NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - MIAMI HURRICANES VS OKLAHOMA STATE

March 17, 2023

Katie Meier

Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall

Miami Hurricanes

Media Conference

KATIE MEIER: I want to thank Indiana for hosting. I have had the pleasure as a coach doing it a couple times. It's a lot. I want to thank everybody who is stepping up and volunteering to help host this great tournament. So that's number one.

Then number two, I want to thank my team. I mean, we went through a lot this year. And they are tough. They're gritty. They fought really hard. They stayed together, and I'm excited for them. I hope we play our best game of the year coming up tomorrow.

Q. I noticed that both the Miami men and Miami women are in the sake bracket. It is unusual to have two match ups potentially between Miami and Indiana.

KATIE MEIER: Yeah. Our athletic director was at the selection show. He came running from the men's and came over to us, and that's something that we talked about, like hopefully, right? Hopefully, there's that scenario where we might be playing each other, but we have to take care of game one first for sure. Great opponent, we have a great opponent.

Q. Describe your play, kind of your journey to really get here.

KATIE MEIER: I think the evolution of our team this year has been phenomenal. We returned what you would say is four starters, right? It's looks like, okay, you just replaced Kelsey Marshall with Haley Cavinder. We lost a ton of veteran post play last year, a ton. They were smart. They were tough. They passed and found each other.

And to have so much youth in our posts and how important Kyla and Zee have been, and both of them have had injuries this year, so they're just playing well, and they kind of drop off for you. Kyla, we didn't have for our first 11 games. She's a star. Lazaria Spearman is a star. They're very, very good.

I wish we had a good year with them where they could play through everything. I think that's been the patience of like some of the guards who are like, you know, if -- just some of the reads in the posts and all of that, I think that's been one of the bigger growth areas of our team, which isn't really being talked about is that where do they want the ball, how do they want the ball, how are they going to finish, making sure they don't foul on the defensive end.

We have been waiting patiently for those to become the stars they need to be. I think that's what Destiny and Haley referenced they did so much keeping the team together, staying together, and not getting frustrated and staying patient with each other. It's been a heck of a learning process.

We had a lot of new. The new players are really good. It's helped us.

Q. What is your feeling Oklahoma State?

KATIE MEIER: Yeah. I was not very familiar with them. And I watch a lot of basketball, but I had not seen a lot of them this year. I don't know who was calling that Big 12 tournament, but announcers didn't know what they were doing. No.

I learned a lot from the announcers in the Big 12 tournament when I watched. No, but there's so smart. They're balanced. They're balanced in a different way than we are balanced, I think.

They're balanced like consistently 10, 12 points a night from consistent players. We are balanced in a way where someone off our bench might go for 20, and then the next game they might only be able to get four based on the schemes or something like that.

Our averages look like we are balanced, but they're -- within the course of a game, whatever shot is the best shots for Oklahoma State, they find it and hit it. So I'm very impressed with them. I really think their defensive is high level. From what I have seen, personnel scouting, they do a fantastic job, fantastic job. It's a compliment to their staff.

Q. Can you speak to Destiny's leadership and how valuable she is to this team?

KATIE MEIER: Look, Destiny Harden is -- we are both from Chicago. We took her home this year to play at Loyola and at DePaul, but it took me home too. And the Cavinders are from actually very close to here originally.

When we played those games, it was -- we had -- DePaul had a good crowd. We had more fans cheering for Miami in those two games because of family. Destiny has always been family to me. And I remember the whole visit, you want walk in the home visit, there's like 20 people in the home visit. You are like I love this. And that's just been kind of always very raw, very authentic.

When she represents me in the locker room or represents me for the team, she does it in a way there is absolutely no layers. It's the raw truth. She is like coach just said blah, and she's supportive of the messaging and just a very honest, honorable, honorable person. She is just a wonderful human being.

And when she first came, you know, learning the system and understanding where the wrinkles were for her, she had missed some stuff once in awhile. But she would just come in with those big eyes and say, film, let's go and just sit there and absorb and absorb and absorb because she has to play on instinct. It's been so great the last couple years to see her have her moments where everything is clicking and she's playing on instinct. Great question.

Q. When you look up and down your roster, it's kind of a microcosm of what college athletics is right now, a lot of experience, but also a lot of youth, a lot of players that you recruited straight out of high school and a lot of players that have found their way to Miami through different avenues. How were you able to blend that together and find yourself in the NCAA tournament this year?

KATIE MEIER: One of the things about me and my staff, we are going to come at you pretty straightforward. The people that respond to that don't really have a hard time looking in. You know, I will back up some of my proclamations with good analytics and statistics, but listen, we do it -- you know, we will run practice, and I will just grade the shot. And even if it gets the three point that gets in, that's minus ten. That's not your shot. What are you doing? It is not to anyone's confidence, but if someone misses a beautiful shot, I will be like that's plus ten. That's the shot we need, whatever.

