AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 7, 2023

Toyelle Wilson

Savannah Wilkinson

Jasmine Smith

Dickies Arena

SMU Mustangs

Postgame Press Conference

Houston 52, SMU 33

TOYELLE WILSON: Yeah, I think Houston came out doing what they do, and they executed it. We turned the ball over a lot and couldn't really find a groove and get some easy baskets. But credit to them, and we've just got to get better.

Hopefully get to play again in the postseason and live to play another day for these two and the other two seniors because you don't want to have this taste in your mouth for a whole year.

Yeah, so we've just got to sit and wait.

Q. Toyelle, you kind of mentioned the pressure. Is it one of those things where on any given day when you see it, I mean you can prepare for it as much as you want, but sometimes when you see it in person it's harder to actually face?

TOYELLE WILSON: Yeah, I just think they were doing everything they usually do, more intensified. And it was hard for Jas because she's trying to bring the ball up, be a playmaker, be a scorer, and we were turning the ball over.

But that's what they do. They live and die by that.

Yeah, it was just a lot of hedging and trapping and running and jumping.

Q. Savannah, how difficult was it to get in the groove offensively for you all tonight?

SAVANNAH WILKINSON: Yeah, Houston, if they start well early, it's really hard to kind of calm them down again. So it was just nonstop. It's overwhelming. Like we have a freshman point guard that comes in to help Jas, and Ella is amazing, she does really well, but she's also a freshman. And we made some silly mistakes, us as seniors. Yeah, it's just a really hard pressure.

We've beat it before. We came out, we were prepped, but it just wasn't our day.

Q. For a game like this, was it one of those things, when you guys got off to the slow start, is it one of those things where once the slow start happened it was hard to recover? Or were you really focused? What do you credit the slow start to?

TOYELLE WILSON: We were up 5-0 so I don't think we slow started. They then went on a run that we didn't score again. We've held them below their average. It was 24-11 at halftime. You've got to be able to score, though.

They went on, I think, an 18-0 run, and it wasn't because -- we just couldn't score it. We were missing shots. We were missing lay-ups. We were turning the ball over. It's a combination of all that.

I thought we started out fine. It's just -- we defended. We've just got to keep scoring. We started out 5-05 and we didn't score again the rest of the quarter.

Q. Jasmine, did this result surprise you today?

JASMINE SMITH: Yes, it did, just because we usually do a little better against those pressure type situations, but like Coach said, the ball just wasn't going through the hoop. When the ball isn't going through the hoop and you've got that type of pressure on you, it's tough to stay in the game.

Q. Obviously you said you want another chance to play, especially with these seniors. What would it mean to get another chance?

TOYELLE WILSON: Yeah, I mean, I think we've proven ourselves the whole season, not just this one game that can define our whole season, and we've proven we've done a great job with the out of conference to put ourselves in this position to play, and that's what we did from the beginning when we scheduled our games.

The thing about waiting for a week until Sunday night, next Sunday or Monday morning, if the committee feels that way, too.

Hopefully get another opportunity, that way we can show real basketball at SMU and our girls and our seniors get to play another game, knowing the game that they can play.

Q. Savannah, how much would you want to play another game?

SAVANNAH WILKINSON: Yeah, the worst thing about kind of March and all the postseason tournaments is you either win it all or you finish on a loss. It always is either going to be we win it all -- so yes, of course I want to go to postseason so we can get to the end and I can finish my college career with a win and a championship. That's my goal, yeah. We'll see. JASMINE SMITH: Yeah, real bad.