AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 10, 2025

Lindsay Edmonds

Malia Fisher

Aniah Alexis

Dickies Arena

Rice Owls

Postgame Press Conference

Rice - 62, UTSA - 58

THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started with an opening statement from Coach and then take questions for the student-athletes.

LINDSAY EDMONDS: Man, we've had some battles over the years with UTSA. Tremendous team, tremendous coach. Jordyn Jenkins is an incredible player. They've got a great supporting cast around here as well too.

I'm just really, really proud of our fight and our preparation for this game today. We had a little bit of a get-back mentality. We had two battles this season that we felt like could have went our way but didn't go our way, and when we looked at the film, it became pretty overlying reason of we didn't play a full 40 minutes. So today we wanted to play 40 minutes and we did that. It was a well-balanced attack, but a great win. But really, really impressed with our composure and our poise to pull out the win.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Lindsay, congrats, first. Does this team just have a switch that come March it's time to go? What have you noticed that enabled y'all to turn it around quite like this?

LINDSAY EDMONDS: I don't know. Coach Dani, the other day, said the tournament Owls are back. She felt there was a different aura about us, a different walk about us, a different talk about us. So maybe it is a thing. But whatever it is I want to bottle it up and I want to keep going for two more.

Q. Malia, from your perspective, having been on that run last year to the locker room right now, what have you noticed that's kind of helped you generate this run?

MALIA FISHER: I think winning last year, we've taken a lot of that mentality. We know how to win. We know what it takes to come from the bottom and finish on the top. I think, like Coach said, we're trying to bottle up that experience and take it with us now and finish with a ring.

Q. For both the players, what was kind of going through your minds in the fourth quarter. It's a 1-point game. You've been in so many of those before. Kind of what was said and how did y'all find a way to pull it out this time?

ANIAH ALEXIS: I would say relying on our principles, falling back on what we've been through. Our past two losses against them this conference, I felt like we didn't take that as a loss. We took it as a lesson to prepare us for this game today.

MALIA FISHER: And I'll add to that. Playing them the third time, we know that this game was going to be won within the first 10 seconds of the shot clock in transition and the last 10 seconds with second-chance points, and that was our mentality going through the fourth quarter. We're telling ourselves, take care of the ball and get every rebound.

Q. I did want to ask you: On rebounds, it's not often that your team gets out-rebounded. How much more impressive was it to win losing the battle on the boards today?

LINDSAY EDMONDS: Yeah, you know how much I like to win the battle of the boards. They're a great rebounding team and they did that today. Again, we just showed composure. We came up with the ones that we needed to get -- I think we could have got a few more to help my gray hairs and my heart.

But again, they're a great rebounding team. We knew we couldn't hold them to zero rebounds or that it was going to be something that we could just, like, one by 20 on the boards. We knew that, but we just knew we had to compete and we had to battle and fight and claw and do whatever it took to get the rebounds and that's what we did down the stretch.

Q. Just to speak to the way you finished the first half and the second quarter and then how you started the third, just how you finished and how you began and how important those pieces were to this game and getting a victory in such a close margin.

LINDSAY EDMONDS: I mean, we started talking about every play and every possession like it was the last possession of the game. Like, everything needed to matter that much. I feel like I saw everyone elevate their game just a little bit in that second quarter. And honestly, I thought the way they came out in the third quarter was tremendous. But we answered and that's what I'm most proud of. We had that answer mentality of, yeah, you went on your run, but here comes ours.

I think that was really special from this team and maybe something we had missed in earlier games, but we weren't missing it today when it mattered the most.

Q. To the student-athletes, what you can say to this conference. I mean, it really -- especially in this tournament in the American this season, it doesn't matter the record. We hear everybody's 0-0 when you go into the tournament, but this tournament this season really feels that way. Just what you can say to having new life in the tournament.

ANIAH ALEXIS: I would say definitely coming in with a mentality that it's 0-0, anything can happen. No matter the past losses, the past wins, you just come out with the new mentality and put everything forward, leave it all on the floor, because it's, like, the last stretch of the game.

MALIA FISHER: Yeah. And there's so many talented players in this conference. And the special thing about March is that it's the team who shows up for the next four days that takes it home.

Q. If you could look ahead to the matchup tomorrow, maybe how close you'll be watching the next game with Charlotte and Temple. Charlotte, a team that has an underdog mentality itself having won two games already, and Temple sitting as a No. 4 seed what do you expect to see?

LINDSAY EDMONDS: I expect another great game of basketball in the American Conference Tournament Championship. I think, again, everybody's fighting for their lives, everybody's fighting to continue playing, so you see a little bit more in these matchups. So we're excited to take care of their bodies first, and then get out there and watch our potential opponent, and then we'll move on and get prepared as well as we can in the next 24 hours.