SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 6, 2021

N'dea Jones

Texas A&M Aggies

Postgame Press Conference

Georgia 74, Texas A&M 68

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by N'dea Jones. Questions, please.

Q. Obviously wouldn't say you needed the loss, but does this loss I guess help you guys in the long-term picture of some lessons you learned heading into the NCAA tournament?

N'DEA JONES: Yes, this loss most definitely exposed some things that we need to work on, especially on defense. But I think we're fine. Everybody loses. It just depends on how you look at it. We've lost before and we came back and won out.

My team does a really good job of looking at a loss as an opportunity to learn and not hold our heads down. Our coaches do a really good job of holding us accountable for what we do so it doesn't happen again.

Q. The second quarter had the 12-0 run to kind of pull away. What was working during those stretches where you had those big chunks, seemed to pull away a little bit, that I guess didn't work there at the end?

N'DEA JONES: Our communication, and we really looked to push the ball a lot more, get out. We were a lot more active on defense than we were towards the end of the game.

But I would just say communication.

Q. You have two weeks basically till you play again. You've talked a lot about communication and defense. Do you think that's going to be the focus? How do you feel like these next two weeks are going to play out for you guys?

N'DEA JONES: We'll work on some offense, as well. We'll probably put in some new sets for teams that play just like UGA. But usually our team is a defensive-first team. When we do well on defense, it helps on offense because we get stops, it helps with our energy. I would say offense was not our best today. We were just kind of all over the place, just like we were on defense. We weren't communicating, talking. We also talk on the offensive end. Our team wants to start on the defensive end and that carries over to the offensive end. So we'll work on both.

Q. What was Georgia doing to kind of take you guys out of your game? What can you attribute your inability to respond to that last run of theirs?

N'DEA JONES: If I had to put an answer out there, probably pressure. But I don't want to say that either. I don't want to say that UGA did anything really to disrupt us. It was us. We had a slow start, especially at the beginning of the game. We've always had slow starts, but this time UGA was able to expose our slow start.

Credit UGA for their defense. But personally I don't think it's what they were doing, it's what we were doing. We got into our heads. We weren't in the flow of our offensive sets like we normally get into. It was just us.

Q. How excited are y'all that the NCAA tournament is being held 170 miles from campus in and around San Antonio?

N'DEA JONES: We're pretty excited. We would like to keep the trophy in the home state. I think it will be kind of a home game, especially with some of the Texas fans. All the other Texas schools will also kind of have a home game. It will be nice. I think it will be really good to try to bring the trophy back.

Q. I know this isn't the finish y'all wanted, but are there any positive takeaways you as a team learned in this tournament?

N'DEA JONES: We can't start slow. The only positive takeaway is that. This game we can break down film and watch it. We'll watch a lot of film when we get back, run through a lot of sets. The only positive takeaway is we get to look at this loss as a lesson.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much.