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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2020Vic SchaeferJaMya Mingo-YoungAliyah MatharuGreenville, South Carolina South Carolina 76, Mississippi State 62 THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Mississippi State. We'll open with a statement from Coach Schaefer. VIC SCHAEFER: First, just congratulations to South Carolina, their team. They certainly played well today. I thought their energy level was outstanding. We got beat up and down the floor quite a bit today. 25 fast break points. It doesn't matter if you're in man or zone, has nothing to do with fast break points. For whatever reason, we seemed a step slow most of the day. Couldn't get back. Again, you have to give them a lot of credit. They looked like the old Kansas men running a break. I just think it starts with that point guard. Ty is such a tremendous player. I think I said this last time, I had the privilege of coaching her this summer in the Pan American Games. She's just a tremendous kid. I just think her and Mikiah, they're the heart and soul of that team. It makes everybody else easy to play. But I just thought their energy level stood out really I thought most of the night. We struggled with that. You can talk about a lot of things that we didn't do, couldn't do, they did, we didn't do. To me it all came back to really energy level. It just seemed like we didn't have a pep in our step. Again, like these two, I'm so proud of them. I thought they competed tonight. I thought Yemiyah competed again tonight. JaMya was 0-6 at halftime but she fixed it, had a nice second half, did a nice job running our team. Aliyah gave us a little energy, gave us a little juice. She played so hard, competes at such a high level. I'm proud of these two. Again, I'm proud of my team. I'm disappointed because not many games, y'all, in our career eight years at Mississippi State have we felt like the other team just seemed like they had a little bit more competitive juice than we did. I try to impart on my young team, because we played them so well earlier in the year at their place, I felt like they would come out today and play like they did. Talking about South Carolina. We needed to be ready to answer that. We had gotten down at their place earlier, but we showed tremendous toughness and resilience. Came back, cut it down to one at half. We didn't have that today. We didn't have the toughness we had last night I thought. We weren't very resilient until the fourth quarter. I thought we had some kids on the floor, Xaria, Yemiyah, that were really competitive, showed some toughness and resilience. We'll learn from it. It doesn't take away from I think where we are right now with this team. Certainly we had two really tough teams that we had to play before we got to this one. I'm proud of the fact that we've been in this game five straight years. Somebody told me last night it ties maybe Tennessee during their heyday. Again, that's a tremendous accomplishment for our program, but it's not the end all for us. We're here to win championships. This is why I signed on eight years ago. I believed we could do it. We've done it. We've had our share. We're continuing to have the opportunities. That's why we were in this game. That's why these kids come to Mississippi State. They're here to win championships. They're here to compete for championships. I'm proud of our kids. I'm proud of my team. I'm certainly disappointed. But you know what, at the end of the day I'm the head coach and I'm the one that's accountable. I'm responsible. We'll do better. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Aliyah, what did you feel like y'all's energy level was before the game? Did you feel like you were ready to roll or were you tired from yesterday? ALIYAH MATHARU: Personally before we came out the message was always to punch first. We had been struggling all year to just give that boost of energy that we usually have in the fourth quarter, do that in the first. The message was to punch first. I kept saying it, I kept saying it, We got to punch first. This is the give back right here. This is the game for us. This is what we do, we finish. It wasn't as high as it normally is, but it was a little bit of energy. Sometimes you can't really tell because everybody expresses their energy, how they feel differently. We just let it play out. We got to the game, could you tell it was off. I'm yelling from the bench, I'm like, Yo, we got to pick it up. We got to be tough. We got to pick it up. I don't think anybody could hear me. I know I can't hear anything from that far. I was screaming. Then when I got the chance to get in the game, I'm like, Yo, we need some energy. Now it's time to pick it up. We got to put our big boy pants on, we got to go out here and we got to play. First shot missed. Get back on defense. I was able to get a charge. We feed off of good defense. So the charge was just the first spark of energy. I just tried to keep it going from there. Q. Aliyah, the day didn't go as you wanted it, you're now averaging 19.3 points in your last five games. How much confidence does that give you going into the NCAA tournament? ALIYAH MATHARU: I'm very confident. I love playing against competition. That's the reason why I chose to come here. They play tough. They play my style of basketball. I want every night to be tough so we can get better as a unit, not just individually. Tonight was just another obstacle for us. We didn't do our best. I know going forward in practice, we're going to get better from this. We're going to use this as fuel. We got to prepare and get ready for the tournament. Q. JaMya, you have a week now before you figure out who you're going to be playing in the NCAA tournament. Given the way today went, over the next week, what do you think it will be like trying to flush this game? Is this a game you spend more time and focus on to see what went wrong or are you going to flush it right away? JaMYA MINGO-YOUNG: I feel like we most definitely will look back at film, see