NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - BAYLOR VS HAWAII

March 18, 2022

Nicki Collen

Jordan Lewis

Sarah Andrews

Baylor Bears

Media Conference

Baylor 89, Hawaii 49

Q. Jordan, when the game was kind of still sort of close, it seemed like you had a lot of aggressive plays where you were taking it to the basket hard or chasing down loose balls or whatever. Is that something Nicki has drilled into your head to play with that sort of aggression?

JORDAN LEWIS: Yeah, definitely. I think she's always on me about being aggressive from the tip, and she says when I offensive rebound and defensive rebound and get us extra possessions, it really gets the team going. If I'm able to make those hustle plays and get the offense started with pace, then it will be good for all of us.

Q. Jordan, you and Lys, I think, combined for 29 points in that third quarter. Was that an emphasis or did that happen in the flow?

JORDAN LEWIS: No, I think everyone is getting back under their feet from not playing for a few days. I think coming out of the half, we wanted to separate ourselves and not keep the game close. So I think just getting out and running in transition is when we're at our best.

Q. Jordan, what was the message at halftime and how much of that was a needed reset to go into the break like that?

JORDAN LEWIS: The message was that we gave up 20 points to one player and we didn't want to be the team that gave up an NCAA record. We had to kind of guard and lock in on defense and get closer to her and make her put it on the floor because she's a great shooter and has a quick release.

Q. Sarah, you played with NaLyssa for a couple years now. The way she played in the third quarter, do you expect that hammer to come down at some point with her?

SARAH ANDREWS: Of course. She's one of them players, you might not realize it but you can look up at any given moment and she'll have 20. It's amazing just the way she impacts the game, and at any given moment I know she's going to go off.

Q. Jordan, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you guys win on Sunday, this will be your personal first trip to the Sweet 16, right? How much is that a motivating factor?

JORDAN LEWIS: I think it's a motivating factor, but I think it's one of the reasons I came here to play in a program like Baylor because they're known for going to the Sweet 16 and known for competing at a high level. When you come here, you have to have that same competitive mindset and not just settle for what you think is okay.

Q. Sarah, like you mentioned, the one player scored 20 points, and y'all really -- she struggled in that second half. It seems like y'all two were on her most of the time. Seemed like y'all switched the defense on there. It seemed like Lys was covering her a lot in the first half.

JORDAN LEWIS: Yeah, she plays the 4 position but she really plays like a guard. And so we felt we could use our bigs as more of a helper if she were to drive it past us. But just guarding her straight up as if -- she plays like a guard. She has a quick release. She can dribble, so we guarded her more like she was a guard than a forward.

Q. Sarah, the crowd today seemed pretty live, pretty big crowd. Just your response to playing on your home court in front of them?

SARAH ANDREWS: It's amazing when they come out and support us. I don't think they know how much of an impact that they make when we have a crowd like that. We need that same thing Sunday. It's just amazing to have a crowd like that because it motivates us to come out and play hard.

Q. Sarah, how good was it to see the ball start going through the hoop a lot there in the second half, and how can you take that and ride it forward?

SARAH ANDREWS: I mean, to see it going through, I was just like, finally. The past few games I struggled putting the ball in the hole, but I think it was more about finding a rhythm. JLew threw me a pass and it got tipped out of my hands, but I was able finish and I think I kind of knew right then and then, like I was starting to get my rhythm back. And Coach always kept telling me shoot the ball, shoot the ball. It'll go in sooner or later. So to finally see it going in and now I just hope it's going in forward. And just a rhythm game.

Q. Sarah or Jordan, were you able to watch South Dakota? Were you able to watch that first game at all and maybe any thoughts on what you saw there?

JORDAN LEWIS: We watched a few minutes that we got to watch before we started to focus on our game. They're a very good team, and I think that you just have to focus on one game at a time, so we were focused on Hawaii at the moment. But just watching them, they have five -- they're all veterans, they have three super seniors. When you play teams like that, you have to be extra disciplined and locked into the game plan because they obviously have the experience.

