NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL SEMIFINAL - SOUTH DAKOTA VS MICHIGAN

March 25, 2022

Kim Barnes Arico

Naz Hillmon

Danielle Rauch

Leigha Brown

Intrust Bank Arena

Michigan Wolverines

Sweet 16 Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: We have Coach Arico with Michigan. Some opening comments?

KIM BARNES ARICO: We're just excited to be in Wichita and I want to thank you for everyone that's been hosting and making us feel like we're at home. We got a big welcome when we arrived at the hotel. Things have been really exciting for us since we've been here.

We're happy to be here. We think we have a great opponent in South Dakota. We're excited to play tomorrow.

THE MODERATOR: Open it to questions.

Q. What does South Dakota do well? What will you need to do to disrupt them?

KIM BARNES ARICO: I think they do a lot of things well. First of all, they're a very experienced team. They have a sixth-year player and a couple fifth-year players. They've played together for a long time. They have a Player of the Year in their league, they have the Defensive Player of the Year in their league. They have the sixth player of the year in their league.

They're a great team that defends exceptionally well. I think you saw that in the first two rounds against Ole Miss and Baylor, two teams that have All-American post players. They kind of locked them both down. They crowd the paint, they make you score from the outside. They're tough defensively.

But I also think they're really good offensively because they can score from every position, and that makes them tough to defend. They have a great post player that can score inside and out, they shoot the three well. They score in the paint and they score threes.

They're just a well-rounded team.

Q. South Dakota has gotten up on their first two opponents in this tournament. That has given them the cushion they need. How do you get off to a faster start?

KIM BARNES ARICO: That's the question we've been asked multiple times. That's all I keep hearing about on the TV and the radio, is they've never trailed, they've never trailed, they've never trailed. I know they've never trailed (smiling). I've heard it a bunch in the last week.

They have really done a great job of jumping on both of their opponents in the first and second round because they've shot the ball exceptionally well from the start. Really with threes, and their post player making threes early, their post player being super aggressive early.

I think it's really important that we establish ourselves on the defensive end. I know everyone has talked about South Dakota's defense because they've beaten two Power 5 great opponents, top opponents in the country.

I've been really proud of the way our team has defended in the first two rounds as well. I think it's going to be a battle on that end. Our team knows the importance of the start. We've kind of been the opposite because I think we are -- I don't know what the right word is, but we've been so excited in our first two contests that we've been going up and down, up and down, really not making an easy bucket real quick. Once we've settled down, we've been able to establish ourselves.

That could be also we've been at home in front of a great, great crowd that was behind us. I think our emotions were flying. Us being on a neutral court will probably be a little bit different.

I'm expecting South Dakota to have a lot of fans here. Not sure how many Michigan fans we will have, but I heard the Maize Rage is getting in the car and doing the drive today. Pretty excited about that.

I think we definitely have to establish ourselves on the defensive end early and try not to let them get hot very quickly.

Q. Naz, her freshman year, round of 32, sophomore year got canceled, then last year upsetting Tennessee to get to the Sweet 16. What would advancing even further this year mean for the legacy she leaves at Michigan?

KIM BARNES ARICO: I know most of you in the room probably have had a chance to see Naz play. This past weekend was really, really special. I think she's playing her best basketball right now. I think she knows her college career is starting to come to an end. Every time she steps on the court, she leaves it all out there.

The legacy she's leaving at our university is absolutely incredible. We speak about it non-stop because it's on the court, but it's off the court as well. What she's done in the community, what she's done inside our athletic department, what he's done for the Big Ten, it's never ending, the mark that she is leaving across the board.

I also would like to touch on her entire senior class. When they came to Michigan four years ago, they believed that they could create something incredibly special. They went to a program that had won 20 games before but had never been to a Sweet 16, had won a banner before, but it was a WNIT banner. It wasn't an NCAA tournament banner. They wanted to do something that was different and they believed that they could. They have created something incredibly special inside our program. That's a credit to all of them.

They all stayed the course. They all continued to persevere. Two of them didn't play at all. They both have been major impacts, one Danielle Rauch, first time she really played any significant minutes was last year in the NCAA tournament, and she was unbelievable. Then she continued that by just having a great senior season.

Emily Kiser, her and Naz at the 4-5 spot, have balanced each other out and complemented each other exceptionally well. Those are two kids that really didn't see much playing time until their junior and senior season.

In today's day and age when you read the transfer portal, there's 600 people in there right now, you talk about two young women that didn't see instant gratification or instant success and stayed the course because they believed in our program, they believed in the University of Michigan, they believed they could make a difference.

The four of them have stuck together. It's just like the greatest story. I think that's what coaching is all about. That's what makes my job so special, is to watch them and watch where they are today compared to where they came in, and where our program is today because of the impact that they've left and the example they showed the people that are coming behind them.

