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

March 20, 2023

JR Payne

Quay Miller

Jaylyn Sherrod

Cameron Indoor Stadium

Colorado Buffaloes

Media Conference

Colorado 61, Duke 53

JR PAYNE: I'll start the same way I love to start. I frigging love my team. I love each and every one of them so much. I'm so unbelievably proud of our tenacity, our ability to just never wilt. When things get hard, we dig in. We lean into each other and we just continue to fight and compete every single possession.

Duke is an incredible team, one of the best defensive teams in the country. We knew it would be a great defensive battle between two teams that love to play defense. And so our team did a great job of really preparing in a short amount of time for such an experienced, veteran ballclub and I'm just really proud of how we stayed together, leaned into each other and just did what we needed to do down the stretch. So super proud and onward we go.

Q. Can both of you share your emotions of getting to the Sweet 16, first time in 20 years for this program?

QUAY MILLER: I was telling Jaylyn, I knew we could do it. It was just a matter of actually doing it. Right now, I just feel extremely blessed. I guess I'm still taking it all in, but blessed for sure right now.

JAYLYN SHERROD: Piggybacking off what Quay said, it's a blessing to be in this position. I told the team being here from four years where we started to now, I'm just really proud of this program and how far we've come, the work we've put in, the hours, the belief when nobody else believed. It was tough.

Being in a group -- it's hard when you are working towards something that you can't really see in front of you, but I told, I think it was Cori this morning, all the 6:00 AMs, the running up the mountains, all of that, prepared us for this moment. When you're doing it, you really don't see the outcome but it's all worth it in the end when you get to this point.

Q. There were certainly a lot of fouls called in the first few quarters, and especially down the stretch there was a lot; what went into being able to make that end game adjustment with how the refs are calling the game and being able to make the adjustment faster than Duke?

JAYLYN SHERROD: Yeah, fouls get called in every game. You've just got to stay poised, stay ready for it, and just play through it. That's really all you can do because I mean, mistakes happen. You foul sometimes. But it's all about just staying locked in, staying poised, not letting it get to you, brush it off like it's the next play, and you just focus on whatever is in front of you. You can't worry about what happened.

Q. You're on the road, hostile crowd, a long way from home and jump out in the 15-2 lead. Can you describe what was going on, what was working so well during that five-, six-minute stretch?

QUAY MILLER: I think it was just our togetherness, which showed throughout the whole game. We just played as one, as a unit and whenever we play that way, that's how we build our biggest leads.

Yeah, I think we came out with intensity about ourselves and we also knew from the scout that they press us. They like to get up. They are a high-level defensive team and we just knew we could not be timid and we had to attack it, and the more we came out attacking it, maybe that will lessen up the pressure.

So it was just game planning. It was a level of focus that I think this team started out with and finished with.

Q. 14 rebounds against a very big team. You outscored Duke 16-6 on second-chance points. Can you talk about how important that was to your win?

QUAY MILLER: Every time I went to the huddle, T was telling me to crash, and I just tried to do the best I could. Kept telling me to crash, and I was just trying to grab every board that came my way.

Q. What were you able to do after Duke took the lead in the second half to steady yourselves and not let their momentum keep going?

QUAY MILLER: I think the best thing that we did, honestly, was just embrace it. Even though the crowd was going against us, it's a beautiful environment and we thrive off that.

We've been the underdogs all season, so having a gym full of people and a band yelling at us and not going for us is what we are used to.

Actually I think we played better in those environments just because we have adapted that mentality from Jaylyn, and yeah, we just thrive off that -- I don't think we look at it as fans that are going against us. I guess we look at it as like, oh, they are not cheering for us, let's turn it up even more. Like let's make them even more mad.

JAYLYN SHERROD: Yeah, I think Quay really summed it up. I love hostile environments. I just love being the bad guy and feed off of that and I think the team feeds off of that, too.

And like Quay said, we've been in a lot of those situations, so I don't think it was anything that shocked us. We've had moments this season where we had to learn from those situations where we kind of wavered and gave into the environment rather than embracing it.

So I think it just shows the maturity level of this team to have grown from that situation and know how to deal with it in the postseason.

Q. Can you tell me about that last layup you made in regulation that tied the score; how you saw that play develop?

JAYLYN SHERROD: Well, I don't know, I think it wasn't out of a time-out -- or I don't really remember. But when I got downhill, I knew that my man had got screened off and it was 6'6 on me. I knew like nine times out of ten, you give a 6'6 player a pump fake when you're 5'6, they are going to want to swat it into the stands.

I think just knowing that and also knowing we needed a score, I was like, either I'm going to get fouled or get the layup. I wasn't expecting her to foul but I had to do something to get her engaged with the ball and I couldn't just go straight up.

Q. You ended up closing the game, I think it was 15-3 between the end of regulation and overtime run. Was there anything you felt like that was working defensively that got them out of a groove and limited their scoring?

