trailed her, making sure we contested her shots, making sure we just tried to funnel her into the lane rather than allowing her to take wide-open threes. But Ramirez got loose on a few times in transition. You can't stop all of them. We just wanted to stop one or two of them from getting the amount of threes that they usually get. Q. No matter who you play tomorrow, you're familiar with each of them. Kentucky and Mississippi State have any similarities that you can doubly plan for? DAWN STALEY: No, I think they're pretty different. I mean, obviously defensively they play different styles. They're aggressive. Kentucky is really aggressive in the half court. Mississippi State likes to pick you up full court. They're still aggressive in the half court. Whoever we play we know we'll have some competition that will push us to the very end. Q. How does it feel being back in the finals? It was only one year that you were not in the championship, but does this feel any different, any more special than during the run of four in a row? DAWN STALEY: I mean, it feels great this year because we exited early last year. I mean, we want it bad. We're here. We're here. No need to let up now. I'd love to be regular season and SEC tournament champions. I think I'm probably not the only one in our circle that wouldn't want that as well. Q. Can you talk about the crowd tonight. Greenville has been called Columbia North many a time. Crowd was really supportive tonight. DAWN STALEY: I mean, it's always wonderful to have our crowd come and show up and support us. They've done it. They created a home-court advantage for us. Mike Neighbors did say when I went down to shake his hand, This doesn't seem like a neutral site. I mean, it's been here before. I think what we're able to do is we're close enough that our fans can come here. We can pour into the economy here in Greenville. I think that's a good thing. But also you see great games. I mean, Arkansas is a great team. You're going to see other great teams in the next semifinals game. I think it's a location in which all the fans can get to and they can enjoy Greenville because it's a beautiful city. Q. Seems like any time Arkansas made a run, your senior guard Ty Harris seemed to slow everything down. Speak about her leadership. DAWN STALEY: We go as Ty goes. She can feel it. She's got a really good pulse of our team. She's got great court vision. She knows when we get scored on quickly, she gets the ball in her hands, she's just surveying the floor to see if we can push tempo, if she needs to pull back, get the ball in the hands of somebody reliable that's either going to give us a good-looking shot, a basket or get to the free-throw line. Q. Do you feel your strongest quality as a team is your depth? DAWN STALEY: I would say before you go to depth I think we got a team full of competitors. That is probably our separation. Anybody that gets in the game, they're competing to win, not just win the game, they want to win their matchup. When we put our scouting reports together, they want to see themselves executing what we need to execute. Depth, yes. Competitors, yes. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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