NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - ARKANSAS VS UTAH

March 17, 2022

Mike Neighbors

Amber Ramirez

Makayla Daniels

Arkansas Razorbacks

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: Welcome to Austin.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: Thank you. Good to be back.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, if you'd like to offer us an opening statement.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: Great to be back. Great to be back in Texas, back in the NCAA tournament, back in the Erwin Center where we were last year. Excited to get the tournament experience started for these two kids and the rest of our team. After the last couple years, A, not having it, and B, having it under unique circumstances, it's just been so refreshing for these kids to get a chance to see it.

We have a lot of young kids back at the hotel that don't know the difference. We're going to try to keep that from them. I've told these kids not to tell them too many stories.

It's great to be back here. Such an historic building, from us with Arkansas, with the rivalries going back to the Southwest Conference days, growing up watching the battles with the Longhorns, Coach Richardson getting tossed out of the game here, coming back. Just an historic place for an historic event.

To see March Madness on here for our women's game, I'm excited these two kids, y'all called her a redshirt senior, that's what y'all are going with?

THE MODERATOR: Yes.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: We don't know what to call her. She's been around forever. You got it right, but we call her COVID senior, grandma, everything. So excited that Amber Ramirez returned to take advantage of her last year. Obviously a Texas kid. Great to bring her back home.

Our next most veteran, I'm not sure if she's going to inherit the title of grandma, but Makayla Daniels, has been a leader of ours since her freshman year.

Thank y'all for having us. Good to be back in the tournament in Texas.

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with questions for the players.

Q. Amber, coach kind of touched on you being back in Texas. You were in your hometown last season, but a weird set of circumstances. How exciting is it for you to be here? Are you expecting a lot of friends and family here?

AMBER RAMIREZ: Yeah, I'm excited to be back. How we ended last year is not how we wanted to end. Getting another chance to come back, getting to play in front of friends and family is great. I have a lot of friends and family coming out. I think we're all excited to be back here.

Q. Both of you, the equity issues that came up last season in San Antonio. How have you seen things change or have you seen anything change overall with discussions around equity between the men's and women's game?

MAKAYLA DANIELS: I think before we got here, there was a lot of questions asked of what we wanted, what we wanted more of. So they're getting a lot more of our opinions.

I don't think we want the exact same thing. I think we want it to be catered to us. That's how it should be. It should be different but fit the needs of male athletes and female athletes.

We haven't gotten the NCAA gifts yet, so we don't know exactly what it's going to look like, but I think it will be a lot different this year.

AMBER RAMIREZ: She said everything.

THE MODERATOR: Do you want to take that question, Amber?

AMBER RAMIREZ: Everything that Makayla said. They're catering to what we want. I think that's great, what we want, what we want to see in the NCAA tournament. I think that's great for all of the female athletes.

Q. When you're asked what do you want, what do you say? What do you want? What responses have been giving that you hope the NCAA will make for you?

MAKAYLA DANIELS: I mean, me personally, I just want, like, stuff that, like, will make me remember the tournament. So, like, if we're getting socks or shirts, I want it to say NCAA March Madness 2022. Just stuff to remember this tournament. I don't want it to be stuff, like, anybody can get. You come to the tournament for the memories. I just want something that will help me remember this time.

AMBER RAMIREZ: I agree with Makayla.

THE MODERATOR: Well said. Next question.

Q. The circumstances are different. It's a year later. Different seeding than last year. What did you take away last year? There was the upset. Didn't end well here for you. What did you take into the off-season from that moment to get back here this season?

MAKAYLA DANIELS: I think some people forget that once the post-season hits, it's a new season, everybody's 0-0. Coach Neighbors has been saying that a lot lately. It doesn't matter what you did in conference. You got your seeding, who you're going to play. Everyone is 0-0. You got to go out there and give it your best. No matter who you think you're playing, how good you think they are, it's a different time. Everyone has that confidence at this time of the season.

