NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - TENNESSEE TECH VS INDIANA

March 17, 2023

Kim Rosamond

Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall

Tennessee Tech Red Raiders

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: We're now joined on the dais by Tennessee Tech head coach Kim Rosamond. Coach, welcome back. Hope you got some sleep, and if you would make an opening statement, then we'll move to questions.

KIM ROSAMOND: Last night was obviously an historic night for our program, getting the first win in the NCAA tournament in 33 years. But for right now in this moment for us, and we will celebrate that later, and I think at some point our student-athletes will understand what they've done, but right now the most important thing is we got 40 more minutes together. We are excited about the opportunity. We took a moment this morning in film to talk about the little girl in all of us, including myself, and how exciting it is to be in this moment, to be part of this, to be able to play in the atmosphere that we're going to play in tomorrow. But then we also took time to talk about how as grown women and competitors the challenge that we have ahead, but also the opportunity. And so we look forward to it. I do want to commend Coach Moren and Indiana on what they have built here. Just you look at the attendance, I think their attendance has almost doubled over the last year or two where the stage that she has put Indiana women's basketball on. It's exciting for our game, and they are an outstanding basketball team, a well-coached basketball team, and we are looking forward to the challenge that tomorrow brings.

Q. Coach, you talked a little bit about the opportunity and the little girl in all of you. I look at your roster and I see four seniors and if I missed one, I apologize, but Jordan, Maaliya, Jada and D.J. Probably each committed to you on a vision for where you wanted this program to be. What does it mean for you now to see them still here and that vision that you had pay off in a win in the NCAA tournament?

KIM ROSAMOND: Well, I'll take first the sixth year senior, Jordan Brock. She has been -- I think we only had ten wins before she got here, and that was our first year. I've only been on the sideline one year without Jordan Brock. So she came here when there was nothing but a vision. We weren't winning a lot on the court. We were trying to win every day off the court, and we were doing that, but she really had to have faith in the vision that we had. And then Jada and Maaliya and D.J., when they came, you know, we were starting to win. We had just came off of what at the time in our third season was a second largest turnaround in the NCAA that year. We went from I believe it was seven wins to 23 wins. And so Jada and Maaliya and D.J. had gotten to see a little bit of the proof of concept. But we had not won consistently. And what those young women have helped us do and helped us build and to now see them get to experience this rewarding moment is really, really special, and I'm just very, very happy for them, and their leadership has been a vital part of where we're at today.

Q. Coach, how hard was it for you to fall asleep last night coming off the win? And then at what point did the preparation switch to focusing on Indiana? Did it happen when the brackets came out or did it not start until after the win last night?

KIM ROSAMOND: This is going to sound much like coach speak, but this is the truth. And our young women just talked about it. We take it one game at a time. And obviously, you know, we knew there was a great opportunity we might face Indiana, but we had to get by a very, very good and well-coached Monmouth team last night. And so all of our focus was on them.

We got back to the hotel, had a little pizza, celebrated for a moment, and then the players hopefully got more rest than the coaches did, because the coaches didn't get a whole lot of rest. Coach Allison Clark -- Coach Melanie Walls had the Monmouth scout, and then Coach Allison Clark had Indiana. And she had us ready -- she was ready days in advance, but myself and our team truly we were just all focused in on Monmouth. But when you get to this point, if you don't have a great staff, it's almost impossible to get your team prepared. I've got two head coaches on my staff, both Allison Clark and Melanie Walls were high school head coaches. Jasmine Cincore is one of the up-and-coming young coaches in this business. So those guys do a great job of preparing us and getting us ready. Today will be a light practice. Indiana gives you a lot to prepare for. They run a lot of things, a lot of actions, a lot of sets, but the great thing about defensively for us is we'll just focus in on our defensive principles and the way we've defended actions for most of the year. There may be some things that we tweak here and there specifically for Indiana. But we've guarded most everything at this point. Now, maybe we haven't guarded Mackenzie Holmes or Grace Berger, but we've seen most of the actions that we'll see tomorrow, and we've just gotta stick to our principles.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about what the combination of a Mackenzie Holmes with the three-point shooters, what kind of stress that putts on a defense?

