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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2006Gary BlairA'Quonesia FranklinTakia StarksDALLAS, TEXAS COACH BLAIR: Folks across the nation just saw a great ballgame, a great ballgame, a great defensive ballgame. They had one thing that we didn't have, and that was Sophia Young. She scored 29 and the rest of their team scored 25. Our kids fought. A'Quonesia got into foul trouble and we had to play small ball. I thought we did a very good job. Patrice Reado did a tremendous job for us on the defensive end gathering the loose balls, but it's just hard to stop some of the shots that she had. One of the keys in the ballgame, they scored five-out-of-five on inbound plays in the first half. That's 10 points out of their 28, and they probably scored a couple in the second half. I don't know what it was, but they executed and we just didn't do a good job there. But my outside people here, they played awfully hard. Their defense was good, just like we played them before. Their perimeter defense, perhaps we should have thrown it inside a little bit more. But when we did throw it in, we either scored or missed. But I'm just excited to be a part of this. I'm excited to be a part of a great basketball game. And for the people that weren't here, they missed something. The people that were home watching it on television, I know they are excited about women's basketball, particularly at A&M and Baylor, 90 miles apart. I think we've got the makings of a great rivalry, and a good, friendly rivalry. That's what you need, and you have that in women's basketball between those two schools. Q. Looked like you sent a message to the committee tonight on selection about giving you a decent seed. You shut them down and they didn't make no 3-pointers tonight, and of course your performance of your players there, what does it mean to you, Coach? COACH BLAIR: When losing hurts worse and winning feels good, it's still a loss to me. But I've got pride, I've got pride that these kids, they just work so hard. I mean, this little 5'3" energizer bunny here, she's going to be special for us here in years to come. It means something. It starts over there; they defended her pretty well, but the shots she missed in the first, most of them were promote I hope. Second half, she hit some tough shots and got back into the flow. Her drive through the middle in the second half, I thought that was a crucial play. We were hoping it would open the eyes of some of our other kids, because we had to drive the ball to get to the foul line, or hope to get to the foul line. We just didn't do it enough. But this means everything to me, particularly back in my hometown here. There was a lot of people from my South Old Cliff (ph) days that were here today. We're building a national power. We're not building a regional power, and it's going to get done here at Aggie. Q. If you could talk about the physical nature of the game tonight, banging the whole time, and also their defense, the way they changed it up, going to zone a little bit and how that affected you guys all physically. A'QUONESIA FRANKLIN: We knew Baylor was a great aggression team. We wanted to come out and kind of play up to their aggressiveness and play with them. We didn't want to, you know, show them that we were soft. I mean, Baylor is a great defensive team. I mean, they made us think a lot, changing up from zone to man, zone to man, and back and forth. But we have to think on the fly and Coach Blair has taught us well and he did a lot of situational things in practice to get us ready on smart defenses. So basically his preparation helped us out with preparing for Baylor switching defense. Q. A'Quonesia, can you just take us through the last play, what you saw, and kind of how you had to react in a split second there and switch direction? A'QUONESIA FRANKLIN: Once again, we were going for an open 3-pointer, but Baylor's great defense, they were switching everything. Sophia ended up on me at one point in time. But just them being tall and me being 5-3, I really could not see over. So Coach Blair had taught me always to keep the ball in my hands and value the basketball, and if I don't see open players, then keep the ball in my hand. So that's what I did, and for the last, you know, three seconds, and got off a shot. COACH BLAIR: I don't mean to correct you, but next year, it's A'Quonesia. That's all right, because I'm proud of this little kid and I've got some tongue twisters for names, but she's going to be heard of all over the country. And it's special, A'Quo (aqua), that's like running water or whatever, but we're running as a point guard right here. But she's special. Q. Can you talk about how you closed the gap, took it down to the end, do you use this as a positive going to the NCAA Tournament, how you took it down to the final, one play away from winning the game? A'QUONESIA FRANKLIN: Most definitely. You know, we're in the Top-25, but Baylor is in the Top-10. That's where we want to be. And so being able to see them as a great offensive team leading up into the NCAAs, that's a tremendous, tremendous motivation for us to keep playing like we're playing and get to that next level. TAKIA STARKS: I think it was a really great game. Like Coach said, they matched us up, we matched them up. It was a great game for people to watch at home on television. Coach always tells us to take everything as a learning experience, and we will take this game as well. Going to the NCAA, it's positive to know that we can play with the top teams and we'll compete. COACH BLAIR: I brought my book to Waco for to you sign, you weren't there, but I brought the Dave Campbell book. I went to the bookstore and bought it, it's a very, very good book. Tell those young whippersnappers out there to buy that book, now. So that's a legend they are just leaving right there, folks. That's a legend. Do your history. Q. Kim talked about it's kind of a relief to get back into the tournament where you're facing other teams besides the Big 12 teams. Are you just relieved and excited to get out and show what this team can do with other teams besides Baylor and OU? COACH BLAIR: You bet. I want to get hot in the tournament. We had a run in '98 at Arkansas when people overlooked us. We're different than I think any team in the nation on the style of ball that we play. The closest team that sort of is like us would be Rutgers because they are a very defensive-orientated team, or Temple up in the East. But I like our style and this is a style that we recruit. I'm looking for complete players, and I think we're developing those kids. I mean, most of the time we had three freshmen and two sophomores out there on the court tonight. And bringing kids in, it's special. I'm looking forward to the NCAA Tournament. They can send me to Connecticut, West Lafayette, Anchorage; Cattlegap, Egypt; it doesn't matter, okay. Just send us somewhere, and hopefully our fans will follow. But it was special. Did you see all those Aggies standing up there today? That was special, and it's going to start being a tradition here. But we're looking forward to going to the tournament. I'll answer one more thing on that zone question back there. When they switched to the zone in the first half, that changed the whole tempo of the game. Because it was becoming a track meet and the track meet favors us, okay, because Young cannot go down there and do her thing as much. She's still going to do they are thing. But I thought Kim did an excellent job switching to the zone, turning it into more of a halfcourt game. Even though we were tired, I thought I had fresher kids coming off the bench and I thought that was a great move on her part to switch. Q. Young did job on her the first nine minutes but after she was struggling, did you do anything differently; the first eight or nine minutes, she scored about six points in the second half? COACH BLAIR: I think four of those six she scored to in the second half were ESPN highlights that we're going to see on the show tonight. The ones she finished last night were in overtime. The one-second play in the first half, and then she did it again in the second half. What do you do? You just get down and bow to her and you're there to give her a graduation gift come May. I mean, we did all we can do with her. She's just that good. And she works so hard. I think what was hurting us more was when we were throwing the ball up to the free throw line and lobbing it back that way. Anytime the ball is on the wing, we can cover that with our help side because they were not reversing the ball very well. But when the ball got to the top, they hit her a couple of times and she's got tremendous hands. Q. Talking about your excitement for the NCAA Tournament and so forth, how much of that is that you will get some relief of not playing any more Big 12 teams for a little while? COACH BLAIR: It doesn't matter. I just want to dance, baby, it's been a while. It's been since 1993. This watch here is a 1993 NCAA watch. This is all I wear. There's no Rolex over here, okay. And I'm going to get a '06 NCAA watch and we're going to dance and we're going to have a good time. Folks, I appreciate all the coverage, everything. Y'all have been tremendous.
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