AMBER RAMIREZ: I agree. Everyone is 0-0 to start the NCAA tournament. I think things we can take away from last year, we had a lot of seniors on the team last year, a lot of them was their last game. Coming out, this being my last year, I know, like, it could be my last game in any of the games. I think we come out there and just fight. I think that's going to be a big message that we are going to do: just go out there and fight as much as possible, play like it's your last game.

Q. Coach talked about when y'all went to the SEC tournament how much fun you wanted to have, not the vibe of being cooped up in the setting. How much has that helped you prepare for this year's tournament?

AMBER RAMIREZ: Well, to start, we had a great dinner last night (laughter).

No, it's great having the freedom, being able to move freely. SEC tournament we had fun as well. We got to go to different places that we didn't get to do last year. Just having the freedom in the NCAA tournament I think is great. We're in a great city. I think we're all going to live it up and have as much fun as we can.

MAKAYLA DANIELS: Just like Amber said, we have a lot more frequent... We went to dinner last night. We get to go to dinner again tonight. We're allowed to see our family, be in the room with our teammates, socialize a little bit. We do have a lot more freedom. It feels like almost back to normal. It's not normal yet, but it's almost back to normal.

Q. Can you talk to me about facing a team that plays a whole lot like you. How are you able to prepare, what's that like facing someone who is going to shoot a lot of threes and wants to run up and down the floor?

AMBER RAMIREZ: It's kind of like preparing for somebody like a Mizzou or Creighton that we've already faced before. I think that helps us in our preparation. We're just going to continue to do what we do all season, prepare for us, then worry about them as well.

I think we've done a great job of, like, kind of trying to prepare each player to somebody we've already played before, trying to get a feel who they are, watching a lot of film. They do shoot a lot of threes. They do get up and down the floor. I think that's something we can prepare for a little bit easier.

MAKAYLA DANIELS: Yeah, we've definitely pointed out the similarities between the teams we've played this year. I think we've also pointed out the differences so we don't think, Oh, well, Creighton did this, so they're going to do that. It's not like that. They're a totally different team, but they just have some similarities.

Q. Your freshman of the year for the SEC, talk a little bit about Samara, how she's rose to the occasion.

MAKAYLA DANIELS: Sam is probably one of the most confident people I've ever met from the first day she came on campus. I don't think that confidence has ever wavered no matter how she's played, what the outcome of the game is.

That took her a long way, especially in SEC because everyone is good, but she wasn't worried about this person has this many stars or whatever. She was worried about giving her best every game. I think that's how she got that award.

AMBER RAMIREZ: Sam stepped on campus with an extreme amount of confident. Like Mak said, it hasn't gone away. She's going to continue to play with the confidence because we all believe in her. I'm excited to play for her. Having Mak and Sam as my point guards, I couldn't ask for any better. They do it to the best of their ability and I love it.

THE MODERATOR: Ladies, thank you for your time. Appreciate your answers. Good luck to you tomorrow.

AMBER RAMIREZ: Thank you.

MAKAYLA DANIELS: Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with questions for Coach Neighbors now.

Q. When you saw you were going to be facing Lynne, what were your thoughts on that, being so familiar?

MIKE NEIGHBORS: Just really happy for her. We talk early and often about lots of things, basketball and non-basketball related. We've been friends for a long time.

Excited that they were in, not necessarily excited that we have to play each other. I don't like playing people I consider friends. But I'm happy that one of us is going to advance to the second round. I know that for a fact.

I've watched them a lot this year. They are fun to watch, the way they put things together. I'm friends with Gavin, their associate head coach as well. They have an Arkansas girl on their team. Followed Utah. They're always on late when I get home. We've watched a lot of them.

But I don't like playing people I talk to on the phone during the year. It's a challenge because you're happy and you're proud for them. At the same time you're trying to win. I don't lie about it and tell you it's just any other game. It's not. It's different when you're playing a friend.

I'm very happy for her. I know how hard it is to do what she did at Utah. In the Pac-12, it's hard to catch anybody, much less catch enough people to make it to the finals of that tournament. That is such a hard thing to do in that league, with the success that they've had, to get to where they got, the way they got it.

A young team. She embraced roster management very similar fashion the way we did. Play our young kids, build for the future. Try to be the best you can be this year, too. I'm happy it worked out for them the way it did.