JAYLYN SHERROD: Yeah, our zone is not a typical zone. It's very high-pressure, very aggressive. I think once we got to that, it just really got them out of rhythm. Because I think on their stretch that they came back, they hit a couple threes and we knew that we needed to do something to throw that off, throw that rhythm off. When we went zone, it really worked for us because it made them think. We don't all run zone a lot, but it's something we have in our back pocket.

Q. I know you get tired of me asking about your shooting and scoring and all that, but it looks like you're back. How good did it feel to get in a rhythm early in it game and set the tone?

QUAY MILLER: It felt really good. I think that for me, it was nothing that I was doing differently. It was all mental. So I just really locked in and prayed harder and really focused on things that were in my control, which was my communication with God. I think once I really got in my word more and understood what he was trying to tell me, that's when it all came in. I think that really happened today in pregame.

Q. I don't know how many times you've come up limping this year but every time you came back out and you're just fine. How are you feeling after something like this? This is probably one of the rougher games you've had.

JAYLYN SHERROD: Yeah, I think oftentimes, even when I go down, I'm just like, I just need a minute. I mean, that's just what I do. I know this team needs me. I know I need to be out there for my team. Even if it's just to bring the ball up and get open and use my speed to get the ball in.

So I knew, like you get up, you get pushed down enough, you know how to get up and dust it off, and it's a mental game at that point. Yeah, I feel it now; the adrenaline wore off. But you just find a way. When it means that much to you, you find a way, so, yeah.

Q. That back pocket, pulling that zone out of your back pocket, were you looking just to kind of disrupt them early and figured you would return back, or was that something that you thought, we can ride this out?

JR PAYNE: I have to give all defensive credit goes to our associate head coach, Torino (Towns) who runs our defense, so that was his decision.

The type of defense we played when we came out early is how we like to defend. I mean, we want to be highly disruptive. We want to pressure. You know, everything is pretty scout-driven, though, so there's times we don't necessarily play like that.

But it is, Jaylyn alluded to it, it is our intensity. We are the ultimate underdog. We were picked eighth, we finished third. Everyone, everyone, had us out of their bracket, you know, had us losing in the first round almost. And so we relish that.

But we kind of play with that type of chip on our shoulder and that toughness defensively, so that was T's decision to go zone. I thought it was a great decision and thought it created some great opportunity for us on the offensive end with some turnovers.

Q. I was just wondering how you game plan for a defender like Celeste Taylor, who seems to be everywhere with long arms and fills up a stats sheet?

JR PAYNE: She is incredible, truly. I've watched Celeste play since high school. You know, we tried to recruit her a long time ago when she was coming out of high school, and she already had her choices. So we have been fans of hers for a long time.

I think she plays the game the way it's meant to be played: With a lot of tenacity, discipline, toughness, and so it is hard to game plan for her. But the great thing about our team is that we do have a lot of weapons.

You know, we have a lot different players that can do a lot of different things. And so while they are a great team defensively, they only had one Celeste. And so we knew that she would probably be on Frida as far as trying to be disruptive on her, and so we were able to kind of capitalize on different positions and try to take advantage if there were ways that we could try to keep Celeste away from the ball a little bit. But yeah, she's incredible.

Q. Some of us may have been misled the other night after all the offense but ultimately seems like the defense is what got you where you needed to get.

JR PAYNE: Yeah.

Q. What was going on in Duke's last possession in regulation and in overtime to shut them down?

JR PAYNE: Yeah, I think we have all kind of alluded to it. We do hang our hat defensively. We are a defensive-minded team, as is Duke. So we take a lot of pride in being stingy, making touches difficult, things like that.

I think when things get difficult for us, these guys said it, we lean into each other. We have great communication when things are hard. We thrive in environments like this. In the Pac-12, we play in a lot of big, crowded gyms, and so we are used to that, so our communication is usually pretty good and we were able to just make sure we were talking. We were in the right spots, we were disruptive and ultimately rebounding down the stretch became important for us.

Q. I know this game just ended but do you have any early thoughts? The road doesn't get any easier; Iowa?

JR PAYNE: I mean, they are incredible. We played them years ago. So this is my seventh year at Colorado. We played them early in the NIT, I don't know which round it was, maybe third round of the NIT. They are so good. I mean, everybody knows Iowa. They are great. They are so well-coached. They are disciplined, they are probably everything you want in a basketball team.

Definitely will enjoy the victory tonight, and then we'll start to work tomorrow on them.

Q. You guys had a huge advantage in point paints or --

JR PAYNE: Points in the paint.

Q. Quay, and also Aaronette, two straight in overtime. Can you talk about big that aspect was tonight and with those two?

JR PAYNE: They were really important. Like I said, we have good balance. We have a lot of different players that not just are capable but have stepped up in really big moments. We had several people hit huge late game shots. We had several different people have huge late game stops and scores, and things like that.

We also have a very unselfish group, which is cool, and so nobody really cares who gets the winning shot. Nobody cares who gets the winning defensive rebound or the forced turnover, things like that.

I think when you have balance and you have a team that really genuinely is unselfish like that, then you can play great basketball, no matter where you are, who you're playing, what environment, and I think we showed that tonight.