NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - COLORADO VS DUKE

March 19, 2023

JR Payne

Aaronette Vonleh

Kindyll Wetta

Cameron Indoor Stadium

Colorado Buffaloes

Media Conference

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. Joining us from the University of Colorado is Aaronette Vonleh and Kindyll Wetta. They will tip off against Duke University tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m.

We'll open for questions for the student-athletes.

Q. You guys have done a good job of moving on from one game to the next. Do you have to balance some emotions of like you got a win in the NCAA Tournament with, hey, just move on and this is another game?

AARONETTE VONLEH: I think yeah. I feel like we've been doing that all season after any big win. So this is kind of just the same thing, but it's all just back to back to back. But we definitely spend a good amount of time after the game just enjoying that feeling and living in the moment.

KINDYLL WETTA: I agree with what Aaronette said. We have had a lot of great wins this season, and our coach has really prioritized turning around and focusing on the next game. So celebrating, but celebrating quick, and then focusing on the next team.

Q. Aaronette, you were at Arizona last year and were not in this kind of role as you are here in Colorado. You're the co-Most Improved Player in the league. How have these coaches empowered you take your game to the level it's at right now?

AARONETTE VONLEH: I would say the main thing is just believing in me. They obviously saw that I had the ability to be good, so that's why they recruited me. And then just living up to that, like constantly giving me advice, coaching me up, giving me confidence.

Q. Kindyll, your impressions of having Aaronette this year and the difference that she's made for you guys in the post.

KINDYLL WETTA: Yeah, preseason we were doing some just like pickup runs, and I knew immediately she was going to be one of the best, if not the best, post player in the Pac-12, and she's definitely proved that this season for sure. And she's been a great person to play with and also to have on the team.

Q. Kindyll, how excited do you think your team may be to test your three-point shooting again tomorrow night after the way the ball was falling last night?

KINDYLL WETTA: Yeah, we're very excited. I remember before this past game we were talking about this gym being a shooter's gym. And Jaylyn came up to me on one of the timeouts and was like, it's a shooter's gym. I said, yeah, you're right. So we're excited for sure.

Q. Frida told us the same thing, by the way, a couple days ago. She was calling it. You guys obviously got to see a good -- probably more of Duke last night than they got to see of you guys because they were getting ready for their game. You know how much they want to press. You know how big it is, and what they do. You guys were working on press breaks today. For both of you, the mindset, what is it like going into this game because you know you'll see that kind of pressure for 40 minutes?

KINDYLL WETTA: We see a lot of pressure in the Pac-12, so we're not necessarily concerned about it, and we have some great ball handlers on the team. But we welcome it. We're ready to be pressed and pressured and take on that challenge.

AARONETTE VONLEH: I just think our guards do a good job of handling pressure, especially in the Pac-12, like she said. So this won't be any different. And us posts will be in the backcourt if they need us.

Q. Just to follow up on the three-point shooting, is there a chance there's a little fool's gold maybe where you're so successful one night, and does that maybe -- you don't want to get out of what you normally do?

KINDYLL WETTA: I mean, maybe, but I also think it's given us a lot of confidence going into the next game. We shoot like that in practice too. So we know that's something we're capable of. We obviously don't shoot that great every single game, but we know that we can, and if we see the shots are kind of falling next game, then we know we have that again.

Q. How about the rebounding as well for you guys? I know it's a big philosophy point for Coach, but last night it really showed in the game. What has been the rebounding philosophy for this team all year?

AARONETTE VONLEH: We definitely spent a lot of time this week just working on boxing out, making contact, and kind of just the fundamentals. I'd say all season like we always have a goal before the game to give up a certain amount of rebounds. So it's just like a 50-50 effort of boxing out and then just making sure you're going and grabbing the ball.

KINDYLL WETTA: That's something we have always prioritized. Toriano was huge on rebounding, offensive rebounding, and boxing out. And so that's been a goal all season, like she said.

Q. You guys are obviously very scout driven. As you tried to learn about Duke very quickly, do they remind you of anyone you've already played this year?

KINDYLL WETTA: Not necessarily. They're a very quick team, so probably a little bit kind of like USC maybe. But they're, I think, different than a lot of teams we've seen in the Pac-12 so far. You can find similarities anywhere, but different than most of the teams.

AARONETTE VONLEH: I agree. There's definitely some similarities, like you could compare some of their players to players we've seen in the past. But as a team, I feel like it's a little new.