what we did wrong. We got a week, like you said, to figure out who we're going to play. I feel like practice this week is just going to be about fixing everything that went wrong this game, not everything, but what stood out the most. We're going to try to fix it and get ready for the tournament. Q. Aliyah, you mentioned you came here because you want to play in games like this, play against teams like that. You played that team twice, other good teams. Where do you feel like you stack up against those teams? ALIYAH MATHARU: Sorry, didn't comprehend that (smiling). That's a good question. I feel like when we get our defense going, there's really nothing anybody can do with us. Defense is a big part of how we play, what we do. I just feel like defensively once we get ourselves together, offensively as you can see coming from our starting five all the way down to the bench, everyone poses a threat. It's anyone's night. Every night it's something different. It could be JaMya, it could be Rickea. Having the defensive mindset we have, I just feel like defense was going to set us apart from other teams. We just focus and continue to play hard and play defense. That's what is going to separate us from other teams. THE MODERATOR: Ladies, thank you. We wish you luck in the NCAA tournament. We'll continue with questions for Coach Schaefer. Q. Do you worry about your young team flushing what happened today or is it that they're so young they don't even know they should be that upset by it? VIC SCHAEFER: I don't worry about them. I mean, they're young. They'll have a distraction in their life by the time we get on the bus. I think you see Aliyah, she's crying. She's upset. Bothers her. I love it. The kid's really competitive. I mean, I love Aliyah Matharu. That kid has worked really hard to get herself better and to try to fit into our system. To hear her talk about defense, 'put your big boy pants on,' she's been listening (laughter). Our young kids, the ones that were out there in that last fourth quarter, that competed, we had some other kids had to sit there and watch that. Hopefully they understood what we've been doing. I was pleading with them the entire game that our energy level was just nowhere, so it affected our competitive level. I knew that South Carolina was going to bring it. That first game, I just felt like -- they've gotten better, too. Obviously you have to realize, that was a month and a half ago, so they've gotten better. We just for whatever reason didn't have it. My young team, it may bother them on the way home. I'm sure it will. We'll take tomorrow off. We probably need a little day or two. We got some tired kids. Jo and Rickea went long, 35, 38 minutes, 40 minutes. Be good for them. Have two kids that are up for the Gilliam Award, which is the best collegiate player in the state of Mississippi that we have to go to tomorrow, in Rickea and Jessika. It will be good to probably take a couple days off, get our legs back. Q. You said time and time again this team is different. Does that mean expectations in March should be different? Are you going into the tournament with the thought you can reach another Final Four? VIC SCHAEFER: Absolutely. I think when you have a young team, they don't really know what that means. Like, they don't have any idea what it takes to do that, what it is going to look like, how hard it's going to be. They don't know. It's our job to make sure we're going to give them a picture and show it to them. But our expectations, look, I mean, we're 27-6. We've coached this team as hard as any team we've ever coached. I think where they are right now, I'm really proud of that. I think we go into the NCAA tournament just like we've gone in the last ones. To be clear, I have like no desire just to be good. Maybe when we took the job eight years ago, we thought, If we can just get in the NCAA tournament. I have no desire for that. That ain't how I'm built. I have been in that last game, we were in that last game two years in a row, that's where I'm at. I just don't have any desire. It may be a miserable way to live, I can tell you most days it is for about five months a year. At the end of the day, I have no desire just to be okay. We're going to go into the NCAA tournament with a plan. I don't care where they send us. If we're unfortunate enough to get out of Starkville, I don't care. They can send me to Timbuktu. I'll go play whoever they want us to play. We're going to go in there with a plan to beat 'em. Our expectations don't change. I think that's probably the biggest thing we've shown everybody this year. I think everybody thought, Oh, God, they're probably not going to be very good, they're going to be way down, they're going to be young. I think we've probably shown most of the country, including our conference, we're not that far removed from where we were a year ago. I'm proud of 'em. We're going to move forward and try to do the best we can with the NCAAs. Q. Mike Neighbors said last night South Carolina has no holes. What are your thoughts on them? VIC SCHAEFER: They didn't today. I mean, they have size. They're long and athletic. I was disappointed that we didn't play long and athletic. I thought the first time we played them -- look, when is the last time you've been in a women's basketball game where there were 21 blocked shots in a game? We had 10, they had 11. I do, I think their length bothered us tonight. But I don't think we tried to play long either. I'm telling you, to me the difference in their team and my team is that senior point guard and that senior four player. Those are the two most important positions on the floor in my mind. When you got that kind of leadership, those kind of players, with the presence those kids have, it doesn't matter who you put out there. They're putting out there the number one recruiting class around them. It allows those other young kids to play a lot more freer, knowing if they do get in a crunch, Ty or Mikiah can bail them out. I do think they're an extremely talented team. If they do have a hole, it ain't very