Q. Have you had a chance to talk with Dawn yet about her days at Michigan?

KIM BARNES ARICO: No. Obviously I know Dawn a little bit. Our kind of paths have crossed so many times. I believe when she lived in Michigan, she lived in the same town, her children go to the same schools that my children went to. My children's friends were friends with her family. A lot of crossing of paths. We really haven't talked too much since we're both here.

Obviously I have the utmost respect for who she is, what she does, the kind of coach that she is, the culture she has created, the program that she has. Some of our players, our freshmen, are so funny. They're like, Coach, we got our first recruiting letter from her when she was at Northern Kentucky. They have some memories with Dawn and them as well.

Her daughter was a freshman at Grand Valley this year. We had an opportunity to play against her. There's just a lot of same circles that kind of our families run in. But just, like I said, have a tremendous amount of respect for her and her program.

Q. In relation to Naz, you talked about the job that South Dakota was able to do on the post from Baylor and Ole Miss. Do you think that adds any extra fuel to the fire for her to prove, Hey, I'm not going to let that happen to me?

KIM BARNES ARICO: Of course. I think it's kind of a good position. We almost feel like we're the underdogs, so to speak, because South Dakota has been able to do this against two top players in the country, two top teams in the country. Obviously them having that kind of success, I'm sure they feel the same way about Naz.

I think that's just something that really motivates Naz, something that's going to fuel her fire for sure, that she has something to prove. That's kind of the way she has been her whole entire career. She's an undersized post player. Most people would look at her and look at Shakira Austin, some of those other All-Americans, be like, Wow, how is Naz in the same breath? She is undersized. She doesn't look like she's 6'5", come out there and do those type of things.

Naz has a lot of special things inside of her that you don't realize. The coach of the other team came up to me after and he said, In 20 years I've never seen a player that played both sides of the ball the way that Naz Hillmon does. Her motor on both sides of the ball is absolutely incredible.

I think Naz will definitely be excited about this opportunity because she's going to have a tough matchup and she knows it. We've been watching film, we've been talking about it, what South Dakota has been able to do. It's obviously one person defending their big, but it's a whole team effort. They're really packing the paint, really throwing multiple bodies at you.

We've studied that film, and Naz is an exceptional student of the game. She will be prepared. Hopefully we're going to have a different result than those other two opponents.

Q. You have a couple common opponents with South Dakota with Northwestern and Baylor. Do you look back at those games at all in preparation for Saturday?

KIM BARNES ARICO: Yeah, definitely. I've watched a ton of their film. Personally I think it's important for me to watch common opponents, especially someone like Northwestern who we play against, I mean, we've played against three times the last three years, three times each season. I feel as if I know them pretty well.

I know that game was earlier in the year, so they're a different team than they were then, so is Northwestern. I did watch that game and it did give me a good feel as to what they do. Northwestern also plays a matchup zone, which is a little bit different than Baylor plays or what we play. That was a little bit different as well.

I did go back and I did watch that game. I watched the Baylor game as well. I watched them against South Dakota State which I know is their rival. They've had some really great games against them through the years.

I tried to watch as many different opponents and as many different styles as I could to pick up their tendencies. It's interesting to watch because the way that they play defense was different this weekend in terms of really helping inside the paint.

My little one actually was watching with me the other night. She said, Mom, is this zone?

I said, No, it's not zone but it kind of looks like it's zone because they're helping so much from the weak side.

I think because of who they have played, their opponents with Shakira Austin, with Baylor, they really tried to stay in the paint, clog that paint, make it difficult to score from their posts. I think they even do that more now than they do against probably the people in their league that know how to attack them a little bit better.

Q. South Dakota is one of the best teams in the country at taking care of the ball. How do you go about winning the turnover battle?

KIM BARNES ARICO: I think that's a great point. I think that comes with experience. I think one of the reasons they do that so well is because they're experienced at those positions. They have a fifth-year kid handling the ball, a fifth-year kid as the Player of the Year, and the ball is in her hands a lot of the time.

I think they are outstanding. When Northwestern played them, they turned it over a little bit. I think that was probably Northwestern's defense that kind of caused that. Those were some things that our team was watching. How can you be disruptive against a team that really doesn't turn it over that much?

But I do think that our defense, our players, really take pride in the way that we defend, and we're really going to try to be disruptive on the defensive end and use our length and our defensive ability to try to be as disruptive as possible.

Q. You've said you want Naz's jersey retired. How did her and the senior class change the trajectory of this program?

KIM BARNES ARICO: You know, Naz is so special, and I know I say that and it sounds cliché, people are like, What do you really mean by that? I sometimes try to give an example just to kind of give it perspective.

When she was graduating high school, she missed her high school graduation because of USA Basketball. I'm like, Oh, man, that's a bummer. This is before she got to us, obviously. I'm like, You're not going to be able to go to high school graduation.

