	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 2, 2006

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS

THE MODERATOR: From the University of Mississippi we have coach Carol Ross, Carla Bartee, Ashley Johnson and Armintie Price. Would you like to open up with a statement, please?
COACH CAROL ROSS: Well, we put together a great game, and to really see the same team that we were so familiar with in November and December, they kind of disappeared. It was really seizing the moment and taking the opportunity to open a new door to a new season, and I'm glad, all of us, for the players in particular, that they had success.
Rebounding wasn't spectacular but we did a much better job in the second half. Then we had a talk about it all year long, so it was great to put a game together where our defense and offense were both pretty stout, pretty strong.
Q. Just talk about, the opposite of what you expected that you can't rebound and you outshoot them, opposite of the first game, and still win.
COACH CAROL ROSS: I'm not that surprised because we came into the tournament with a fresh frame of mind, refreshed. We let go at the end of the season. We had too many disappointing moments, and we really looked forward to starting anew, and the team embraced that.
We're happy about where we are. Any time you can advance in this tournament it's a good day, and we feel very good that we were given the opportunity to play one of the best teams in the country and in our league, and tomorrow at noon we'll see what happens.
Q. Any of the players, just talk about in the second half, you guys really put them away. It seemed like you guys had a lot of legs and it looked like they were running on empty. Did you sense that?
OLE MISS PLAYER: In the second half we got a lot of fast break points and a lot of easy layups. We reached the ball a lot in the second half.
Q. Did it seem like -- (Inaudible).
OLE MISS PLAYER: It kind of did to me.
Q. This is for Coach Ross, any of the players, the threes, they live and die by that. Talk about that impact on the game against your defense and how did you feel about that?
COACH CAROL ROSS: A combination of things. Obviously we came into this game fresh off an Arkansas match-up on Sunday afternoon and they shot the three pretty well Sunday, and we knew they had the capabilities to do that. We focused again on that.
I thought essentially our coverage was better today than it was on Sunday. We were fortunate the few times they got open looks an they simply didn't put the ball in the basket. Part of it is a combination of our coverage was good at times and they simply missed some looks sometimes.
Q. (Inaudible).
COACH CAROL ROSS: Any player can have a great moment, and that's exactly what she had, Awkward, was a great moment. Coming off that 37-point performance, I was more worried about somebody else having that moment because if you haven't done something consecutively throughout the season, it's unlikely you'll do it again. We didn't want her to get that mentality that -- (Inaudible). We were mindful of where she was much more so today than we were Sunday.
Q. (Inaudible).
OLE MISS PLAYER: Well, they gave me the three, and when I hit the three, I tried to post-up. I tried to drive in, and I just tried to let it go -- (Inaudible).
Q. For any of the players, did you all feel like this was a home game for them, and if so, was it important to take the crowd out of it? Did you feel like it was a road game?
COACH CAROL ROSS: Well, we did know they had the home court advantage, it's in their state. Arkansas has great support, and we knew that the fans were going to be more for Arkansas than us. We talked in the locker room about coming out and getting off to a good start so that they could quiet the crowd, and to keep the hogs from squealing we needed to play defense and rebound and just take enthusiasm out of the building if we could. I felt for the most part that we did that.
Q. (Inaudible).
OLE MISS PLAYER: Well, Armintie is all-around a great player. Of course we look at each other, and we're like, uh-oh, we've got to take our game up. She gets a lot of rebounds. We had to take good shots and hope that we could hit them.
Q. (Inaudible).
OLE MISS PLAYER: Everybody came into the spot. We just wanted to keep it going. Not coach.
Q. (Inaudible).
OLE MISS PLAYER: They came out with everything they had. It was just our job to step it up. We did come into this game knowing they were one of the best defensive teams out there. Every time we got the ball, we got the attack.
Q. (Inaudible).
COACH CAROL ROSS: Well, I think we're on the right track, but we take it one game at a time. This game is now behind us and we have to look forward to LSU and look at things we did in this game and try to make those stronger the next game.

End of FastScripts...

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297