big. I thought tonight their adjustment to us was really good. Again, we just for whatever reason didn't have it tonight. Give them all the credit in the world. Q. You hear Aliyah talking about coming to State to compete for championships. You've seen South Carolina a lot in the last five years. What do you feel is the next step for this team? How do you get over that hump? What is that next step as you see it? VIC SCHAEFER: Well, I'm not sure about getting over the hump piece. I know we've gotten beat here four times in the championship game with them. I mean, I think until this year we beat them three straight maybe, yeah. Then this year we had a knock-down, drag-out at their place. We had this game tonight. Greenville is a great place. They do a tremendous job hosting this event. That was a great atmosphere for women's college basketball. The thing for us with a young team like that, you get in an arena like that, it's lopsided. Look, the best team maybe I've ever had at Mississippi State was last year's team. We couldn't get out of Oregon because there were 13,000 in there wearing green. It makes it difficult, especially on a young team. It got going south. We just couldn't right the ship. Again, we had the same issue at their place, but we righted it. For us I think we've got help coming. We're still so young. I look for us to continue to have great competitive basketball games with them in years to come. I think that's what makes our games with each other so special. Today wasn't good. We got taken to the woodshed. But we'll be back. Q. We talk about how young your team is. Earlier in the season you mentioned they had a lot of growing up to do. Now that we're here, where have you seen the biggest growth in your team? VIC SCHAEFER: I think these two kids that were up here with me tonight, and Yemiyah, I think those three have shown tremendous growth, gotten better. I think, again, we continue to work with them off the court in some areas that they've grown a little bit. Not much, but a little bit. That's the piece for us that we really believe carries over into competition, is sometimes a lot of that stuff that goes on off the court. Nothing bad, they're not doing anything crazy. It's just teaching young kids that are now away from home for the first time the importance of things like being on time and things like that. This team is really special. I love being around them. I love coaching them. They're great kids. But you better be proactive every day when you wake up because you never know what's coming (smiling). Again, it's nothing major. In my mind it's why my staff is the best in the country at what they do. They're really good at the off-the-court stuff, developing and helping the kid grow as a young person. I think that's what makes coaching really special. This team, as they continue to grow, next year, good gosh, you think about us, but we're still going to be pretty young. That next year you'll have some veterans now that have been to the wars. It's an exciting time, for sure. Q. Everything seemed to be pretty under control. It got a little chippy in spots. We don't usually see that from your players. What are your thoughts? Is that an edge you'd like to see from your players at some points in ball games? VIC SCHAEFER: I'm not a big fan of it, as you know. We typically don't have kids get into verbal stuff like that. I think it was a great teaching moment for me and Yemiyah. I think it was a great learning moment for her. I think she understands. But you do like kids that are competitive. As I tell them all the time, this is not where we need to be competitive. I think you saw later in the game we blocked a shot. Same thing happened again. For us that's just not something we typically get into or are about. Again, I think for Yemiyah, first-year kid in our program, she's going to learn. She understands that it's not just about you. At the same time she's competitive. Again, she's one of our kids that's really shown some improvement here lately. She'll learn to stay competitive, but you don't need to be -- we're not trying to out-debate somebody on the floor. I think it was a great moment for her and I to learn and grow from that. I think she will, so... Q. The fourth quarter when you had JaMya, Yemiyah, Aliyah, you let them go. How valuable do you feel like it was for those players to get that experience in a game that was out of hand in the fourth quarter? How did you like how they finished things out? VIC SCHAEFER: Well, I loved how they finished things out. I loved their competitiveness. We play a four-minute game of Bulldog every day, which is an up-and-down game. You don't run anything. You're just trying to score as quick as you can. Whatever time is on the shot clock, that's how many points you get when you score. I put those freshmen out there together with Yemiyah and let them go against our veterans. You'd be amazed who wins most of those games. Those kids, they play together and compete together. They have good chemistry together. I thought Rickea was just tired tonight. I couldn't get her up and down the floor. It was just one of those nights for her. Again, that kid's logged a lot of minutes for us, played well. I was really proud of how they competed. Again, those kids are ultra-competitive. They do take things personal, which I love. So for me it was nice to see. We executed a couple of out-of-bound plays that we executed, a half-court set there at the end. Certainly the game wasn't that close, but I was proud of our kids for competing to the very end on it. Again, those kids, they know, and I made it a point to point it out to them in the locker room, that I was proud of how they found a way to compete and fixed it. JaMya fixed it. She was 0-6 at half. In the second half ran our team. I just thought she was really good tonight. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. VIC SCHAEFER: Thank you. Appreciate y'all being here. Praise the Lord and go Dogs. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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