She said, No, Coach, my high school is doing their own separate graduation for me.

I said, Huh? Like, what are you talking about? The high school is doing their own graduation for Naz Hillmon. Who does that?

This is the kind of impact she left on her high school. Recently I saw her high school coach who came to Senior Night. He said to me, I tried to put into words how she was going to impact your program, but I never could. Now do you see what I was talking about?

I said, It's unbelievable. It really is unbelievable.

I know a lot of times last year when she was, like, heading the charge in our Big Ten coalition, she was doing all these different things, I would say, Naz for president. People initially thought I was joking until we would be on these conference calls with the presidents of the Big Ten universities, all the athletic directors of all the Big Ten universities, all the football coaches and all the basketball coaches, Kevin Warren would finish the call by saying, Naz, do you have anything to add?

Oh my gosh, did he just ask Naz if she had anything to add? He actually did.

Those are a couple of examples of the impact that this young woman has on whatever she touches. She has done that inside of our program. But she brings people with her. You always talk about leaders are people that can inspire others to follow them. She inspires a team of people to follow her each and every single day. They want to be great. They want to be great for Michigan.

I think when you decide to come to the University of Michigan, you put yourself out there to believe in being the best, excellence, top 5%, excellence in everything you do, that's what our university stands for, and that's what our players sign up for. They feel that way in the classroom, in the community, and they certainly feel that way on the court.

These seniors have taken our team and just raised the level every single day, whether that's at practice, whether that's the way they talk in the locker room. There's no negativity. There's no, Woe is me. There's no hanging of our head. No, we're going to bring others with us. These are our goals. This is what we want to accomplish.

At the beginning of the each year we sit down and do that, set those goals, what we want to accomplish. This senior class has pretty much been able to check off all the boxes of most of those things they've set out to do. It's pretty special.

THE MODERATOR: That's all the time we have. We thank you for coming, Coach. We'll have the student-athletes up here in a few minutes.

We'd like to welcome student-athletes Naz Hillmon, Leigha Brown, and Danielle Rauch to the stand.

We'll open the floor to questions.

Q. Naz, South Dakota did a great job on other players. Does that add any extra fuel for you to prove that you're not going to be slowed down in the same way?

NAZ HILLMON: I would say that's something I definitely looked at. Watched a lot of film on those games, specifically with those post players.

Added fuel? I'm not sure. I just want to really go into there, try to play my game, do that as best as I can. Really try not to get away from what I've been doing all year.

Obviously, like you said, they did do a great job. So there maybe needs some adjustments from me to try to work around their defense, which was great in those two games. Really playing within myself and making adjustments later.

Q. Leigha, how difficult was it for you to have to sit out some of the key games down the stretch? When did you start feeling like yourself again when you returned?

LEIGHA BROWN: Obviously battling through injury is really tough for everyone, especially with the season we were having before.

When I went out, I had full confidence in my team and my teammates that they could still make a great season out of it.

Yeah, I'm still kind of finding myself coming back. It's tough being out, what, five, six games like I was. I think every game though I'm feeling more and more comfortable. My teammates and coaching staff does a great job of instilling confidence in me, making sure I'm ready, whether that's extra individual workouts, practice, getting some extra reps. I'm feeling confident definitely.

Q. Danielle, the transfer portal is an easy way to get out. You stayed. Why?

DANIELLE RAUCH: I'm sure not many of you have heard this. There's a saying at Michigan that goes, Those who stay will be champions. That to me has always resonated with me, something I wanted to accomplish in my four years here.

I'm not one for taking the easy way out in anything. Obviously I'm really fortunate to have had the opportunity to stay here and have the success that I've been having.

I think my teammates over these last four years have just been my best friends. What Michigan has to offer, you can't get anywhere else.

Q. Naz or Leigha, in what ways does Danielle energize this team?

NAZ HILLMON: That's probably one of the first ways I would describe Danielle, is just having so much energy and life in anything that she does. You can tell she loves the game, our team. She's very passionate.

When that's your point guard, it gets you going. Sometimes in those first five minutes where the wind is knocked out of you, you see Danielle screaming at the other team, it kicks in that other gear. Just like having somebody like that to lead you means the world, especially in those tough moments.

LEIGHA BROWN: Yeah, I think Naz kind of summed it pretty well.

Just having D, how passionate she is, like Naz said, as the point guard, someone that is supposed to lead the team, take them under your wing. I think she does a great job of that.

Like Naz said, it's kind of hard coming off the court if you're tired or something, to be down or to be exhausted, and you've got D chirping in your ear the whole time, I'm telling you you're not tired, just kind of being there for you. Yeah, she's a huge part of our team for sure.

Q. Leigha, they have two guards that they really go to. You have a little extra size on the outside. How do you match up with them?

