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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 6, 2008Tom CollenSarah PfeiferBrittney VaughnNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE THE MODERATOR: Coach, if you could open up with a comment and then we'll take questions for the players and then we'll come back with questions for you. COACH COLLEN: Well, it's a frustrating loss for us because I think we let it get away. I think early in the game we missed a ton of lay-ups. We missed free throws. We didn't execute particularly well. I think they shot the ball particularly well. I think some of that was them, and I give them credit for that, and some of that was our execution on defense. But it just got away from us early. We're not a team that's really built to try to come back in ballgames. I don't think we not try to come back in ballgames, I just don't think we're built with a lot of athleticism and the ability to press and extend into the full court. It's hard to battle back, and I think when you look up at the clock and you've got a double-digit lead and you can't fight and you can't bite into that at all, I think it's hard to keep your effort up. So a little bit of an extension early about the way we've played down the stretch. I think we've played better than this down the stretch in terms of the frustration that the players feel and that the coaches feel, just a little bit of an extension, really, from our last 10 or 11 games. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the players? Q. Would either one of you mind just talking about that same thing, how frustrating it is to try to come back when you get down early that way? BRITTNEY VAUGHN: It just gets hard trying to battle back, just executing on offense, not being able to -- like Coach said, make lay-ups, that was one thing we weren't able to do. When we were called for foul shots, we didn't make our free throws, so that was frustrating, not being able to get back in the game with the clock stopped. As far as the defensive end, we just couldn't get stops when we needed them. SARAH PFEIFER: I mean, you get off to a start like we got off to and you're trying to play five or six players and you're fighting from behind the whole game, and it's tough. And that's what we've made a pattern of doing. And it just seems like we have to have all five players playing at their best to get stuff done, and we haven't had that in a long time. I mean, it's frustrating. I mean, we know what we had to do, we had the opportunity to do it, and we just didn't make it happen. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, players. Anything for Coach? Q. There was one stretch during the first half I think you got to nine and had four straight trips where you could have got it closer but didn't. Do you remember that, and if so, can you just talk about that? COACH COLLEN: I remember a stretch where we cut it a little bit, and I thought we were going to get a little bit of momentum, but it seemed like -- like you said, we got some stops, we got a couple scores, and then three or four straight times down the floor we wouldn't execute or we'd be one and done. It's pretty hard to get a lot of offensive rebounds. We're 5'11" in the post and our backup player with a post-concussion so she couldn't play, so we're playing a small 5'10" forward backup in the post. We couldn't compete with them on the boards and we couldn't get them stopped. We couldn't get them stopped inside. We couldn't get Bonner stopped. You know, we've been in this mode for a long time with the personnel that we've got. We have to play a near-perfect game to be able to compete in the SEC. It's just hard to go out and try to play that way. Obviously we were far from that tonight. I look at the stats sheet at the end of the first half and we had five turnovers, which is pretty good, and we're shooting 45 percent from the field, which is pretty solid. But we're 6 for 12 from the free-throw line and we're getting out-rebounded by seven or eight and the other team is shooting 60 percent from the field. You just can't stay in games playing like that. Q. Were you surprised as much as you were mixing up the defenses in the first half that they were able to generate so many good looks? COACH COLLEN: Well, I was frustrated that they were able to do that. You know, I think Coach Eatman was frustrated. He coordinates our defenses. I can't tell you how hard we worked and how much we walked through preparing for what they were going to do, and we just missed assignments. And every time we missed an assignment they stuck a shot. They got to so many easy shots. They drove right down the middle of our defense so many times and just got the lay-ups. That was frustrating. I think we shored it up a little bit in the second half, but then we didn't play as well offensively in the second half. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach. Thank you very much. End of FastScripts |
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