|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2008Danetra ForrestRenee LadnerBianca ThomasNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the players and then we'll go back to questions for Coach Ladner. COACH LADNER: I was really proud of the effort that we showed throughout the game. I thought the game was exactly the way it should have been. I knew it was going to be a battle because I know what a good job Coach Fanning does and how hard her kids play. I knew for the most part it would be a slugfest and that's what it was, and we probably had the final run, and I'm very, very proud of my kids. Q. Bianca, you guys really fed off the shot Danetra had at the end. Can you talk about how big that was? BIANCA THOMAS: That was a big play. We definitely needed a big play at that time, and she just made a big play. She went to the free-throw line and made the free throws, and that put us up, and that was like momentum to the second half, to finish it. Q. Bianca, you scored 18 points today, the only person on your squad in double figures. You play LSU tomorrow at 12:00 o'clock. Are you going to need some more offensive output from someone besides yourself, the only person in double figures today? BIANCA THOMAS: It doesn't matter if it's just one person. All of us played together and it's not about one person giving double figures. Shawn was double and triple-teamed. She kicked out to open players and we made shots. I'm sure tomorrow she won't be double-teamed as much and she'll get open looks and everyone will get open looks, and we'll have more people in double figures. Q. Remember for me if you will against LSU the last time you played and the things you need to do different. DANETRA FORREST: Well, remembering that it was very ugly, we didn't take care of the ball, we didn't rebound, and they are a very good team and we let them get out in front, and that can't be done against LSU because they will make you pay, and that's exactly what they did. Q. Bianca, can you follow up? BIANCA THOMAS: I agree. We didn't rebound. We turned the ball over. They're a great team, so you have to bring your "A" game if you want to beat them. It's going to be a hard task, but if we play hard and rebound and claim our turnovers, we can win. Q. You all went on that run in the second half and you scored nine points or whatever in the run. Can you just talk about what was going on and how you were feeling? DANETRA FORREST: Well, we all knew coming into the game, the thing is I didn't want this to be my last game. I love my team, I love my teammates, so I just wanted to keep going. I want my season to keep going. Q. For either of you, was it as physical of a game as you thought it would be? DANETRA FORREST: Yes, it was as physical as we thought. If anybody doesn't know, State is our in-state rivals so we expected to get hit. We just have to stay up and bounce back and get up when we are hit. Q. Bianca, you've come back and won all year. Can you talk about what you all are able to do in the second half? BIANCA THOMAS: It's all about rebounding. They out rebounded us pretty bad and we had to get on the boards and limit our turnovers and do those things, and we would win. We had no doubt that we were going to win this game, we just had to get on the boards. Q. What will you do tomorrow if only one of your players scores in double digits against LSU? COACH LADNER: We're in trouble. You never put that in your game plan. The most consistent player we've had all year has been Shawn Goff. She's been able to score. We prepared for her to be triple-teamed. What happened last time she was triple-teamed, she kicked it out and our shooters knocked down shots. I think any time you play your in-state rival, the goal gets a little smaller, you get a little tighter, and you want to win the game so badly you're a little tentative. I thought we had a lot of that today. When the ball doesn't go in the hole, it's very difficult to stay on the defensive end of the floor, so no, you always want your big-time player -- Shawn Goff who has been our most consistent player to do the scoring and then have the role players fill in, but in the past games Bianca has hit double figures, so we're not surprised by that at all. Q. You guys have 17 turnovers, shoot 32 percent and got out rebounded by 12. Do you expect to win with stats like that? COACH LADNER: Yeah, we've had that all year. It's amazing. You pick up the score sheet and the statistics are there and they don't ever fit exactly what happens in the game. So I guess the intangibles come into play. You keep fighting, you keep clawing, you keep digging and somebody makes a big play. Dee Forrest goes to the free-throw line, and then she goes up to the free throw and knocks down five free throws. We shot 12 for 22 today from the free-throw line. That's a little bit uncharacteristic of us. I guess as an old rookie coach, I don't put a lot of stock into that statistic. I know we trailed by one and hadn't won a game, so we busted that wide open, too. In these type of games where it's a slugfest, where you're evenly matched, it comes down to one or two possessions that can turn the game, and for us, I think Dee Forrest's and-one broke their backs, so to speak. Q. You talked about some of your players getting triple-teamed. Tomorrow you play Sylvia Fowles, the SEC Player of the Year. If that's your plan tomorrow is to put a lot of players on her, how do you plan on stopping players like Erica White? COACH LADNER: I don't know if you can stop any of them. If I were to plan I'd put all five of them on Sylvia, but I don't know if that will work, either. The last time we played them we did a fairly decent job of making runs on them but we couldn't sustain the run. You know so we're going to have to play our matchup, we're going to have to guard the three on the perimeter, we're going to have to try to put a body on Sylvia when it goes in. The one thing we won't do consistently is go into Shawn Goff because naturally there is a big body in the lane, and at this point in time I don't think you change a lot of anything. I just think we'll have to dig and claw and hope we can knock down shots. They're the best team in our league. We have a big challenge ahead. There's not really any answers. I hope some intangibles kick in with a little divine intervention and we'll see what happens. Q. On top of a physical game like this, how much is left in the tank tomorrow and how much does fatigue play a factor or how much is that a concern? COACH LADNER: Well, that's always a concern, but I just believe you have to come out and put it together for 40 minutes. You have to take whatever is left in that tank, whether it's a little or a lot, and draw on it and hope that the adrenaline kicks in and you make some plays down the stretch. Again, we go on those long droughts of not scoring, but get you see our kids will continue to play defense, and that's really difficult to do. There's no secret there is a big challenge ahead tomorrow. We will have to play a near-perfect game. You definitely can't go 12 for 22 if you get to the free-throw line and miss those shots. We'll rest, we'll do what we've been doing all year and we'll go out and try to play them as best we can. Q. You talked a little bit about what they were doing with Shawn Goff. Can you talk more about that? Was that a big point of emphasis coming into the second half? COACH LADNER: The point of emphasis going into the second half was that we had played poorly and we were only down by one, and the fact that we had been out-rebounded, and we thought that was a key in the game. We really discussed that. I tried not to talk to them about offense as much because on my particular team, the more you talk about it, the bigger it gets. So we leave that part alone and we come back and say we've got to defend and we've got to rebound. Ultimately that gave us an opportunity to throw in a shot here or there, and it worked for us. So our point of emphasis was defending and rebounding coming out in the second half. Q. One of your players had a pretty big collision with the bench. Were you right there? COACH LADNER: Yeah, I picked her up and threw her back out. Q. You're not the biggest player on the court -- COACH LADNER: I took charge. Q. Were you a little concerned at that moment? COACH LADNER: I love anybody diving out of the bleachers. They could dive into anybody on the bench and heels could fly and I don't care. As long as she's making that effort, I can live with that. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|