NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - FGCU VS MARYLAND

March 20, 2022

Kendall Spray

Kierstan Bell

Karl Smesko

Florida Gulf Coast Eagles

Media Conference

Maryland - 89, Florida Gulf Coast - 65

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Florida Gulf Coast head coach Karl Smesko and student-athletes Kendall Spray and Kierstan Bell.

KARL SMESKO: Just congratulate Maryland. They've got a great team. They outplayed us today for sure. I thought we got off to a pretty good start. We were going toe-to-toe with them. Then the last couple of minutes of the half, we let them get on a little bit of a run to get some separation.

I thought it was really important that we got off to a fast start at the beginning of the second half, but Maryland was able to get some distance from us right at the beginning of the second half. We started forcing some things and doing some things we normally don't do. We're not in this position of being behind like this too often.

Overall, we're just really proud of the season that we had, of everybody's effort that they put in this season. We congratulate Maryland and wish them the best going forward.

Q. I wanted to ask you, what do you feel changed from them defensively or what they tried to take away kind of that started late in that second quarter and kind of spilled in onto the other side of halftime? What did it feel like from your guys' perspective that they started doing differently?

KENDALL SPRAY: I would say it wasn't -- they had been playing the same way on defense the whole game. It was just us executing actions and staying together through it all and knowing that they were going to have runs, we were going to have runs, and we just had to be able to fight back.

Q. Sorry for the result, guys. Kierstan, I was just wondering what do you think of your legacy that you're leaving at FGCU? When fans of that program think of you, what do you want them to think of?

KIERSTAN BELL: First I want to say I'm proud of my teammates. We played really hard. It was a good season, but this isn't what we wanted. I'm proud of this season. We got ASUN Tournament championship, regular season championship. So we've got a lot to be proud of.

Q. Kierstan, you weren't able to get a rhythm. You seemed pretty frustrated at times on the court. Can you speak to an inability to get a rhythm going in today's game?

KIERSTAN BELL: Yeah, I was very frustrated. Things weren't going our way. But I was just trying to stay together with my teammates. They were encouraging me throughout the half. But this isn't what we wanted, but I'm glad everybody kept putting in the effort for this ending.

Q. This is for both of you. What did you learn from your experience playing for Karl Smesko at FGCU?

KIERSTAN BELL: I think the strongest team wins. We didn't stick together, and they did. That's why they came out with this win today.

KENDALL SPRAY: Smesko is a great coach. I loved playing for him for one year. I wish I would have come here sooner. He's an awesome coach, and I'm very grateful to learn from him this year.

Q. For either of the players, can you talk about Maryland's length? Had you seen any team that had that sort of length, particularly they seemed to really harass you guys, Miller and Reese, with their long arms. Can you just talk about their length and how distracting that was?

KIERSTAN BELL: We played against teams that have length. We played against Liberty. They have bigs that have the same size. But we just weren't executing well, and that cost us. But they had great defensive stops, and that's what happens.

Q. Just talk about the other end of the floor. How tough was it to defend players like Owusu and Miller and Reese? The three of them had 65 points.

KENDALL SPRAY: Hats off to Maryland. They're a great team all around. We knew that all five could score, and we just had to help each other. They did what they could do, and we just didn't perform to our best.

Q. Kendall, with the way you guys were shooting the three there in the first half for a time, going into the half, what was your mentality? What was your feeling despite being down eight?

KENDALL SPRAY: We felt like we were still in the game. We just had to come together and have a second half surge, but as you can see, we didn't perform to our best. Hats off to Maryland.

Q. Kierstan, just, when you came here, you came here with obviously a lot of buzz, and you accomplished a lot here with that jersey on. What are you going to remember the most about your two years here?

KIERSTAN BELL: The togetherness that we have as the FGCU program, Coach Smesko, most importantly. He's a great coach, and he taught me a lot of things, and I'm going to take those things moving forward.

THE MODERATOR: Congratulations on a great season. We'll continue with questions for Coach.

Q. I was going to ask a little bit about that run again. From your perspective, what changed from them defensively that was able to kind of disrupt your shooting from the outside in that second half?

KARL SMESKO: They had really good ball pressure, and they switch a lot of things, and they have great length at a lot of positions. At the beginning of the game, we had pretty good spacing, and we were able to attack the paint a little bit and kick it out and get to shot fakes.

As soon as we became a little more stagnant, and we were running a lot of like dribble handoffs which we really didn't want to run. Just pressure made us do some things that we really didn't want to do or wasn't really part of what we were supposed to do.

You just have to give them credit. They turned their defense up another notch, especially late in the half and for the whole second half.