LEIGHA BROWN: Yeah, I think we've been lucky enough to see some really great guard play in our season so far, whether it's in the Big Ten or some of our non-conference.

I think something that's made us really successful is being able to play team defense. Like you said, we do have some length and some size on them. Kind of using that to our advantage. Keeping our hands up, trying to be long on defense, and be physical.

I'm kind of just sticking to the things that's made us successful this whole season so far.

Q. Naz, how much family do you have coming here for tomorrow's game? What's been your mom's message to you throughout this tournament?

NAZ HILLMON: Yeah, I only have a couple of family members, I think just three this time. It was hard to get in and out of Wichita. The numbers are dwindling for me.

But my mom's message has just been to have fun. Sometimes that gets lost when you're putting so much pressure on yourself and you don't really enjoy every moment that you can. Especially being a senior I want to enjoy every single moment with this group of girls, playing the game that I love, and finishing out this season.

So, yeah, like I said, the numbers are dwindling, but we continue to make it, we'll have some more people coming.

Q. It's funny that you describe Danielle as the one having energy. I think you all play with energy and attitude when you're on the court. How do you balance that hype with staying calm so that you can deliver in the moments when you need to?

DANIELLE RAUCH: I think that attitude and that energy is something that defines our team in a way. That's what makes us so great.

Like you said, finding that balance and that energy, I think sometimes we can get lost in that, it can deter us a little bit, whether that be with the refs or with our opponent. Just staying focused and staying together when we're all on the same page, we're all feeling that energy, then that's when we're at our best.

Keeping in mind there is a fine line between it. I really do think, I like to call it that swag we have, that dog energy that we bring is definitely what makes us us.

LEIGHA BROWN: Yeah, just echoing off of Danielle. I think it does kind of define us as a team. I think that's what gives us an edge in a lot of the games, just kind of how physical and how intense, just how we play.

Like she said, I think sometimes we do kind of let it get, especially myself, kind of let it get into our heads a little too much. I think my teammates and coaches do a great job of trying to bring me down in those moments when I am getting a little too hyped up.

Yeah, I think it is something that does make our team really successful.

NAZ HILLMON: I think our balance is Emily Kiser. That's definitely one person who kind of keeps us grounded, she can tell us when we need to calm down a little bit.

Exactly what they said, trying to find that balance. We've had a lot of conversations about this within the team, finding that middle ground of being hyped and excited, but also playing within yourself, being smart about it. I think Emily definitely helps a little bit with that balance and she continues to do that for us.

Q. Naz, you obviously come from a line of great college basketball players, you came to Michigan wanted to create your own legacy. Your coach wants your jersey retired. What does that mean to you to look back on what you've been able to do at Michigan for the program as a whole?

NAZ HILLMON: Yeah, I keep getting these questions and it keeps making me reflect on my four years here, just how special it's been. Seeing some of that stuff about what my coach said about my jersey, knowing how many great players that she's coached and has been around, for her to say that means the world. That's someone who took a chance on me when I was 18 years old, wanting me to come to her university.

I'll continue to say that I'm not the player I am without my teammates and my coaches surrounding me, making me look as good as I do sometimes. I have two people right here who make me look really good, they get me the ball. Without them I wouldn't be able to get the accolades I have, the success that I've had throughout my years.

In terms of the jersey retirement, if that happens, you put the years of all my teammates on there, too.

Q. People root for the Cinderella teams. Are you expecting, anticipating maybe a few more people in the crowd rooting for South Dakota when you take the court?

LEIGHA BROWN: Yeah, I mean, I think just kind of subconsciously seeing on social media how many tickets they've sold or how many fans they've had at previous games. You got to kind of keep that in the back of your mind to think about.

I think we've been the underdog. That started last year when we made our tournament run. I think that's when we're the most successful. I think we're the best when we're playing with a chip on our shoulder. Yeah, we'll see what happens.

Q. Leigha, when you decided to come to Michigan, what did you envision for yourself? What has been your biggest takeaway here since you came to Michigan?

LEIGHA BROWN: Yeah, I think a big factor in my decision to come here was just how special. Granted they were already special before I got here, that's what kind of drew me here. I think seeing the potential, some of the things we could do here, make history like we have been doing, is definitely what I envisioned.

I couldn't be happier that I came here, super happy I made that decision, for sure.

Q. Hannah Sjerven, the main post presence for South Dakota, what is it that you have seen in her, what she can do against you guys?

NAZ HILLMON: Yeah, she's a physical post player, works really hard to get her positioning or to get the other post players out of positioning. Super hard worker, definitely someone that's going to make you work for everything you want offensively or defensively. Seems like a little bit of the glue to their team.

Definitely interesting. It will be a great matchup with anybody who's guarding her or whoever she's guarding. A lot of good things from film that we've seen about her.

THE MODERATOR: We'll wrap it up. Thank you, ladies. Good luck tomorrow.