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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2006LaToya BondTiffany BrooksCindy SteinDALLAS, TEXAS BO CARTER: Coach, first, congratulations and we'll have you deliver your opening thoughts and then we'll ask questions of the players and then dismiss them. But thanks for joining us. COACH CINDY STEIN: Thank you. I just am extremely proud of this team. My voice is a little gone from yelling. I was just very proud of them. They fought through a lot of things. And I felt like our four days of practice prior to coming here were extremely sharp. They were very focused, and I think they proved that today. Texas Tech is a very good team. We did not want to be the team to beat Texas Tech because of Marsha Sharp. But at the same time we wanted to make sure that we did our thing and we couldn't focus on that. But Marsha Sharp is an outstanding coach. And we think the world of her. So this was a very tough, emotional game, because of our respect for her, but we really wanted to make sure that we made our presence known. The last two games we kind of wanted to redeem ourselves with this game and I think our kids did a great job of doing that. BO CARTER: Thanks, Coach Stein. And we'll take questions for the players now. Q. Tiffany, will you talk about their inside game and they had a lot of open lay-ups that they missed and you guys were making it hard on them inside. TIFFANY BROOKS: They're very tough inside. They have great post players. We knew it was going to be a hard game for us defensively to guard them. We just tried to keep them, keep ourselves in between the basket, and I think they still did a great job though. Q. LaToya, you guys got off to a little bit of a rough start there and I think maybe down by as much as 10. Can you talk about how you regrouped, especially like when Christelle went out, you guys sorts of regrouped and came back and took control of the game. LATOYA BOND: Well, we have been down at the start and in a couple of games during the season. We were off and on getting off to a slow start. But we knew that we didn't play yesterday, they played yesterday, they were kind of warmed up and we just had to come out there and warm up, get our offense going and just had to kick it in gear. Q. LaToya can you talk about playing against Erin Grant and what it was like to go up against her, and did that kind of get you going seeing her play? LATOYA BOND: Not really. Erin Grant, she's a great player, point guard, everything. And I knew that when the shot clock was getting down that she was going to look to take it to the basket, and I was going to keep her in front and pressure her. She's a great passer, so I just tried to play her straight up though. Q. Both LaToya and Tiffany, can you address the situation where LaToya, when it was crunch time, you took the lead, started to drive, but Tiffany, you didn't let her do it by herself. Can you talk about that and how tough was that . TIFFANY BROOKS: LaToya is a great penetrator and you just got to get out of her way because she's amazing. Just a great point guard, great leader. But this is her senior year and I wanted to help her as much as I can. So when she penetrates it opens a lot of things up for us because they collapse and we try to sit out on the perimeter and do what we can to help her. Q. (Inaudible)? TIFFANY BROOKS: I just needed to step up. Last couple of games I haven't been doing what I needed to do and I felt like I needed to step up in this game. Q. LaToya, same question. LATOYA BOND: About me or? I think the past couple of games Tiffany has really been stepping up, and that's really what we need. We're going to need everybody, not including, not just the five people out there on the floor but everybody from the bench, and I just think Tiffany's been stepping it up the last couple of games and that's really helping us out a lot. Q. Coach, what did y'all talk about in that time-out with about 13 and a half minutes left after Tech had pulled within two of y'all? COACH CINDY STEIN: We just tried to keep everything very simple. We weren't doing some things defensively, obviously, we knew they were trying to get to Davis so, we were looking to trap her. And make them have to kick it out and go to somebody else, because that was kind of their first option. And then offensively, you know, we weren't setting very good screens. We were going too fast to do what we needed to do. We needed to have more patience. We tried to keep it simple. There's not a lot of magic to it. I would like to say that I gave them such inspiration, but I know better. Q. Coach, can you talk about the team's offense output today. They shot really well, played real well. COACH CINDY STEIN: Well, I feel like it's a carry-over from practice. I felt like we been practicing really well and sharp. And our kids have been very focused. And we have tried to get a lot of shots in, obviously. And that's something that when we get five kids scoring double figures, that's always good. And that's our offensive set. We know, LaToya and Christelle are going to get a lot of touches and that's evident. But like Tiffany, she had some mismatches on her, we were able to, when Grant was guarding her, to try to get her some close-to-the-basket shots. And things like that. And the kids are smart enough now where they're figuring that out on their own on the court and obviously that helps. I also thought we had great play off the bench. Cassie Drew coming in and doing a very nice job, obviously that helps. Q. LaToya and Tiffany, if you guys could both address this. You had a really difficult time getting much done in the paint against Oklahoma when you met in the regular season. What do you have to do differently when you face them tomorrow? LATOYA BOND: I -- I don't know. (Laughter.) I guess we just got to look for the post players a lot more. Move around our offense, maybe hit a couple of outside shots and maybe that will open it up on the inside. TIFFANY BROOKS: I think the key for us is going to be good defense. The Paris twins are great post players, very difficult to stop. I think we just got to play good defense, keep her in front and offensively, you know, just run our plays and set good screens and things will open up that way. Q. LaToya, let me put it this way: With Courtney Paris in the middle, how much room is there left for you to drive? LATOYA BOND: I don't know, I mean like Coach Stein says, I mean, I get a lot of touches and when I drive to the basket, every one