Q. Nicki, when Jordan is playing like that, does that kind of make y'all a next-level team because obviously you know what NaLyssa is going to give you.

NICKI COLLEN: Well, I know everyone asks before even we played this game, obviously NaLyssa Smith is really good, but what will it take for you guys to ultimately try to win a National Championship.

I talked a lot about Jordan and Queen. And I think Jordan, her ability to attack the paint and finish, get herself to the free-throw line, she had eight fouls drawn today, so that's aggressive. That's downhill play. When she plays aggressive, especially early in games, that sets the tone for us.

I thought especially tonight -- I think part of the reason we got off to a little bit of a slow start is Lys was a little under the weather, didn't have a ton of energy, and then somehow kind of rallied in the second half. Definitely wanted to keep her minutes limited.

Jordan has the ability to make threes. She's a kid who gets in the gym. She can get three-point plays, and she can make the right pass. I think the key tonight was six defensive rebounds. Those were huge for us because it's something -- we're not very big at the guard position, and when we get our guards rebounding the basketball, we get in transition faster, we don't give up extra possessions sometimes to our opponent.

She's a huge key for us.

Q. The way Atwell came out firing and hit a bunch of shots and kind of kept them close, you were expecting that or you wanted something different to happen?

NICKI COLLEN: Yeah, I certainly expected her to take shots. I certainly wasn't expecting her to make them all like she was.

I thought that we were there. It wasn't like we were giving her wide-open shots off pin-downs, other than I thought one time, when her first three, we made a huge mistake on a post-to-post screen where we didn't switch it and we were supposed to. From a game plan perspective that was a big mistake. I think the rest of them, our game plan was good, we were just playing with our hands down.

I think she was just dribbling in and rhythm, and if your hands are down, she's going to shoot it. She doesn't care that Queen is longer than her or Lys is longer than her. If their hands are down they're not longer than her, and her release is so quick. So that was a huge part of the change at halftime.

We figured if they would try to send her into the post against our littles and we thought we could bring help, and if she was going to score, at least it was two by two by two because I thought they were in a rhythm. They had two points in the paint in the first half, and so we felt like they were struggling to finish when they would get there. So we had to do a better job of funneling them to the paint, letting our shot blockers deter them at the rim and gave them one shot.

We gave up a few too many offensive rebounds. They were shooting so poorly in stretches that they were doing a good job of running down shots there for a while. But it all changed. By not giving her threes and making her people take shots in that third quarter, we got in transition, we started making threes. And obviously the floor opened up to where even on the last possession of the third quarter, you can dial stuff up, you execute it at a high level, you touch the paint, you kick it out and Ja'Mee hits a three. So you not only execute the action and the timing but then you hit the shot.

It's plays like that, those are the plays you have to make in close games and in NCAA Tournament play.

Q. Coach, you kind of touched on it, but JLew as a defender, did you make that switch at halftime or had you already done some of that with them on Atwell?

NICKI COLLEN: No, we made that switch at halftime. I just felt like we had fouled her twice on threes. One time kind of losing track of her and one time maybe questionable whether we fouled her on the second time. But between the five threes she made and the two times we put her at the foul line, it was just too many.

Some of that was Tony. I let Tony make a lot of defensive decisions and he'll run them by me, but he said I think we have to put JLew on her. We just rotated match-ups. We tried to stay fresh on her. Jaden played her some, Ja'Mee played her a little, Sarah played her some, but we tried to keep fresh match-ups on her. And as the shot clock would go down, we weren't coming off. We were going to stay pretty attached to her. It wasn't Taylor Robertson-attached from the beginning of a possession but it was very much late in the possession we tried to keep it out of her hands.

But you started to see us get touches on balls, her having to shoot over us consistently, and so we just did a better job of playing with our hands up.