Q. Specifically on Kendall, she had 17 early and then obviously kind of shut down for the rest of the game. Was there anything specific you thought they did on her as an individual assignment, or did you think it was just a product of the whole team?

KARL SMESKO: She was able to get free a couple times, whether it be in transition, or once we were able to break down the defense a little bit with help and they had to rotate, she was able to get some shots. She's an amazing shooter. She kept us in it for a quarter and a half.

But we didn't keep scoring, and they did, so they got away from us pretty -- midway through that third quarter.

Q. Coach, Kierstan obviously led you guys to some great places this year. I was just wondering what do you think want people to think of when they think of her legacy and this team's legacy at FGCU?

KARL SMESKO: She was the Conference Player of the Year twice. She was the MVP of our conference tournament. She's had some huge games against big teams. When we upset LSU, she had 32 points. What did she have two days ago, 22 points, to help us win an NCAA Tournament game.

She'll go down as the best player that we've ever had, and we've had some really good players. We're really hoping that she gets picked really high and that she has an outstanding career in the WNBA.

Q. Coach, I know it's just all ended, but could you put in a nutshell what this season has been like for you with the 30 wins? Like from beginning to now at the end, what has it meant for you as a coach?

KARL SMESKO: Well, I appreciate it all. That's one message that we sent at the end of the game, or what we tried to express when we got together in the locker room, is that there's not many teams who got to experience all the things we did, especially as a mid-major. To win a -- have a game with the conference championship on the line on the road and you win it, then you win a conference tournament championship, then you get to play a top 25 team in the NCAA Tournament and pull together and play really well.

I didn't want it to be spoiled because today for a couple quarters we didn't really play FGCU basketball as well as we would have liked. I don't want that to dampen all the things that we were able to accomplish throughout the season.

Q. Coach, we know the style that you guys are used to playing, and you kept to it in the NCAA Tournament with a whole bunch of threes all over the place, but just what today was the biggest difference between a Power Five team like Maryland and you guys?

KARL SMESKO: We knew it was going to be really up tempo. We got off to a little bit of a bad start. We gave them a couple of layups in conversion, which is something we were pretty committed to not let happen. But then we started to play pretty well.

I think what really separated it was when they went on a run, we started attempting tougher and tougher things rather than keeping it simple, we're able to get shots when we were able to really space it out and just play our game. But when we start -- and their pressure probably made us make some decision that's we normally don't make.

So we just needed better shot selection. We did such a fantastic job taking care of the ball a couple days ago. We were a little careless at times today. You can't do that around Maryland because they turn turnovers into points. That's one of their specialties.

I really think Maryland with everybody healthy is a Final Four caliber team. So it will be fun to watch them the rest of the way.

Q. To kind of piggy-back off what was just asked, it wasn't just you guys this time around. It was Belmont, it was Villanova, it was South Dakota, it was you guys as well, Princeton, a team you know a lot about. Is the gap closing between mid-majors and Power Fives enough to the point that it kind of encourages you about the possibility of one day making a Sweet 16?

KARL SMESKO: Yeah, I still believe we'll make a Sweet 16 and hopefully go further. It's obviously tough when you're a mid-major because all those -- one of the teams you mentioned was from the Big East, which is a little different, but the mid-majors obviously get seeded pretty low. So even if you go undefeated and you beat a bunch of big name teams, you're probably still going to have to go on the road in the NCAA Tournament and play a true road game like we had to play today.

I still think that's great for basketball because it's great to have so many people. That crowd was great tonight. To have a charged environment like that is a great experience to be a part of. But it's definitely on the women's side difficult for the mid-majors to make that run to the Sweet 16 largely because you don't get a neutral court game usually to go to the Sweet 16. You're going to have to play on somebody's home court.

Q. Karl, congratulations on the season. You alluded to it a little bit and we talked about it yesterday, that you thought Maryland maybe could have been a 2 if they had been healthy, and the players and Coach Frese talked about, not them being a 2 seed, but the fact that they were healthy. So maybe they were underseeded as well as obviously you guys were?

KARL SMESKO: Yeah, we thought we were better than a 12 seed, but once you get in the tournament, you have to prove it. So we had to -- it's one thing to say you're better. If you go out and lose the first game, then maybe you really weren't.

We feel great about that, that we got to advance in this tournament. Maryland played some games early in the year with a lot of injuries or people out, and I think that kind of affected their national ranking and maybe their seeding in this tournament. But make no mistake, they're a dangerous team with a lot of weapons, and they're really well coached.

I know they had some offensive struggles recently, but they have gotten well. They're shooting the ball really well. They're sharing it. They played at a really, really high level today.