Q. We talked to your coach, I think two days ago, about how the Pac-12 has prepared you guys for different styles. You see a lot of different styles in the Pac-12. From your answer, Kindyll, I got a little vibe that maybe the Pac-12 isn't getting the respect they deserve nationally, that it's underrated in some aspects. Am I off on that? How did the Pac-12 get you ready for this moment?

KINDYLL WETTA: Like you said, there's lots of different styles in the Pac-12. I wouldn't necessarily say the respect part. I think that that's proven with games in the NCAA Tournament.

But you do, you see a lot of different styles -- teams that want to push in transition, teams that want to run offenses. I think you get a little bit of a sense of every type of play.

But I don't think anything quite like Duke because they've got more of guard play, more transition. So just a little different in that sense but nothing too crazy.

Q. Before last night's win, it was 2003 that Colorado had won a tournament game, a month before your birthday. So you weren't even born yet. You're the only Colorado native on the team. You've seen the narrative of some of the high school prep stars going elsewhere. Talk about the pride you have and what drives you to be a Colorado Buffalo and what tradition you're looking to instill.

KINDYLL WETTA: Well, that's why I chose to come here. When I committed first, they weren't very good, but I knew I wanted to stay home. My mom played there. I wanted to do what I could to help bring the program back to being an NCAA competitive team.

Obviously that's not just me. It's additions like Aaronette and Quay and Tam and an amazing point guard in Jaylyn and Frida. So it takes a whole team. But I do feel like I've been able to play a small role-ish in bringing us back to being a great team.

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. Joining us from University of Colorado is Coach JR Payne. Her team will tip off tomorrow night against Duke at 9:00 p.m.

We'll open questions to Coach Payne.

Q. Coach, you guys are so scout driven, and now you have less than 48 hours to get ready for a team you've never prepared for. What's the process been like for you guys? Was one of your assistants working on Duke this last week? Kind of what's the process, and how is it different from what you've normally experienced?

JR PAYNE: The scouts this week were kind of group efforts, more so than normally one person does the entire scout and then we game plan together.

Yeah, both of our assistants were working on the scouts this week. So the scout was done. And then last night we watch the game and sort of verified, okay, what we saw on film is the same thing as they're doing now.

Yeah, the hard thing about Duke is they run a lot of stuff and they play a lot of players. So it's a lot of information to try to ingest in 24 to 48 hours. So I think that's the biggest thing is making sure that we're trying to learn as much as we need to learn.

We won't know them as well as we would know UCLA or Stanford or someone that we've seen for many years. But we'll know them well enough to know what they want to get out of certain things and what we'll try to do to slow them down.

Q. I asked Aaronette about this, and her main answer was these coaches just believed in me, that was kind of the difference. But she was at Arizona last year, didn't do much at Arizona. Obviously you saw her, I'm sure, in league play, thought she can help you guys, Co-Most Improved Player. So just tell me more about her evolution and how important she's become for you guys.

JR PAYNE: We recruited Aaronette in high school, so we've known her for a long time. In fact, we were joking about her Zoom meeting because she was recruited during COVID where you couldn't really go spend time with anyone. She's very quiet, as you probably noticed while she was up here.

So we were laughing the other day, she probably said three words on our Zoom, and we got off the call like, was that good? Did she like us?

So Aaronette, we've always known she's extremely capable. She comes from a very athletic family, very smart family. Yeah, we saw how she did at Arizona and just didn't have a lot of opportunity. So when she went into the portal, we knew that was something we wanted, like she became a huge priority immediately because we knew what she was capable of being.

She's thrived and blossomed all year long and is really growing in so many ways. The basketball is just part of it, but growing as a student and just all of it. So we really feel like her best basketball is ahead of her. We believe so strongly in what she's capable of doing and what she's capable of being to this team.

So we're just going to continue to watch her grow. It's pretty exciting, though.

Q. While we're on the topic of transfers, Tayanna Jones is kind of a local player from here. How did she end up in your program?

JR PAYNE: Tay started at Georgetown. I think she spent two years there before she came to Colorado. One of our coaches found her through the transfer portal and then looked her up, watched her film. She kind of fits our style: long, versatile, and athletic. It was something we felt like we needed.

