ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 5, 2021

Hailey Van Lith

Louisville Cardinals

Postgame Press Conference

Louisville 65, Wake Forest 53

Q. Obviously career high tonight; just what were you feeling coming into this game? Obviously your first postseason game at Louisville, just talk me through your game tonight.

HAILEY VAN LITH: I mean, coming into this game, I had watched our first game against Wake, and it wasn't that we weren't getting the shots we wanted. It's that we weren't hitting the shots that we got to. I just knew I needed to set my feet and knock down open shots tonight, and my teammates found me. It wasn't too hard for me. I just hit open shots.

Q. With Dana struggling, did you feel like you had to take your game to another level, because Dana doesn't usually struggle like that.

HAILEY VAN LITH: Yeah, I mean, she didn't have the offensive game that she normally has, but she's still a great leader for us and she still did intangible things for us that kept us in that game, keeping my confidence up, getting me the ball after I hit one, made some defensive plays at the end. And yeah, my teammates allowed me to step up and they got me the ball, like I said before.

Q. Dana is a great player but she's not going to be able to do it all for this team if you're going to do what you want to do in the tournament. How important was that stretch early in the fourth quarter where she's on the bench and you guys establish a lead that pretty much got you going through the rest of the quarter, just the rest of the team being able to do that?

HAILEY VAN LITH: Yeah, I think that was a great sequence of plays there for us, just to show everyone that we are deep and girls on our team can make plays, and obviously we want to have Dana out there. We got the Player of the Year on our team, and we want her out there, but if it's a different situation, we can extend leads and we can step on teams. I think that was a good confidence boost for the other players on our team.

Obviously we know Dana is going to be back, and it's going to be even harder to stop us next game.

Q. Jeff mentioned he hadn't seen this type of performance from Ramani Parker the last couple months. What was it like to see her -- when you've got Olivia and Liz in foul trouble, for her to come in and play the way she did, how important was that?

HAILEY VAN LITH: Yeah, that was awesome for her. She stepped up big time. We were running off the court on timeouts, and I was just telling her to keep going to it. She had that little hook shot going on and she was killing them. She even got a couple tough boards at the end on defense for us, when girls were hitting her arms, and she secured the rebound, and that's big things that are big for our team, and she came through for us. Great performance by her, and she helped us secure it in the fourth quarter there.

Q. Another person that hadn't played a ton consistently is Ahlana Smith. She played really well in the second half. Coming in with her, obviously you guys -- she's not a freshman but came in this class with you. What was it like to see her get going, as well?

HAILEY VAN LITH: Yeah, no, it was great for Ahlana. She's been working really hard this week in practice and the coaches are pushing on her, and they're hard on her, and it was great for her to just break out, and that three she hit on the wing in the fourth quarter was so big for our team, and it got the hype going, and we were locked in.

She was a big momentum changer for us, and she stepped up, so it was great.

Q. I noticed that you were working personally with Coach at the start of the game on dribble hand-offs, shooting the three. Is that something you guys work on a lot? Is that your routine before every game?

HAILEY VAN LITH: Yeah, a big thing for me in improving my game is just making reads. Dribble hand-off, transition threes, threes off of pin-downs, making defense close out on me. That's just things I've been working on, and playing off the defense and not always just predetermining what I'm going to do in my head. Yeah, definitely incorporating that in my pregame routine.

Q. Jewel yesterday had seven threes. She went 6 for 10, I believe, today on threes. Do I expect you to break the record tomorrow?

HAILEY VAN LITH: Whatever my team needs. If they need me to go and rebound the whole game and not shoot one three, I'm good with it, man.