ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 2, 2022

Lance White

Dayshanette Harris

Liatu King

Pittsburgh Panthers

Postgame Press Conference

Duke 55, Pittsburgh 52

LANCE WHITE: Obviously we love being in big games like that and having a chance to win down the stretch. As we've built this program and just step by step of where we're at, and there's been tons of huge growth in our program and in our team. Now we're in that final stage where you have to compete and beat ACC teams. We're learning how hard that is, and our kids still have to make that next step and next jump of just the mentality it takes in those crucial moments to make plays. I've always said big-time players make big-time plays, and we didn't make enough of them to be able to win today. And, again, I thought we played three really good quarters, and the third quarter we didn't play as well.

And it bites us all, the little things of the free throws to giving up a couple of O-boards to loose balls to those that make the difference this time of year of you get to keep playing or you go home.

Unfortunately we have to go home, but I'm really proud of our team growth. Whenever you look at our defense and rebounding -- and off the top of my head there's three games that -- Louisville, NC State and the Notre Dame game that we didn't have a chance at all. And all of rest of them throughout ACC play we were in them, had a chance, so that's huge growth.

You think about the three years of grinding and doing what we do and go from not having a chance whatsoever to now being in it. Now it's that final piece of now you've got to be in it and win. It does, it takes maturity and through COVID, through fifth years to transfers to -- all of those things is that you've got to get old and stay old. Now finally we're older and now we have experience and now that experience has to pay off.

Yeah, overall it's just the smallest of things that you've got to correct and fix and come at it next year ready to go compete.

Q. You've talked about those late-game issues a lot this year. How do you in your mind coach that? Or is that something that you have to kind of experience and have success with and then you start to build momentum in that way?

LANCE WHITE: Again, today our execution was pretty good. I thought we got the shots we needed to, had enough possessions to really -- you miss a couple of lay-ups and a couple of those crucial moments and then give up a couple lay-ups and that stuff.

But it is. It's a mentality and a competitiveness and all of those things where you've got to add a couple of players that really calm us down. We're still in those pressurized moments whenever you haven't won and you're trying to win as hard as you can, I think that's whenever all those thoughts of can I do it, can I really do it, come into play. Again, we're working on that and trying to develop that mentality where you've got to do it all the time.

That's been our biggest issue all year is consistency. As you look at our rotations and look at players that haven't played that now they're playing, it's the consistency every day to do what you do that we're trying to work through.

Q. In the first half I think you guys jumped out to like a 16-point lead in the second quarter. What went right? What was working so well in those first two quarters?

LANCE WHITE: Yeah, I think it was -- we were playing free, and they really were trusting each other and making plays on both ends of the court.

Then it's still for us of either you feel that comfort of you get a lead, then we relax and don't continue to play as hard as you have to to maintain that and keep it going for as long as you can, knowing that ACC teams are going to make a run.

Now you've got to stop their run and start yours again, and I think that and then pressure. Pressure comes into play, and then all of a sudden, those shots don't fall. Then you've got to get a second and third. And it's in that pressurized moment where you've got to be calm, and those players on the floor got to know what we do great and keep doing it.

Q. At one point, I think it was in the fourth quarter, someone got called for an illegal screen and you said, my bad. The whole coaching staff said, my bad. What was that about because I haven't seen a coach do that.

LANCE WHITE: No, two is probably still -- we have X dive, which is our forward going to work and our 5 getting out of the way. Then we have another one that we come and set a ball screen out of that. And as I'm calling the play, then I changed it to strong too late, so now Rita is a little bit slower and sets an illegal screen, and it was my fault. I should have stayed with dive and let her go to work. She told me she was going to score. You had it.

LIATU KING: Yeah.

LANCE WHITE: And then I messed it up. That was on me. And again, with our team of -- execution has been our biggest challenge of -- and so whenever I change it late, we're not that team that can do things quite on the fly. And we have to be pretty programmed, and so I'll take that one.

Q. From your perspective, what needs to develop to get over some of these late-game struggles, either offensively or wherever?

DAYSHANETTE HARRIS: I guess late game takes a different type of mentality, and I think we need to grow in that aspect. I feel like these are the times that you're more stressed and more heightened during late games and close games like this. So yeah, I'm going to say it's a mentality we've got to grow.

LIATU KING: Yeah, I agree with that mentality. I feel like our focus isn't where it needs to be towards the end of the game. We miss a lot of assignments, and a little bit of tweaks on that, and that changes the whole ball game.

Q. The postgame move, I'm sure that it's pretty -- people are upset, but is there a little bit of a strange positive knowing, like you said, that this is still sort of a young group, at least the core of it are figured to be players that will be back next season?

LANCE WHITE: The core, and that's what I've said all along, we've got this group, and especially Day's class of freshmen preaching to them that you're going to have to take your licks and you've got to keep getting better, you've got to keep growing, and they have done that. They have taken every step, and now finally they get to be seniors or juniors or whatever they are at. I don't know what people are anymore.

But they're older, and now they've got to take that final piece, and it's the hardest piece. They have to have a great off-season. And whenever you think about Day in particular, she didn't have a whole off-season last year. She was injured. So she missed that time that she needed to develop. She has to have a great off-season this season in this summer and fall that she didn't get any of it. She didn't start playing again until November.

Just now she's really starting to come into the type of player as a junior she has to be, and that stunted us a little bit. We weren't quite as good in that early ACC play because she was just starting with us.

But it is, obviously it's painful. I hate losing. It's the worst of the worst. But also whenever you take more of a holistic approach and you're thinking ahead, I love the thoughts of what we can be able to do next year and pieces we need to go and add and then have a chance to do this ACC thing right.

Q. Day, Coach just mentioned this off-season being important for you. You're healthy and playing well right now. What do you have to do this off-season? What's your focus going to be?

DAYSHANETTE HARRIS: My left hand.

LANCE WHITE: We're tying her right hand behind her back and she's not going to get to use it at all.

DAYSHANETTE HARRIS: My left hand, for sure. I feel like one I get that, I'll be a dynamic player. Just being able to go both ways and being able to get that time with my team. Like Coach said, I missed that time, so just smoothing up the paths that we need to do to get back here and play.

Q. You were talking about looking forward and that this has been a hard season and obviously that's true. But from the player perspective, do you guys feel that same sort of forward momentum, that there's still a certain drive, because theoretically this could beat you down, you know.

DAYSHANETTE HARRIS: I mean, yeah, of course. There is a bright future for us. And yes, like nobody wants to have a season the way we had it.

Yeah, there's light. There's light for sure. Like Coach said, we've been beat on, and it's time for us to do the beating.

Q. Coach, this was a really different game for you and your team since the first time around when you played Duke in February. Just wondering how your approach might have been different and what the energy was like to be able to come out in the first quarter today and score 20 points.

LANCE WHITE: Yeah, no, I do. I think over the last week and a half, two weeks, we played the best basketball we've played all year long. I think that gave me a lot of confidence. We talked a lot about trust, and I think this group finally has that trust that you have to have to really defend and rebound this time of year.

And again, even offensively, of what these two beside me have had to do is Day has had to go from being everything that we had to do offensively to now distributing and moving the ball and reversing and doing those types of things, to Liatu being a role player, so now she's one of our first three options. And everything, the ball has to go through her hands to make the next decision.

I think finally in this last two weeks we've felt that and we feel that, and I think they feel that. They feel the pressure that you have to perform and you have to produce.

I think that's been probably the biggest change from the first time we played them until now is we were just kind of seeing what we could get the first time. This time we knew how we were trying to execute and get it where we needed it to go.