I think as a coach, when you could take some of that burden off and no one is wondering did she like that or have a favorite, no, I'm not like that. And I think our team is now not like that and everybody sort of blends in and does what they could do, but it's pretty raw information as quickly as you can get it. If I'm frustrated with them, I don't hide it. If I'm elated with them, I don't hide it.

When people come into the culture and think of transferring in and they see this is like, wow, this is no BS. It's real. There's a lot of love and a lot of emotion in our program. And I'm proud of it.

Q. When we watch Miami basketball, what will we see? What is your style? What's your philosophy? What do you lay your hat on?

KATIE MEIER: It's so hard. When you play such a great conference, and my god, ACC, we have had some injuries with postseason, I hope, but the conference this year and I'm 18 years as a coach, five as a player, I mean, I can speak on the ACC a little bit.

I have never -- it's never been harder the gauntlet of the season. Now we have had some better teams at the top, or you know, that -- like my first year we had three of the four teams in the Final Four in my first year of coaching. I wanted to go right back to Charlotte. I was like what have I done.

It's never been harder. And you kind of lose your way a little bit being honest as a coach. You kind of lose your identity because every fourth quarter, the game was on the line of every single one of our games. It was incredible.

And I never had time to go let me try this line up or let's get back to doing -- let's just make sure we get our pace up. Like it was coach -- and so this time off has been good for us, I think, to kind of remind ourselves this is what we do because it was a matchup -- you know, conversation of like 40 minutes of, you know, 18 games. It was a lot. It was a lot mentally for our kids and a lot emotionally for them as well.

We have a fresh opponent. They won't know us as well as playing us three or four times a year and maybe we can get our identify back a little bit.

Q. Last year, what did you learn from that as a team, take from that that you can use this year?

KATIE MEIER: Well, once again, we are in this situation, but we are also one of the few teams in the country that has a win versus a one seed. And last year I think we had two of them. One of them, two of them.

So I think maybe we are kind of known as a team that has the ability to beat a one seed if given. But what we learned from last year was that this eight, nine game, these are the juiciest best games of the tournament. They're fun. They are -- both teams are hungry. You don't look forward at all.

I mean, I have not seen one second on the other part -- I have been 100 percent on Oklahoma State because it feels like -- and they're going to feel the same way. We have been in these games for two months. It's another one of those games.

Q. I have asked this at several different sites when I covered last year. Would you like having top team host the site like Indiana or prefer it to be on neutral site from the beginning like this is for later in the tournament?

KATIE MEIER: Well, I have been on both sides of that. And one year we went to Iowa and won the first round and lost to Iowa. And I said -- and my team was like I don't like this, Coach. And I was like then win more and host. So I'm never going complain about the setup the way it is.

You got to win more games. You gotta earn the right to host. We have hosted twice. It's important. I do believe we are pretty darn close to not needing to fill the seeds with the host. But I would bet you that we will play better tomorrow if the crowd stays than we will if they leave.

Q. Coach, you have coached a number of NCAA tournaments. Does your message differ from tournament to tournament or does it stay fairly consistent and what was your message to your team coming into this tournament?

KATIE MEIER: The message is always very different depending on my team. This team is a little more wide eyes like there's a lot of -- this is our first, you know, on our veterans. I have three captains; Lola, Karla and Destiny. And all three of them actually transferred in. But on selection show, I had them sitting with me, and I leaned over and we hugged. And I was like how many NCAA tournaments have you been in? And Lola says one at Miami. Carla, one. That meant this is my second at Miami. Destiny, only here. And I said to those three kids, I said so you had to come to Miami to get to the tournament, huh? I immediately said but the truth is, we wouldn't be there without you.

And they need to have that veteran feel to -- we need a lot from them. They're also doing a great job of making sure the young players, go ahead and be young, go ahead and have it be the first time, go ahead and enjoy it. But when we sit on you, we are going to sit on you and then you have to sharpen up and have some discipline so they are doing a great job of that.

Q. Coach, you spoke on the six or seven days since the selection show and focusing on Oklahoma State, but what were the six or seven days between the end of your ACC Tournament and knowing you were in and that you had your spot in March Madness, what were those like with your team just maybe preparing?

KATIE MEIER: Well, we did camp Miami. It's one of my favorite times as a coach. I love to get back into the construction zone or lab or whatever people call it. I call it camp. Just cleaning up the timing, cleaning up the fundamentals.

I did a whole postseason project of our last games from Louisville, from at Louisville on, and analyzed everything and put it all together and realized that we had gotten sloppy. We were sloppy. We were so worried about why we were running the play and if we had that match up or whatever else and our catching and passing was horrible. It happens.

So that was fun for me. I don't know if it was fun for the players, but it is so fun for a coach to structure all of these really competitive drills too. If you have 13th place, you run 13 sprints. You got 12th place, you run 12. Then if you won that drill, you pick your partner. Now two and two. You won that, now three and three. You won four, now four and four. Compete. Compete. Compete. Don't pick a friend. Pick whoever you don't want to have to run. That's what we did for a couple days. I think that really woke us up and elevated us.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for your time.