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

March 20, 2023

Kara Lawson

Celeste Taylor

Reigan Richardson

Cameron Indoor Stadium

Duke Blue Devils

Media Conference

Colorado 61, Duke 53

KARA LAWSON: It's a tough loss for us. We fought hard. Got ourselves into a little bit of a hole there to start the game, and I was really proud of our group for fighting back. I think we cut it to six at halftime. Ultimately, took the lead there in the fourth quarter, and just fought tooth and nail.

The game obviously went to overtime and they were better in that five-minute stretch and that's why they are moving on. Terrific team as I shared with you all over the last couple days, they are very complete. I thought they played with great aggression and you know, we came up a little short. It hurts to come up short at this time of year, but I'm really proud of my group and the season they have had. They have been tremendous to coach. That's what I told them in the locker room after the game.

It hurts to lose and certainly ends your season but every day that I drove in to coach this team, I was excited. I may not -- I could coach another 20 years and never have a team as special as this one in terms of how they are so bought in, how they work together, how they were so spirited in their support of one another. It's just been an incredible year, and I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to coach this group.

Q. The 15-2 hole you found yourself in at the beginning of the game, what was going on there?

CELESTE TAYLOR: Like Coach said, we put ourselves in the hole a little bit. We were not playing the defense that we know we can play. We were fighting, obviously, but we just weren't clicking defensively and really focusing in on the detail.

But I think once we got into that detail and found our rhythm offensively, we started to pick it up a little bit.

REIGAN RICHARDSON: To Celeste's point, we did start off the game a little slow, but we trusted each other and got back into it.

Q. For either player, when Colorado started the fourth quarter in zone, you guys were coming into that period with a lot of momentum, but then went on a stretch of not being able to make any baskets for that first five, six minutes. Was it something specific about the zone that took you out of that rhythm or was it just a matter of not making shots?

REIGAN RICHARDSON: Unfortunately, we just weren't knocking down shots. We've seen the zone before. We weren't scared of it for sure. It was a matter of us not knocking down shots. We got the looks that we wanted. We just weren't knocking it down.

Q. In the third quarter, you both played a big part in the team coming back into the game. What happened at halftime where you came out with a lot more energy?

CELESTE TAYLOR: I thank our momentum coming in from the half. We got a great look at the end of the first half and we just didn't put it in the basket.

But I think we just know we have so much confidence in each other that, like, it was bad that we put ourselves in that position, but we knew we was going to fight back. We are fighters. We are soldiers. Like we come to battle every single night.

So we knew we were going to get ourselves back into the game. So we just -- Reigan hit some big shots for us late in the stretch. Some shots weren't falling for some of us. But, I mean, we come to battle every night. So, that momentum I think from the end of the first half, we had some of our bench players in and they did a great job of helping us out and helping us pick back up where we lacked, some of the starters lacked, especially through foul trouble and everything else. So, they did a great job for us to lead us into that second half.

REIGAN RICHARDSON: For sure, going into the second half, we did come in with a lot of momentum. The energy from the bench and from just the arena itself, it kind of helped us with that, so I think, yeah, just coming off of halftime, just the momentum that we had really helped us with our progression in the third.

Q. I know it's fresh off the game, but do you all have perspective of just what you've done, been able to accomplish this season in terms of kind of establishing the foundation for Coach Lawson's tenure moving forward?

CELESTE TAYLOR: Yeah, I mean, it was a dream to come play here. I came here to bring us to the tournament and just try to help us out a little bit. Coach Kara has so much belief in me and I think that my respect for her is so high; it was like a no-brainer coming here to help her out in that aspect of just building that foundation. It completely sucks, obviously. We wanted to go so much further. We had it in us.

But, we had a great season. I said it before, from last year to this year, like, you can't even put it into words because we didn't even -- we weren't even picked to finish top five in this conference to start it off. We were playing to win the conference the last game. To be in that position and to -- everybody, we have great players all the way around.

Like there's a lot of people staying back and they are just going to build that up. They have that experience now of getting into the tournament, and seeing how much work that they have to put in in order to get to that position; and so I just hope like Reigan and Shay can lead the next group of girls, just like we tried to do this year.

Q. You guys had 17 steals; Celeste Taylor has ten of them. We've talked about her all season long, but can you speak to the fight and determination she has for the entire time she's out there and just her compete level?

KARA LAWSON: I didn't see the stats until after the game. I'm sure you guys saw them. It's an unbelievable performance by her. It's crazy, I'm looking at it: 8 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists, 10 steals. Oh, my God, I don't even know the last time I had a teammate or -- I've been playing, I've been IN this game a long time, playing and coaching and I don't know that I've ever had a 5'10 guard do that. She's the definition of laying it out there. That's what elite competitors do. She's not scared of doing that.

This is a hard thing, you know, to compete in this tournament. There's a lot of good teams. And some people are afraid of laying it all out there because they don't want to be disappointed when it ends. So they will hold back a little bit and they will say, I'm not going to give everything because if it doesn't go well, I don't want to give everything that I have. You know, we do that a lot in a lot of stuff.

And then there's people that just lay it out there, and sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, but they give it everything they have. That's what Celeste has done for us this year, and that's such an amazing quality to have in a person, let alone a player.

I'm so proud of her. You know, I love her. You know, I'm disappointed that I couldn't do more to help get her and the rest of our players to the next round. But, she is just -- she is special. And you know, there's just not many players like her that lay it on the line like that.