They faced adversity. They lose a player that's a very integral player to them late in the year. They just kept rolling and kept going. I admire what they do. They've been fun to watch more and more on video.

It doesn't make it any more fun.

Q. She also talked about how she really revamped their style of play by diving into analytics, crowd sourcing advice from other coaches. You have similar philosophies. Did she ask you for any input on that? What do you think of the ways they've changed?

MIKE NEIGHBORS: She never called and asked for anything specific. There's times in the past that we've talked about to get to that next level, your offense has to be good. It has to be diverse.

She uses analytics a lot. I do, too. I do think in our similar situations, us at Arkansas trying to catch a lot of people when we got there, we had to be very mindful of every piece of information that's available. Whether you use it or not is up to you. Whether or not you impart it to your kids is really up to us. We don't do a lot of it.

I'd like to have every piece of information possible at my disposal to make decisions. You can see in the way they've played this year the shot selection has improved, their shot distribution is right down where it should be, best players getting the most shots in the right spots.

Whether or not she talked about it or said it, if you watch her team, you know that's being done. You can tell teams that use analytics and build around them versus teams that don't. They're obviously using them and building around them, recruiting to it.

Again, I don't know how much longer it's going to last because I think eventually everybody will get there. But I quite frankly think that's one of the reasons they've caught and passed some people. I think people have been stubborn and just buried their head in the sand maybe because they don't believe in them or understand them. For whatever reason, they don't use them as a tool. I think it allows people like us to catch some people maybe when you don't think we're supposed to.

Q. Where was the great meal y'all had?

MIKE NEIGHBORS: Pappadeaux. I know Vince Young has a restaurant here. I looked at it. Our kids hear Pappadeaux, their ears perked up. We killed it out there. Bring us one of everything and we'll figure out who eats what. Our kids, they're social. They like to be together.

That question when they asked about what it was like, they took care of me pretty good. They did everything right. I screwed last year up for the NCAA tournament. We traveled day of game all the way through the year for the last two years. We get down here, have to stay in a hotel for seven days. We went stir crazy. We literally were unprepared to play a basketball game.

You use the term 'upset'. We weren't on our home floor. Wright State was a good team. Maybe it was an upset with Las Vegas or whatever. We were all in the same playing field. I did a really poor job of having our team prepared to play last time. We hadn't stayed in a hotel all year long because we flew in and out day of game to be able to play, to follow the protocols as stringently as we possibly could.

We got down here and we were ready to go home. We were ready to go home before we even picked a ball up and we played like it. Like I said, they're nice enough not to throw that back at me, but I screwed it up for them and our team last year.

Won't make that mistake this year. We're a little bit better prepared. Nonetheless, the experience, you're starting to see little things. We still haven't seen the whole package yet on how different it is, but you can tell there's been changes made in the positive manner.

Q. Is it better to have kind of a group that doesn't know what this March Madness is about or would you prefer to go into this month with a veteran?

MIKE NEIGHBORS: I like the prior. I like them not having blissful naivete, however you want to put it. I told Amber, Mak, the three other players that we've had that experienced it, not to tell too many stories of what it was like. The whoa is me, y'all didn't have to walk uphill both ways in the snow like I did mentality. Let these guys experience it and enjoy it.

I like that we have a lot of bright-eyed freshmen, first-year freshmen, that don't know, are here to experience it for the first time. I want them to tell some things but not all the stuff.

Q. Talking about freshmen, you have the conference freshman of the year facing the conference freshman of the year. What do you see in that matchup, what those two players bring?

MIKE NEIGHBORS: They may end guarding each other some. I don't know who Lynne will put Kneepkens on. Sam will have her and McQueen both a little bit. I think it's a product of both of us playing young kids.

The SEC was a really old league. I don't know if you looked at the depth. You had a lot of sixth and five year kids on lots of rosters. I don't know as much about the Pac-12. The SEC was a very old league.

Sam came in when the opportunity presented itself to get a lot of playing time, then played very, very well against the best players in our conference. Some of those being five and six year seniors. I know Gianna did the same thing for Utah. When you watch it, you can tell they're not freshmen anymore. Once they get past that 300-minute mark, they're no longer freshmen.

