NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL FOUR: LOUISVILLE VS SOUTH CAROLINA

April 1, 2022

Dawn Staley

Brea Beal

Aliyah Boston

Destanni Henderson

Target Center

South Carolina Gamecocks

Semi-Final Postgame Media Conference

South Carolina 72, Louisville 59

DAWN STALEY: First, I just want to say that Louisville did an extremely great job of just competing. We could never put them away because of their fight and their competitiveness and their ability to hang in there and defend and score and turn us over. They created a great environment for all of women's basketball fans to be excited about.

Q. You've always been known for your defense. It seemed like you drew the assignment on Van Lith and took it up a peg. How important was it to take her out of her game?

BREA BEAL: I think it's just a mentality to have every single game. You can't just turn it on and turn it off when you choose to. It's something I've grown since a freshman. It's a talent I've grown and added to as a freshman. Especially now you just have to lock in and know what your job is to do offensively and defensively.

Q. After last year's loss in the championship game, what does it mean to be back in this position considering you could be facing Stanford tomorrow?

DESTANNI HENDERSON: Yes, I feel like last year we fell short when we lost in the Final Four. I feel like this year, it's a relief right now, and it feels great. But we're going to take in this moment, and we're not done yet, so we still have unfinished business. Just going to live in the moment for right now, but tomorrow just to lock in more and just do what we have to do to just make it all the way.

ALIYAH BOSTON: I agree with what Hen any said. Last year we lost in the Final Four but this year we knew that were going to be tested and this is the hump that we need to get over. And we got over that tonight and we're on to the National Championship game, so we're really excited.

BREA BEAL: Definitely started with the first official practice we had. We wanted to find a way where we could gel together, play together, and I think that's what we've been doing this whole season. We had to turn the page from last and just continue doing us and staying in our circle.

Q. Aliyah, after winning all those Player of the Year awards, any added pressure going into the Final Four? And then the second part, what was the difference in your game in the second half scoring-wise versus the first half? You obviously got a lot more opportunities in the second half.

ALIYAH BOSTON: With the awards, I'm really blessed, but my main focus is bringing home a National Championship Sunday night, so I'm just really locked in on that.

Scoring, I think the game just opened up. We were able to continue to move the ball and it opened up for me to get more scoring opportunities.

Q. I had an opportunity to talk with your mom at the team send-off. She said that you are equipped for this and that she wanted you all to play with grit. I wanted to know what that meant to you tonight.

ALIYAH BOSTON: It means a lot. God is at the forefront of everything that happens in our life, and my mom just sent me that reminder to know that he has already equipped us to win this game, and he's already written everything down in his book. So that's just a reminder to not go into the game with any kind of nerves because it's already written and the game is in God's hands.

Q. Aliyah, you had that and-one before the end of the third quarter when I think they had just got it down to six. How big was that play for you going into the fourth?

ALIYAH BOSTON: I think it was really big just because it gave us momentum and it also got somebody else in foul trouble, which we could always benefit from.

Q. What did you take away most from last year that allowed you to get where you are right now?

ALIYAH BOSTON: Just that the game, you've just got to play. Everybody is coming to play. We've just got to make sure we're ready. Thinking about last year coming into the season, we just knew we fell short, but it's not something we continued to think about because we knew this was a new team, we have a lot more depth, so we've just got to come to play every night.

Q. You guys have preached all season about not getting too high with the highs and too low with the lows. What would the next 48 hours look like for you from a mental and emotional standpoint?

DESTANNI HENDERSON: I feel like we're going to just watch this game that's coming up right now and just really see what we can do. Offensively and defensively I feel like we're going to just mentally be locked in, and as you said, not to get too high with the highs and too low with the lows and stay focused.

ALIYAH BOSTON: I think we're also going to take the time to recover, ice tub or NormaTec or massage just to make sure we get the proper rest that we need.

BREA BEAL: She said she wants a NormaTec deal. Anyway, yeah, just definitely rest our bodies and our minds and turn the page. It was a hard game, a hard-fought game. We pulled the win in, and we've just got to continue and be ready for Sunday.

Q. Turning to Sania so early in the second quarter, what have you seen from her lately to say, this is who I want for this particular matchup, and how do you think she played?

DAWN STALEY: I thought Sonia did extremely well. I knew we were going to need someone that has good court vision, that's able to pass the ball. Like she has a real good knack for her court vision. It's elite. I just thought bringing her in where we put her in a position where she could play make, get our post players the ball or make good decisions, she's been doing that all season long. It's just certain situations calls for you to really hone in on that, and I thought she did a great job with it.

Q. I know you guys don't dwell on the past, but I think back to some of those games earlier in the year whether it be the SEC tournament game or the game before that against Kentucky. What did you take away in terms of being prepared to finish especially against into the fourth quarter today?

