NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL 1 SEMIFINAL - NOTRE DAME VS MARYLAND

March 25, 2023

Brenda Frese

Lavender Briggs

Diamond Miller

Shyanne Sellers

Bon Secours Wellness Arena

Maryland Terrapins

Sweet 16 Postgame Media Conference

Maryland 76, Notre Dame 59

BRENDA FRESE: Yeah, incredibly proud of this group, and you continue just to see the unselfishness, the journey it's been all season.

But I thought we started the game defensively, I thought we were really aggressive being able to force them into some turnovers. Then Notre Dame kind of settled in and had their way with us in that second quarter. Diamond and Shy took a little minute. They were taking a lot of the defensive presence from them.

But just being the winners that they are, they trusted their teammates. They regrouped in the second half. I thought you saw those two really be aggressive to make plays, getting to the free-throw line and getting them in foul trouble.

I can't say enough about Lav and Nae and Bri, the confidence this team played with for 40 minutes, and it's the reason we're moving on to the Elite 8.

Q. I was just asking for Lav, a couple corner threes, it seemed like you guys started to exploit the Notre Dame zone. What did you see from that, kind of allowing for you guys to get open, especially in the second half?

LAVENDER BRIGGS: Well, first I feel like they were kind of daring us to shoot. They put a post player on me and they weren't really up, so I was just catching and shooting, and my teammates were finding me.

But then in the second half I guess nothing really changed from the first half, just trying to stay aggressive, and yeah.

Q. Diamond and Shy, coming out of halftime, what was said during halftime? How did you want to approach it? Because you both came out much more aggressive and really got it cooking in that third quarter.

DIAMOND MILLER: I know personally for me, obviously, and yes, definitely Shy, we started out very slow. It took us for real, for real the second half for us to pick it up.

But at halftime we just knew that it was 31-32, and after all that we were only down one, gave us a lot of confidence that we needed to really execute the game plan in the second half.

SHYANNE SELLERS: I think just settling in, like Diamond said, attacking. Playing three posts is kind of hard when you have three versatile guards, so just using that against them.

Q. Diamond, you've had such an incredible career at Maryland, but somehow it's hard to believe that this is your first Elite 8 and for everybody else on the team. Can you talk about what those emotions are, especially given that a lot of people were counting Maryland out at the beginning of the season?

DIAMOND MILLER: Yeah, actually I was just talking to Rose about it, and this is the first time since 2015. Just to know that we're making history right now, it's amazing, and we're not done yet. We're really excited for whoever we play.

Yeah, it's kind of cool, you know.

Q. Diamond, sort of as a follow-up, just with so much turnover this off-season, so many new faces, a lot of people might have wanted to jump ship. What's kept you at Maryland?

DIAMOND MILLER: Just understanding that basketball is basketball. And if I were to transfer, I would have played with a new group of girls; and if I stayed, I would have played with a new group of girls.

You know, when you look at it like that, I was like, I'm just going to stay and trust the process. And I'm so happy I did because I don't know what school I would have committed to, but would we be at the Elite 8 now? I don't know. But here we are.

Q. This is for Shy. Maryland has got a really big and excellent women's basketball history. What does it mean to you that you're now part of it and getting a team to the Elite 8?

SHYANNE SELLERS: I think it's just exciting. I mean, obviously it's fun to be a part of, but just doing it with a great coaching staff and great teammates is always the best part. I'm just really appreciative.

Q. For both Shy and Diamond, you guys either scored or assisted on almost all the points in the second half. What was it about the two of you playing off each other or what Notre Dame was doing defensively that allowed you to do that?

DIAMOND MILLER: I think we were just more aggressive. I mean, the first half they slowed us down. They did a great job by doing that. We had 31 points, so that's not how we want to play.

The fact they were able to slow us down really affected, personally, for me, my game and maybe Shy's, as well. But in the second half, when we started running and just sprinting the floor, I think that really helped us and got us going into a pace that we like.

SHYANNE SELLERS: I think just being more aggressive for me in the second half, trying to get more downhill. I think we were settling in a little bit too much in the first half with outside jumpers. So kind of just keeping that in mind.

Q. Shy and Diamond, you also had to play on the other end and guard their bigs. If you could describe the physicality that you had to face down there.

SHYANNE SELLERS: The physicality was pretty brutal. Ebo, Westbeld, Kylee Watson, they're all really strong girls. We knew we had to battle really hard, and that's exactly what we did for 40 minutes?

DIAMOND MILLER: Yeah, we expected this. We knew they had three bigs, so kind of coming with the territory. We knew we had to compete against their bigs, and we were prepared.

Q. Shy, Notre Dame had 25 turnovers today. That's a season high for them. Is that just a matter of effort and aggressiveness on y'all's part?

SHYANNE SELLERS: Yeah, I think so. We talk about making them feel that pressure, and with any team we want them to feel our pressure. Making them feel uncomfortable is what we try to do, and that's exactly what we did.

We knew they were a little bit on their heels without a point guard, so trying to make them really uncomfortable. And you saw that, that we did that.

Q. Diamond, you struggled to score at your normal pace in the first half but eventually got it going with 14 points in the second half. What do you attribute your ability to stay composed and find your rhythm in the second half?

DIAMOND MILLER: Yeah, I definitely think -- I don't really have an answer. It's just trusting my abilities and stuff like that.