collapses. So I may not get all the way to the basket, but at least I'm going to be looking for my teammates to kick it out and hopefully hit some open shots. Q. Coach, do you think that Texas Tech is worthy of an NCAA bid? COACH CINDY STEIN: Absolutely. I think they're very deserving. They had one of the toughest non-conference schedules to play. And this league is very tough. And honestly, I think that they should be looking at at least sixth in our league with a RPI of three; it's an incredible league. And I think that we would be doing a disservice if they didn't take six, at least. BO CARTER: We'll take a final question for the players. Q. LaToya and Tiffany also, what's it been like the last week and a half or so with all the turmoil at Missouri and your coach told me yesterday that actually there's a lot of pressure in people coming up and patting you on the back and saying, keep it up, you're what Missouri has going at the moment. Can you address that? LATOYA BOND: Well, me personally, I don't really feel any pressure. I just want to go out there and play hard and work hard and win. People have been coming up to us. I mean, this team, we have broken a lot of records, done a lot of things other teams in the past haven't done. And we're just not going to stop after breaking one record or anything. We're going to keep working and continue in our success. TIFFANY BROOKS: Like LaToya said, I think it's good pressure. I think it will motivate us. Push us hard to go harder in practice and just work harder. BO CARTER: Ladies, thanks, we'll keep Coach Stein for just a few more minutes but good luck tomorrow night. Questions for Coach Stein. Thank you. Q. I guess you guys think you probably made your case for the tournament as well. COACH CINDY STEIN: I don't see how we couldn't be. You know, I said this before, I don't get wrapped up into what everybody else is saying, I feel like if you take care of things, they're going to all work out. I don't feel like I got to boast or pump up everything that we have been doing. I feel like that should already be happening. I think that the Big 12 conference is a great conference. And we got an excellent reputation. Unfortunately we have got a lot of commentators on TV that are from the SEC and we got to get maybe Stacey Dales-Shuman working a little bit more for us. But honestly, I don't know how we couldn't be in. But at the same time, we don't have that invite yet, so we're trying to get the automatic. Q. You didn't come into the tournament on a -- you lost two games at the end of the regular season. Were you concerned at all about your team's mindset coming into this? COACH CINDY STEIN: I was concerned because I felt like our last three weeks and I told our team this, I felt like I was trying to pull juice out of concrete. Because we didn't have any energy. And that was a concern of mine from that aspect. But I felt like the last 10 games you look at, we were 6-4 in the last 10 games and we were still, in this conference it's tough. So it wasn't like we were playing a lot of slappies. We were playing some really good teams. So we have, you know, I feel like I didn't worry about what we had to do here, it was just, as I told our team today, we won every tournament we have been in this year and that's our focus. That's why you come to Dallas. That's why you play, everyone's trying to win the tournament. And you let everything that happens along the way, you got to have it be accountable and you got to accept whatever happens. And we're just going to keep fighting. Q. Seeing Iowa State stay with Oklahoma, does that give you help? COACH CINDY STEIN: I think it just pissed Oklahoma off, I'm not sure. I'm not sure that's good or bad. But you know, I don't know. We haven't really thought about Oklahoma, to be honest. We're just trying to focus on Texas Tech and I told my staff we'll really concentrate on Oklahoma when we have that opportunity and that's why our kids don't know what to say to that because we haven't, we have been totally focused on the game at hand. Oklahoma is a great team. They're a great team. So we're going to show up, you know. Q. Could you talk about that. You guys did get off to that slow start and then Christelle picked up her second foul. But then it seemed like EeTisha especially really took a lot of responsibility for defense, and just talk about what she did for you. COACH CINDY STEIN: Oh, Tish was unbelievable, I mean she just, and Tisha in many ways is our emotional leader anyway. She really gets us fired up and going. She did an incredible job defensively and offensively. And she's been doing a great job for us, in fact, we're playing her out of position. She probably should be inside. But she is such a great defensive player, and we want her to cover up some of the best guards in the country. So she's been doing everything she can for us to win and she really picked it up today. Q. Did you think that Texas Tech might play with a little bit more emotion because of Coach Sharp? Did you feel like they were kind of less emotional than you thought they would be? COACH CINDY STEIN: I wouldn't say that. I know that, I think, they might have felt a little pressure to win for her. I know that those kids love Coach Sharp. And I know that they really wanted to win. I'm sure they're disappointed. But I wouldn't say that, you know, it wasn't an easy game to win, so I don't think they gave up. So that's an incredible team out there. Q. Can you just talk a little bit about Courtney Paris. She had 36 and 16 today down low. Is there any way to stop her? Have you guys have even thought about a game plan for her? COACH CINDY STEIN: What number is she again? (Laughter.) Q. No. 3. Big girl. COACH CINDY STEIN: You know, Courtney Paris is a great player. Everyone's tried everything against Oklahoma and we'll do the same thing. We'll try whatever we can. Obviously the main thing is run the floor. Get back. You got to do whatever you can to keep her away from the basket. She gets close to the basket, you're dead. But Oklahoma is not just Courtney Paris. And that's why Oklahoma is so good. I tell them Courtney Paris has double, Ashley. And then every kid on that team has a double to them. You got Britney Brown and Moore. And they're all got doubles. They're ten deep, at least. So that's why Oklahoma is so good. So it's just not Courtney Paris but we'll do whatever we can on all of them. BO CARTER: Coach, congratulations again. COACH CINDY STEIN: Thank you.
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