DAWN STALEY: I think we've had instances late in the season where we didn't take care of business in the fourth quarter, so I know it's in the back of our players' minds. It was in the back of my mind, and we were up I think nine going into the fourth quarter, and I'm just like, okay, here we go.

I think just with anything, life, life in general, it's going to throw tests at you. You're going to have to pass the tests or you're going to have to retake them. I thought we've been put in positions where we didn't pass the test against Kentucky and they made us pay for it, and we had other instances during the tournament where we faced it and we took it up to another level.

We took forward to other tests to take. Hopefully we'll have to pass that one in the next game.

Q. Team defense has been a strength of yours all year. You seem to have turned it up a notch further in the tournament. What has been the secret to your defensive success so far?

DAWN STALEY: We're a team that we really don't turn you over. We just stay connected. We're linked up. They do a great job of communicating. We just like to be disruptive, take the first option away, the second option away and then have you played with a short shot clock. And then that is -- not a whole lot of teams are super efficient in low shot clock situations, so we try to put them in that, and then we rebound the basketball.

Q. Talk about your quick start, getting to that first time-out. It looked kind of ugly to start off with, but then you all got into a rhythm and you weren't forced to call a time-out.

DAWN STALEY: I mean, I think our experience -- I think this is Louisville's first time being in the Final Four. Sometimes when the lights come on, it just takes you a little bit longer to just kind of get your equilibrium, and once they did, they ended up coming roaring back. But I was happy that we saw some shots go in, and I was happy that we were able to take their hit and just keep playing.

I could have called a time-out, and I think in the second quarter they went on a 12-0 run. But when you know why it's happening and you've got an experienced team like we have, we just let the game settle in and corrected it on the fly.

Q. Was there more of a concerted effort to get the ball inside to Aliyah in the second half? I know you shot the ball better in the second half from three, but in the first half you had a stretch where you missed seven straight rather than maybe get it inside.

DAWN STALEY: Yes, that's the stretch that they came roaring back. I mean, we have to play through her. It doesn't mean that she has to shoot the ball, but every time she touches the ball she draws a crowd. If we're able to kick it out -- that's probably a time that we need to take those shots, but I thought we just got in the rhythm of shooting outside shots that really didn't make any sense, and it just threw off our transitional defensive balance. But we corrected it, and when we started going into her, playing inside out, more shots from the outside started falling.

Q. About Brea, is there anything she's able to do on the defensive end of the floor that just kind of makes you maybe take a step back when she's performing the way she performed tonight kind of in the moment? And two, how big was her cleaning things up sometimes offensively? How big was that for you tonight?

DAWN STALEY: I mean, Brea is an elite defender. She's so underestimated. I mean, she's so just unassuming. It's almost like a personality. Her personality makes it easy for people to overlook her, except the people that know what she does every single day. Elite defender. She's just locked in. She knows what your best move is. She knows what your counter is, and she just waits. She forces you into those situations, and you've got to go to your third option as an individual player, and by then if you have to go through your first, second, and third, your teammates are standing around, so we've got you. So she really understands that part of it.

What was the second part of your question? Oh, cleanup. She's calm. She's seeing it a lot differently than she has in the past. Sometimes when you get pigeonholed into being a defender, you just take on that role and then you don't even look to score. You don't even look to do anything else.

But we got her comfortable. We got her -- like she helps so much when she scores and when she shoots the ball, and hopefully she'll continue to do that for us.

Q. Is there any edge going into Sunday night at whoever you play, you've scouted them before and you've beat them?

DAWN STALEY: Is there an edge? No. There's not an edge. When you're playing for a National Championship, it is the team that can get to their habits quickly and stay there.

We're very fortunate that we did play both of them, Connecticut a long, long, long time ago, but they're probably back to where they were when we played them. That's their norm.

Stanford has just gotten better and better and better and better and better, and there's really no letdown. Whoever it is, you've got to go through a quality team to win a National Championship.

Q. 19 assists to 5 for Louisville; what did you see as far as ball movement, offensive efficiency, and how do you think you'll be able to carry that into Sunday?

DAWN STALEY: I thought our players just really played with a lot of poise when we weren't turning the ball over. I thought we were just ready for -- we were probably ready for a little bit more jump. They just went to a regular 2-3. I just thought we saw it, we knew what we were going to do, we talked about it in shootaround today, and our players were just there to execute.

Super proud that we did have a shootaround, that the game was later that we could have a shootaround where we could discuss some things about some junk defenses and what we wanted to do, and a lot of what we wanted to do was the same plan we ran no matter what junk defense we could have seen.

It's really surprising. We don't have a whole lot of assists all the time, so I'm really proud of our team for being able to share the ball.