NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: FIRST ROUND - NORFOLK STATE VS SOUTH CAROLINA

March 17, 2023

Larry Vickers

Kierra Wheeler

Deja Francis

Colonial Life Arena

Norfolk State Spartans

Media Conference

South Carolina-72, Norfolk State-40

THE MODERATOR: We're joined now by the Norfolk State Spartans, Head Coach Larry Vickers, student-athletes Deja Francis and Kierra Wheeler.

Coach, if you would make an opening statement.

LARRY VICKERS: Wow, so many things to say. So many things running through my brain. First of all, I'll talk about my team first before talking about South Carolina.

I mean, since June they have worked hard every single day. Well, for the most part. 85 percent of the days (laughing), but we worked hard a lot of days, and that led to a 26-win season, and that led to our first tournament berth since 2002, so 21 years.

You know, we always talk about how difficult it is to win a regular season championship. That's two months. But to win a tournament championship, that's four days, you know. Then we prevailed for four days and won both.

You know, for both of my seniors, Deja and Camille, you know, they've won two regular season championships and a tournament championship. For my sophomores, I have six of them that play in our rotation. They see now what it takes to win and the grind day in, day out.

South Carolina, they're as good as you expect them to be. They just keep running them out, running them out. In the third period, end of the third, we began to get a little gassed. Then they just bring 20 in. She just -- Feagin, gosh. It was like Boston and 10 were just wearing us down, wearing us down, wearing us down, and then they throw 20 in to finish us.

You know, that kind of depth, you can't kind of simulate in practice. You can't simulate it. I felt like in the first half we did a pretty good job on the O-glass. In the second half just fatigue kind of set in.

They're an amazing team. I don't know what they are now. 30-0, 29-0, whatever it may be, but good luck to them the rest of the year.

THE MODERATOR: Open it up for questions just for the student-athletes at this time.

Q. Kierra, this is for you. You kind of held your own against that depth. What did this show you in terms of what you want to add to your game coming into next season?

KIERRA WHEELER: It definitely showed me that I just got to work on my outside game and just being able to compete with the top level girls is the best feeling. It's nothing but work to be done this summer.

Q. Deja, I know you are one of the smaller players on the court, but at one point you were leading Norfolk State in rebounds. Just amongst that height, what does it mean to you to get out there and leave it all out on the floor during that game?

DEJA FRANCIS: It's always hard. You know, just going out there and finding the ball. I mean, it came to me, and I was thankful that it did. But once again, we were just battling and going after it.

Q. I know one of the things with South Carolina is being able to withstand that first blow. How do you guys think you all did in the first quarter when they was getting to the line a couple of times and, you know, kind of scoring from the free-throw line?

DEJA FRANCIS: We knew what to expect. It's that simple. Coach LV told us not to let the scoreboard affect us. Keep playing hard and take every possession one at a time. So that's what we did.

THE MODERATOR: Kierra, you want to add to that?

KIERRA WHEELER: Basically what she said. We stuck together, and every time they called a foul or we got a break, we just told each other keep working hard, and that's exactly what we did.

Q. For Deja and Kierra, Coach Vickers said that fatigue maybe kind of -- you kind of got worn down middle of the third quarter into the fourth quarter. Did you see that out there? Did you feel that?

THE MODERATOR: Kierra, you want to go first?

KIERRA WHEELER: Me being the one that was guarding Aliyah Boston and Kamilla Cardoso? Yes, I did feel it (laughing). It was definitely a challenge, but when I did feel that fatigue, I told my teammates, like, I'm going to need your help down here. I'm boxing them out, but you have to come grab the rebound. I think they put in more effort to come down there and help me.

DEJA FRANCIS: Yeah, we definitely did feel it, but once again, we knew what to expect, but we stuck together. When Coach LV was taking us, put me in and out, and I was thankful for that breather that I did get.

Q. Kierra, I know you and Niya had good performances tonight. I know we talked earlier in the week about regardless of the result of this game, it would help out the program. How did you feel like you and Niya's performances will kind of help you with this experience and moving farther into the program as you progress?

KIERRA WHEELER: I think me and Niya have a great connection, us being sophomores together. This is my first year with her, so for us to have that connection already is amazing.

We just know, like, with this experience, we're going to carry it into next year so that the people coming in next year and our teammates know, like, we mean business, and we want to get back here with a different result next year.

Q. What does this say for the program moving forward for Coach Vickers and for Kierra?

KIERRA WHEELER: For the program moving forward, we're nothing but excited for next year. I mean, of course, this loss is going to take some toll on us. We're going to take some time to recover from this, but we're right back at it for preseason, and I'm just looking forward to next year and what we have to bring.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you. We'll open it up for questions for Coach Vickers.