Q. We spoke after last game after your personal experience as a player and what you shared in terms of finding your motivation in the big moments. What's your message tonight to your players in terms of dealing with adversity? And Celeste touched on it: For those coming back next year, how do you use this as a motivating tool, springboard heading into next season?

KARA LAWSON: I didn't say much to them to be honest after the game. There's just a lot of hurt because they love playing with each other, and the team changes from year-to-year as you all know. Players graduate, so the team is never the same. They are sad because they don't get to stay together and play another season together.

With it being that fresh, I didn't talk too much about it. We'll obviously talk in the coming days or weeks and things like that. But, more specifically, my message to them was that I love them, and thanking them. Thanking them for the year that we had, the season we had.

It just was a special group, and you know, I'm not just saying this, like I really love, loved, every day with them. There wasn't a day that I didn't want to come to work or I was, you know, frustrated with this or frustrated with that. Like every day, this group came in and just worked so hard.

So, I think that's more of the sadness, you know, that you don't get to spend more days with this specific group. It changes every year. I just love, love this season. I'll remember this season for a long time, probably the rest of my life.

Q. I was wondering, that final play, final possession you guys had in regulation, what kind of shot did you want to get? It was a clean look but was that what you were going for?

KARA LAWSON: Yeah. Obviously against the zone I felt like we could get a screen and get Shayeann going to her right. She could have taken a two or three; it was her option, but I wanted to get her going in making a decision.

I thought she got a fantastic -- it was wide open, a wide open look. She just missed. But that's not obviously the reason we lost the game, her missing that shot. There's a lot of things.

But yeah, that was what we wanted against their zone and I thought we got a clean look.

Q. Duke has been a good rebounding team all season long. You had a hard time keeping Miller off the boards. What made her so effective? She had a couple of huge stick-backs in the overtime. Can you talk about that?

KARA LAWSON: No doubt. I thought she imposed her will on the glass very well. Obviously watching film of her, I think she averaged ten a game in Pac-12 play rebounds. So, we know that she laces them up and gets ten rebounds, that's what she does. Credit to her, her physicality, her pursuit, just her competitive mindset to keep going after and pursuing those balls.

I thought we did a better job on her in the second half. She really hurt us. I think she had 15 in the first half, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think she had 15 in the first half. She was really dominating the game, and we did hold her to two in that second half, but she still found a way to make plays. That's what good players do in March. Like, even if -- you've got to impact the game in multiple ways, and she did that. So credit to her.

Q. 34-20 points in the paint, they had the advantage. Early on they had a lot then you guys shut it down a little bit, but how big of a deal was that in overtime especially when Vonleh gets those back-to-back buckets?

KARA LAWSON: Obviously that's a strength of their team. We knew that coming in with the size and physicality of both of those players. It was a challenge for us to guard them. We tried our best to do it, and they certainly made a few more plays than us, and that was the separation they needed to win it in that overtime.

Q. Before the season, Celeste and Kennedy each had an idea of their fifth-year of eligibility. If everyone decides to come back, would they have room on the team to return?

KARA LAWSON: That's not an answer I can answer on the top of my head. I don't even know the roster. I haven't even thought of that to be honest with you.

Q. Would you welcome them back?

KARA LAWSON: Oh, yes, of course. Would you welcome Celeste Taylor back? (Laughter).

Q. Obviously at the end, Shay couldn't hit the threes y'all needed, but it's been a bit of a down year for her after last year. Coming off of a season like this, how do you build back to where she was last year with her in the off-season?

KARA LAWSON: I think Shayeann has made tremendous strides this year. Obviously we all look at points and scoring and kind of draw conclusions from that. Her defense has been -- she might be our most improved defender from last year to this year.

So I thought she had a much improved year defensively. Learning how to navigate and running a team, I thought she was much improved in that area as well but certainly from a scoring perspective and an efficiency perspective, scoring the ball, I would guess those numbers are down.

But the other thing you have to factor in, and like because it's hard to look at stats in isolation because you have to look at it in the body of the whole team. Last year, she had the responsibility to carry us offensively a lot on nights, you all saw that last year, like she had to carry us a lot.

This year we added some more talent to our team, which resulted in a much better season and way more wins, and so she had to balance the play-making with the scoring, which is what a point guard needs to do.

So I wouldn't call it a down year, as her coach. I think she's like all of our players, she has things to work on. But I think she made great strides this year, and I have a ton of confidence in her. That's why you can see the ball was in her hands, right. If you have a ton of confidence in a player; if the score is tied in an NCAA Tournament game and you give them the ball, that shows. Actions speak louder than words, right. That shows the amount of confidence that I have in her and what she can be. I'm just excited to coach her another couple years. I think she'll make some jumps this summer as well.

Q. What has this team done to build Duke's reputation on the national stage as well as a contender for a national title?

KARA LAWSON: Well, I think more than anything, what this group has done is really changed how we're looked at, I think after some down years. You know, to come in and be a team that challenges in the ACC for the title, we hope to be that every year. It's really hard to do, but we will try.

Stylistically and how we play, I think we have set a good tone with the effort we play with and the team style. Just our culture is amazing. If you all got a chance to watch us in practice or be around these young women, it's rare to have that type of closeness and that type of camaraderie in a college team, and we had that and that's special.

I will miss that with this year's version. And then next year's version, we will have to create that. Like there's no carryover. There's no rollovers with camaraderie. You have to build it. Each team has to build it themselves. That's what I love about this group.

So, I think we've established ourselves as a team that's going to compete and can compete against anybody in the country, and hopefully we can do that again next year.