I think what they mentioned about Sam when they were talking about just the confidence that those two players play with, it oozes. You don't have to evaluate that very hard. You can tell the coaches have trust in them, the teammates have trust in them. They have the ultimate confidence in themselves.

I love the fact that the NCAA put us against Utah as far as matchups-wise. I hate it that it's Lynne, but I love that we got two styles of play. It's not going to be this contrasting deal. It's going to be all right.... I would send our scout to her right now and she would probably send us her scout. Save us a lot of hassle, this is what we're going to do, best of luck stopping it. Let's see who gets out there and does the best.

I honestly think they're better than a seven seed. I think they could have made a case. Their NET was really, really high. They have quality wins. I thought they were going to be a six seed.

I'll tell you, they were not a team I had on my radar as a potential matchup. We had film pulled on lots of people. I thought they would be higher, a six seed. I didn't anticipate them being a matchup.

It's going to be a fun one. She said it in a podcast I listened to on the way over here. It could look like a track meet at times. I already told Vick to get the paint out, they may have to repaint the rims after our games if either one don't shoot 'em well. We definitely are going to shoot 'em.

Q. The mindset, how has it been going down there preparing knowing that you're not cooped up, able to go around, have a meal with the kids, different vibe of last year?

MIKE NEIGHBORS: Enjoyable just to see them laugh, to see them smile. I actually have three of my four kids here. My oldest Abby, two of the young boys. Fun out there watching Saylor and Amber, throwing rocks at Pappadeaux. That's not what we were supposed to be doing, that's what he was doing. Just their interaction.

Last year you just felt like, I don't know, hall monitor: Don't go there, don't do that, get back in there. We literally were hall monitors standing out there. They're such good kids.

Coach, do you care if I go talk to my mom at their hotel?

Yeah, go.

It's fun to be able to say yes for a change after being a hall monitor for a couple of years. No, you can't, no, no, no. It's yes, don't even ask me anymore. It's go, tell me what time you'll be back. You earned my trust, go do it.

It's night-and-day difference. It makes me a little sad for Chelsea. It makes me a little sad for Mal and those kids, they couldn't experience being in the tournament in 2019 that we have qualified for at all, then having to experience it the way we did. It breaks my heart a little bit for that group of kids. I'm glad this group of kids has got to experience it.

Q. You were talking about the two that have experience, yet this is the first time they're getting to experience this type of tournament. It's like they're almost all freshmen again as well.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: It's different. You can tell a difference in them. You can see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices. You can see the way they are smiling about it.

Last year it didn't feel like a reward for hard work. It felt like it was a continuation of more of this. We said we wanted to play, so we have to play. Let's do whatever it takes to get tested, walk back and forth, sit around and wait for your results, find out if you can play, find out if you have a false positive.

To be able to do that for this group is very, very satisfying. I'm glad that we got back in this thing. It would have been a hard, long summer if we hadn't put together a schedule and played a schedule, then executed, won enough games to get back here. That would have been a really hard thing to look Amber in the eye and tell her she's not going to get a chance to experience it.

I think about the kids that haven't, but I'm happy for the kids that are.

Q. With Amber, getting to play in Austin, in Texas, her final year, how much does that mean for you and her?

MIKE NEIGHBORS: We tried really, really hard to get her back down here to play home games during the regular season. We just couldn't find any takers. It's good that we got her back here for the tournament.

When she saw that draw come, we were in the last bracket, so she was like, Where we going to go?

I said, We're probably going to Texas.

I saw this smile come across her face. When the announcement came, it was genuine, it was genuine excitement. Seeing her family being able to come back here. She struggled. She only had so many people that could get on the pass list last year. Now she doesn't have that issue. All the people, family, friends, teammates that are still down here, make the short drive over from San Antonio to get a chance to see her hopefully a couple more times.

THE MODERATOR: We're going to thank you for your time. Wish you the best of luck tomorrow.

MIKE NEIGHBORS: Appreciate y'all covering.