KIM ROSAMOND: They are so balanced. You know, obviously Holmes is averaging in conference play 24 points a game. But what I love about them, I think they play the game the right way. I have so much respect -- you know, they're going to work the basketball, similar to what we try to do. They're going to work the basketball inside first. They're going to go to Holmes first, and then you've got shooters around them that can spread you out. Grace Berger is a mid range machine. She's got one -- and you don't see that a lot in women's basketball. Usually it's a three-point shot or get to the rim. But her mid-range game is just a thing of beauty.

But they are so skilled. They pass the ball so well. Their basketball IQ is extremely high. So obviously they're averaging almost 80 points a game, and they are very unselfish. They share the ball extremely well. So while Holmes is a handful to guard, and we've gotta make sure that we don't give her easy touches. We can't just let her -- especially, you know, they've got a height advantage, there's no doubt about it. But I think we've also got athleticism and speed that we have to use to our advantage to try to counter that. And so we're going to have to work really, really hard to limit her touches, and when she does touch, just make it really, really tough on her, and then make sure that we defend that three-point line really well and then keep them off of the offensive boards.

Q. Coach, I was watching you while your student-athletes were up on the dais and you almost had this look of admiration as you watch the young ladies present themselves and present the university. How meaningful to you are those relationships that they've formed amongst each other and that they've formed with you over time?

KIM ROSAMOND: Sorry, I get a little emotional talking about them. You see what amazing people they are, and you see the people that they are. They are outstanding basketball players. But they're even better people. How they represent us, how they represent each other, how they love each other, how they treat each other, one of our core values and respect, and it is something that we have preached from day one, the respect that they have for themselves, No. 1, the respect that they have for their coaches, for their teammates, for any people they interact with, we're not a rules-based program. We are a standards-based program. We got one rule in our program, and that's leave it better than you found it. And I can promise you whenever they leave Bloomington, they will leave this place better than they found it. They will leave that locker room better than they found it. They will leave every person that they interacted with better than they found it, and that's what they do to me each and every day. They make me better and inspire me as a coach. And sometimes it's hard to talk about them because I care so much about them.

Q. Coach, you mentioned your assistant Allison Clark, who played at Tennessee Tech, was part of an NCAA tournament team. What was it like for last night for her to flip the switch, right? It's been a journey for her. She went to the NCAA tournament as a student-athlete, now as a coach, finally gets the win to bring that program back into a basketball-rich state. What did it mean for you to see her maybe so exuberant about it?

KIM ROSAMOND: Well, if you know Coach Ali, it wasn't hard for her to flip the switch at all because she is one of the most fearless competitors that you've ever been around. And when I finally got to watch all of the celebration videos from the OVC championship, I just -- I couldn't help but just sit there and laugh, because all you could see was Coach Ali just throwing her hands in the air, just -- there is nobody that loves this program more than she does. I can't even tell you home years she'd been around it. She was on the previous staff when we came here, and so she was my first -- she was my first win as a recruiter, okay, to keep her. And then my next one was getting Melanie Walls to get back into the college game with us. But coach Ali has meant so much to this program. She held just about every three-point record, which is very cool because we've got two young women on our team in Jordan Brock, the career three-point leader now, and then Maaliya Owens, who broke her season record last night.

So she is Tennessee Tech basketball, and so to see both our student-athletes and our staff, but also Coach Ali, who loves this program so much, get to experience this and get to experience it with her, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun.

Q. One of the strengths of the program is how well the players get along, but also the versatility on the lineup. It's not just one player doing everything. It is all across the lineup.

KIM ROSAMOND: And you saw that last night. Peyton Carter set the tone for us last night when she had 12 points in the first quarter and came out, hit 4-3s, you know, and then obviously Ginny Boggess is a very good coach and she's not going to let one kid hurt her. And then when they started taking her three away, you saw Jordan Brock step up and make some big plays. Then in the second half you saw Maaliya Owens step up and make big plays, Anna Walker had a big second half, Reghan Grimes, while she didn't -- as far as scoring last night, didn't impact the game, but she impacted it in so many other ways, defensively and rebounding. And then Jada Guinn "Jada Guinn'ed" it, so to speak. What she has done so many times for us down the stretch. She just took over when we needed big buckets. So, you know, that's another one of our core values is team first, and we want to be unselfish. We've got a very unselfish basketball team that shares the ball. And so, yes, it's hard to guard a kid that averages a lot of points, but when you've got five scorers on the floor, it makes it very difficult as well.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much. You may join your team.