Q. I was just wondering, there at the end it felt like you were really trying to get Ja'Mee involved and get her to make a shot there to kind of get into a rhythm. Was that something that was a point of emphasis, and how important is it to see the ball go in the basket here in this first round?

NICKI COLLEN: Well, I just think for us to be great, we need balance, and so I thought Ja'Mee had some bad misses early. She's too good a shooter to shoot it that poorly, so just trying to goad her to see the ball go through the basket.

I'm not going to lie; I was actually running a play when she did -- we staggered four, I was trying to run that play for AK instead, but we're so used to running that stagger for Ja'Mee that we naturally did it, and it worked out because she hit it.

But yeah, I was trying to get AK a shot there at the end, but other than that, I did want the ball to go through the basket for Ja'Mee.

It was the same way with Sarah. Sarah has been playing through this hand injury, and we've limited her in practice. I think the lack of repetitions has hurt her timing. She was the one that made the decision, like, I've got six games left and we'll deal with it when the season is over, and we'll just play through it for now.

I thought she was good getting to the rim, but to see the ball kind of on that crossover step-back go through for her even when we ran an out of bounds play -- I told her before she inbounded it, this shot is yours, take it in the corner, and that one didn't go in.

But Sarah knows I believe in her, so it was good to see her make a couple threes, as well.

Q. It seemed like it was as good a crowd as you guys have had this year for a 3:00 Friday game. Is that kind of how you saw it?

NICKI COLLEN: It was a great crowd, and I think sometimes you go from being in a tight game to all of a sudden blowing the game open and you don't need them necessarily like you do in a two-point game in the third quarter when you're trying to make a run.

But we're certainly going to need them on Sunday. I hope they double in size between today and Sunday.

I've said it before, I know Iowa had a sellout, and I just challenge Waco and the community here to come out on Sunday. I had someone come up in the stands to me and tell me they'd flown all the way from Hawaii to watch Baylor, which was incredible to me. Like that's next-level commitment, because they weren't here to see anyone from Hawaii but to cheer for Baylor.

Extremely proud of that, but I think we have got to turn it up. South Dakota, I can remember -- I played in an NIT championship game, postseason NIT championship when I was at FGCU at South Dakota and they had a sellout for the WNIT championship. They travel well, they were loud. They were actually a lot of fun as I was scouting the game ahead of ours. But we need to make sure that they don't make any noise on Sunday.

I think it can go a long way because that South Dakota team is incredibly good, incredibly good.

Q. I know you watched at least some of that game. What did you see from them? Seemed like they were able to dribble drive quite a bit.

NICKI COLLEN: Yeah, Dawn, I've known her since her Green Bay days with Kevin Borseth, and then when I was at FGCU NKU was in our league at the time so familiar with her motion. She's got better players that she did at NKU running this stuff. But I think Chloe Lamb is a WNBA Draft pick. I think their starting center -- not going to pronounce her name because I'd get it wrong -- but Hannah is a WNBA Draft pick. Those guys that inside out, and then they just have players that play their tails off.

I don't think people understand how good an offensive rebounder Maddy Scott is, and they kept her from even jumping on an offensive rebound. I mean, fundamentally they're a gap team. They do such a good job of playing in the gap. They do a good job helping and digging. They give you one shot because they're so physical. They've got size at every position, and they're just a well-oiled machine. They're one of those teams that is -- after an early-season stretch where they struggled a little bit, they've gotten conference play and just built all this momentum and confidence.

Look, I've been watching them all week. That wasn't because I predicted that they would win, but I've made the decision every day this week to watch two Ole Miss games and two South Dakota games and two Hawaii games. That's just what I've done preparing all week, and so was not surprised to see that result today.

I think they're a really, really good basketball team. Probably underseeded with respect to their league, but probably because of those early non-conference games that they didn't win against A&M at a neutral site tournament, teams like that. They didn't have those like feather-in-their-cap marquee non-conference wins, but they're a really good basketball team.