Q. Coach, you know, going back to that first quarter, they said they knew what to expect. How do you feel like they handled that first blow in the first quarter?

LARRY VICKERS: Well, at one point it was tied 2-2 (laughing). You know, it's one of those things where, you know, we had different game goals. I talked to them about them.

We wanted to win three out of the eight medias. I think we won one. Maybe one was tied. Now well have to check for the fourth period.

It's frustrating when you are working your butt off down there. Not that the officiating was bad or anything, but then you get a whistle. And it says they only got 16 offensive rebounds. It felt like 60, you know? So you can't give a good team that many opportunities at it. We knew that going in. Unfortunately, we gave them too many.

I also thought Coach Staley called a time-out in the beginning of the second period. Then after that they went on, like, a 9-0 run. I'm not sure exactly what it was exactly, but I think it was about 9-0.

In those moments, you know, we missed layups. In those moments we had costly turnovers, and they're not going to make too many mistakes. That's why they're the No. 1 team in the country, but when they make a mistake, you have to make them pay, and we didn't do that, you know, unfortunately.

Q. I know during the week you were emphasizing, you know, the need to win the post and the rebound battle. In the first half I think you were only one off of South Carolina's total. Just what did it say to see your team battling that first half on the glass?

LARRY VICKERS: You know it's good when you get -- when you have a team that really buys in. My group really bought into everything. I kind of preached this year. You know, so when you go into halftime, I couldn't even be mad because, you know, we left it all out there in the first half.

The biggest difference between a program like South Carolina or the other teams that you see that are ranked really high is the depth, you know? When we went to our bench after Mimi -- I'm playing Mimi. I generally only play her 28 minutes. Today I played her 35. When you start to go in a program's bench, that's generally when you see the difference.

Not that my first five is as good as their first five, but the difference between mid-major and low major competition when you come to these tournament teams is generally the bench. Deja played solid. Camille was in foul trouble, but she had good looks. Mimi was good. Niya was solid.

It's the bench when things like that happen, and our bench is going to get better, and hopefully we can continue to recruit at a higher level and fill some of those holes.

Q. Just having all of your younger players have that trial by fire moment, I know Deja said last season y'all came in with the goal of improving defensively and as a rebounding team. What do you feel like the next wrinkle is to take the program to the next level?

LARRY VICKERS: Well, I don't care how, but hopefully we get here again, and hopefully we don't have a 1 and a 6 next to our name.

Everybody always asks me, what's the biggest difference between men's and women's basketball, and it's not the coaching piece. It's not really that piece. It's every year there are great teams in women's basketball, and every year there are not great teams in men's basketball because so many people leave.

I watched their game against Georgia for their senior night, and you are, like, they won 118 games together before they closed the season. Like, that is remarkable. That's crazy. You start using words like crazy and insane.

Knowing that we have a sophomore group with six players, hopefully this sophomore group can come to the tournament in two years, and you'll be, like, that sophomore group won 90 games together or 85 games together. You know, that's something that we're looking to build to.

Q. To your point about the recruiting, despite the result of the game today, how much does playing this game on the national stage on ESPN kind of help with continuing to build the program and recruiting and things like that?

LARRY VICKERS: I'm glad you said that, and I didn't bring it up all week, but we played on ESPN 1. You know what I'm saying? Like the first one (laughter). Not 2, not 3, not Plus. We played on ESPN today. Like, nothing after. Not the W, not the nothing.

So, I mean, we had some empty possessions that we would love to have back, but I'll tell you, we would love maybe some of those empty possessions had something to do with no Plus or no 3 or no 2 next to that. Like our men's program, they've won a ton of games. They've never played on ESPN 1 before.

Just the exposure that you can get from this tournament is amazing. We appreciate the whole week. You know, hopefully next time, like I said, we can get a 15 or a 14 or whatever that case might be because when you are on that one line, it's a little different. It's a little different.

Q. Larry, this is your first experience coaching your team here at the NCAAs. What do you take away from this that you can, I don't know, use to build the next time you are here in a year or two years or whenever?

LARRY VICKERS: You know, Brian who is on the Zoom, he does an excellent job covering my team locally, but just that ability to talk in front of y'all, to talk to Adscape, to talk to all the different reporting groups that have been covering us. HBCU Gameday has been covering us for weeks now. Just that notoriety piece. Just that exposure.

We have good players. Sometimes teams will take the 12th player on a really good team over an All-Conference MIAC player, so we need this for the exposure for Deja, for Camille, and the others to just help them kind of get the money overseas that they deserve.

It's been an amazing week for us. I told them before, there's not a better film to send overseas than this one. There's not a better one, you know? The way they competed today, it speaks to their character.