But like I said, I'm missing way too many chippies at the rim, and I've really got to -- luckily we have practice tomorrow so I get to really work on that, my finishing of the flick of the wrist, but yeah. Part of the process, you make baskets, you miss, is basketball.

Q. Just the second and the third quarters, what kind of went wrong in the second that went so right in the third?

BRENDA FRESE: I thought in the second quarter we were settling too much within the rhythm of their zone and their man, they were sagging off of us, which kind of baited us into taking shots, pull-ups that I thought we could have gotten to the rim, be a little bit more aggressive.

I thought our defense kind of let up a little bit, so a terrific response when you look at the box, and 19 of the fouls drawn were between Shy, Diamond and Bri. I thought that aggressiveness that we needed to have from the three of them, Bri came in and didn't present like a freshman. She was really, really good.

Just a different mentality I thought in the third quarter.

Q. You went with Brinae in the third quarter to start that third quarter, and Notre Dame was saying that kind of forced them to come out of their zone and they weren't able to protect the paint as much. Was that your thinking? Was that your conscious decision to try to pull them out of the zone, or was it just kind of played out that way?

BRENDA FRESE: Yeah, it was both. We knew the play calls they were running unfortunately with E, just a lot of things to be able to go get those mismatches with her, and we knew that from the first game and watching film with how they moved people around and playing three bigs.

Strategically for us with Nae and that physicality made more sense, and then obviously, yeah, her ability to stretch the floor and shoot the ball was really important.

Q. Does this run through the NCAA Tournament feel any different for you than maybe some of your other great runs that you've had?

BRENDA FRESE: Yeah, this one for sure is going to be one we don't want to end. But when you talk about this journey and you take it from a year ago and all the question marks coming in, losing 85 percent of your offense to now sitting in an Elite 8 and just the hard work behind the scenes with your staff and the players, the trust and the belief that started last off-season.

I was reflecting on it today, just what I felt like a year ago and to where we are today. So, yeah, this one is going to be one I'll remember for a really long time.

Q. Diamond obviously touched on her decision to stay. What has her presence as a mainstay for you guys meant during this run?

BRENDA FRESE: Just that loyalty piece and the trust. I think you see as an example from Diamond when you do put your head down and you trust the process, and you might even be unknown, what that uncertainty looks like, that great things can occur.

And obviously Diamond is so talented, she's going to impact any program she's a part of. But I think it's important to note the face of our program, the loyalty of those four years.

There's a handful of players sometimes when they come through your program when you get those four years that you want to take to a Final Four. You want to take them as far as you can in the tournament, and that's where my heart is for Diamond because she has been through so much in her four years, and so you just don't want it to end.

Q. I'm also going to ask you a follow-up. Can you take us to how you felt a year ago and what those emotions were? Then the second part of that is when you started to get a sense that you had something with this team that could get you to this point.

BRENDA FRESE: Well, it was no surprise last year, both personally and professionally, losing my dad, and it was a really hard year. It was a locker room that was "me" centered versus "we" centered.

When we went into -- had so many changes and portal is the new reality, you can tell from my family, they missed their mom, but their mom had to put her head down and go to work.

So the competitive side came out that we had a roster to fill. When you're looking at a roster of eight players, it's daunting to have to fill the team.

But what was your second question?

Q. When did you get a sense that --

BRENDA FRESE: The sense was early, when we beat Notre Dame and we came back and we lost to Nebraska at home. We don't lose a lot at home, and it was a conference game and a team we had lost to before.

I started to see anytime -- we didn't lose a lot this year, but every time we lost, it dialed them in more, and their response off of losses were phenomenal to watch.

That's when you kind of had that sense out of the Nebraska game, out of our Iowa game, on the road, and then you'd come back and you'd have a dominating response. So you started to understand, hey, we've got something pretty special here.

Q. When I was talking to Faith in response to the question of -- obviously they want to make it to the Elite 8, but how important was it for them to do it for you, Coach B? She said she had a conversation with you and said we're not getting stuck in the Sweet 16. I just wanted to confirm that. When did you guys have that chitchat?

BRENDA FRESE: Yeah, she did when I took her off the court at XFINITY when we had the game won against Arizona to go to the Sweet 16.

Again, that's your captain. That's another senior for us that has had a journey coming back off of an ACL. When you look at all these guys and their different stories that they have, that one with Faith is another one that has really stayed the course and trusted the process. So pretty important.

Q. I was just going to ask about Shy specifically. In that third quarter she scored I think nine points. Just seemed very in control of it and seemed like a veteran. Did you see the same thing out of her? What has made her so special during this run?

BRENDA FRESE: Yeah, she's so fun to coach and to challenge. I can tell, I say, when she's in her bag or when she's in those moments, hitting the out of bounds off the back. We ran a play call, and she executed it through a clear drive that I knew she understood what we were trying to go to without even having to tell her.

Yeah, she's just a winner. She wants to be great.

Obviously between her and Diamond, they set that tone for us for our team to follow.

Q. At the end of the game, we saw you kind of took Lav and Nae aside and kind of spoke to them. What was it like speaking to them as obviously transfers in their first year and making it to the Elite 8, a place where you personally haven't been in eight years?

BRENDA FRESE: Just really, really happy for those two. They came to Maryland for moments like this. I thought they rose to the occasion. They thrived in it. Just to share with them we're not finished. We did not come here just to get to an Elite 8, and those two were really critical to our success.