It was a long ways from home for her to come to Colorado, but I think we just sort of made a good connection. I think what we were offering was what she was looking for and sort of a fresh start and fresh opportunity.

When she first got here, those players were not eligible to play as a transfer student. So that was COVID year. So all of a sudden, we're eight games in or so and she's redshirting and training as if she's redshirting, so not really getting like true game reps and things like that. Then all of a sudden, everybody was eligible. So it changed her process pretty quickly, which I thought she handled really well because that's a difficult thing to do when you're prepping for a redshirt year and then all of a sudden you're playing. So, she did a great job with that.

Really special to be here in her neck of the woods with her family just down the road, and it's been great.

Q. Your first thoughts after winning the game last night were what?

JR PAYNE: Just excited. I think we had built up enough lead that you sort of knew it was coming, but until the final buzzer sounds -- yeah, we're just excited. That was our goal was to come and win games. We don't want the season to end. We want to keep winning. We want to keep playing.

So to take sort of that first step in being able to do that, everyone was just really excited.

Q. Looking at some of the numbers, you and Duke like to do some of the same stuff. Does that make a quick turnaround scout easier, harder, about the same?

JR PAYNE: Like I said, I think because they run so much and they play so many people, it makes it a challenging turnaround. Our team, I think I said this yesterday, we have a highly intelligent team, really academic group that knows how to watch film, knows how to study a scout, and knows how to weed through it and be able to say, okay, these three things are important. I don't need to know these 23 things. I need to know these three and be able to lock in on that.

So I trust our team, led by our upperclassmen for sure, to make sure we know what we need to know and we're ready to go.

Q. You mentioned Duke plays a lot of players. Does that make your bench more important in a game like this where you've got to keep fresh as well and make sure those girls are coming in and giving you good minutes?

JR PAYNE: Sure, I think our bench played great last night, and we'll expect that again tomorrow. I think anyone who steps op the floor on both teams probably needs to be ready to play. However long, however tough, they're going to need to be ready to play.

For us, everyone is really confident in their role, confident in what they know they can bring to the team to help us be successful. So I trust that every single one of our players will be very ready to play when their name's called.

Q. I know Kelly Graves has been a mentor for you in a lot of ways from Saint Mary's to Gonzaga and all these types of things. What did you take from him? How has he helped you as a coach and maybe just playing for him in general? We're obviously going to talk about Kara coming from the Pat Summitt tree, but you come from the Kelly Graves tree.

JR PAYNE: I love talking about Kelly. He's just one of my favorite people in the whole world. Kelly came to Saint Mary's where I was playing my junior year of college.

My first couple years hadn't been as much fun as I thought they would be from a basketball standpoint. Coming from Canada, I always tell people my first game of man-to-man defense was my first open gym at college. So I wasn't totally prepared for American basketball. The first couple years weren't, like I said, as fun as they were.

When Kelly got there, he really just reignited my love for basketball and made it fun. I think two of the biggest things he taught me were that basketball's highly competitive, it's high stakes, there's a lot of money involved. There's a lot of competitive spirit. But at the heart of it all, it's supposed to be fun. And to be able to laugh and have joy on a daily basis throughout your training and environment, that comes directly from him.

The second thing he taught me, or his wife Mary taught me, was that you can be -- you can have it all. You can be a great coach. You can be a great mom. You can be a great mentor, leader, whatever that might be. You don't have to sacrifice one for the other.

So as a woman coaching at this level that is a mother of three children, it's hard sometimes to do it all and to have the best of everything, but I learned as his assistant at a very young age you can do it. So, yeah, I think those are probably the two biggest things.

We talk every single week. He's in my corner. We talk not really even that much basketball, more just life and how things are going. Yeah, he's definitely a blessing to me.

Q. Your team is very good at being even-keeled in situations throughout the year. This is a very new situation being on this stage. Do you feel like your team, so far today, you're seeing they're handling it well and not in awe and you're confident they'll be just fine in that regard tomorrow?

JR PAYNE: Absolutely. I think our team is a very mature group. We have a lot of upperclassmen that do a great job of keeping us right where we need to be, whether that's really fired up or really everybody needs to take a step back and relax. Whatever is sort of needed in the moment, our upperclassmen do a great job of setting that tone.

I definitely think today's been a great day so far. We've already just been watching film and had a great practice. Now we'll rest a little bit. I think we're all kind of tired from the late night. Definitely we'll be locked in for tomorrow.