|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2008Van ChancellorQuianna ChaneySylvia FowlesNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE THE MODERATOR: Coach, when you're ready, just an opening comment. COACH CHANCELLOR: Give Kentucky some credit for playing well tonight. I thought they did a good job of defending us. They played really well. Then I thought our two oldest players, Fowles and Chaney, were pretty good. I thought Ashley Thomas gave us some big points early, but I thought when we had Chaney's 7 for 10, Sylvia's 6 for 9, they let them out of 12 free throws, and that's pretty good. You've got to have seniors in this league to win, so our two seniors stepped up. Ask the players questions. Q. Just talk about the big-time win tonight. You know you're back in the championship game. What are you looking to do different this year than you did last year? QUIANNA CHANEY: I think just our mental focus and our toughness to come out and play well as a team and just make sure we play team ball and stick together. SYLVIA FOWLES: I'll agree, focus and come out and play for 40 minutes. Q. Have you guys put aside to this point the goal of winning this tournament since you haven't done it, but now that it's here how badly do you want it? How much is the desire there for this title, especially since you haven't won it? SYLVIA FOWLES: It's like a sense of urgency. You want to win it real bad but you've got to calm down and make sure you come out on the right note. I know me personally I always get over-hyped for games like this, and I learned how to calm down and let the game come to me, so I'll be looking forward to the game tomorrow. Q. When you played Tennessee before you went down 16 and then you turned that around. Why did you all start so slow, and then what changed to enable you to take over and take the lead? COACH CHANCELLOR: I don't usually take over like this, but we will not answer in questions in regard to playing Tennessee at this time because Tennessee has got to win a game, I'm sorry. I'm not being rude, I'm not going to get in that deal. I'm sorry, I really respect you, but we will not answer those questions. You can ask anything else you want to ask. Q. Talk about you kept Kentucky in foul trouble from early on. That didn't really allow them to establish the game than that they wanted to. Would you attribute some of that to the win tonight, you guys were able to play loose and keep running on them? QUIANNA CHANEY: Yes, I'd say that was part of our game plan was to run. We know they send the majority of their players to the boards, so we had the great opportunity to run. We got them in foul trouble early on, and that's something that was a part of our game plan, as well. Q. Sylvia, you didn't play that much against Ole Miss. It was such an easy win tonight. You got 30 minutes. Do your legs feel pretty good? Do you feel pretty rested going into this championship game? SYLVIA FOWLES: Yes, I'm feeling very rested for the most part, but even if I do have that doubt, I'm pretty sure our trainer, she'll do a great job of getting us rested tonight. Q. I apologize if this has been asked before, but what's the difference between this game and the last time you played UK as far as from you guys' perspective? SYLVIA FOWLES: If you ask me, I don't think it really was a big difference. I don't feel we played our best basketball tonight, but we ended up with a win, so I'm grateful for the win. COACH CHANCELLOR: Here's what we'll do in fairness to you. When this game is over with, I think we'll still be here, and really quick-like if you would like to ask our players a question at the end of this game, we'll be glad to answer it at that time because we'll have a winner. I want to have access to the press. We need the press, and I don't want to cut that out. Is that a fair deal to everybody? So you can get to them. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach? Q. Before the tournament I was reading articles, and you were talking about that you focused more on LSU this year and things that you needed to improve. What do you think that your team has improved the most at thus far? COACH CHANCELLOR: I don't think there's any doubt the most improvement they've made is having a little fun, just fun, just enjoying playing and having fun, winning the SEC championship and stopping at Dairy Queen and having ice cream. I think that's important if you want my honest opinion, in coaching and dealing with players. I think the second thing now that you want to hear is offensively. We have made some changes. We've got people like Chaney we're just letting shoot. If you touch it and you feel good, shoot it. We've made some changes in the offense a little bit, a little more screen on the ball, a little more set plays, not a lot of set plays. We actually put in a play today that worked really well for us. We called it BB, named it after Basketball Bob. I'll take credit for it, but that's what we ran. Q. You played two games that were vastly different with UK this time around. How did this game kind of look to you? COACH CHANCELLOR: I thought this was a carbon copy of the game in Baton Rouge. I thought the game with UK up there we played really, really well and shot the ball and scored, and they didn't defend us like they defended us the last two games. The last two games went almost identical except at the end. They had not played last night before, and I thought we were able to wear them down. We didn't play many minutes, and then at the end we were able to stretch it out a little bit, whereas as home it went down to the very last play. Q. Can you just talk about Ashley Thomas? COACH CHANCELLOR: I thought that was the difference in the game tonight. First time she's ever had a double-double. To put one in front of Sylvia and one behind her, they tried to double Chaney, and when they did that left her open and she made some big shots. She hit some shots. She made some shots. And then she rebounded the ball unbelievable. That's the best she's rebounded the ball since I've been in Baton Rouge. Q. You maintained a double-figure lead throughout the second half but you never could turn the game into a blowout. Talk about Kentucky's effort and the toughness they played with? COACH CHANCELLOR: I thought Kentucky had great effort. You know, I thought they played hard. You go back and think about it, they've beaten Georgia twice in a season. Kentucky plays really hard. Matthew Mitchell is a greedy kind of person in life, and I kind of thought the team reflected it. They could have threw in the towel when we were up 17, but they didn't. Mahoney has done a great job. You know, when she moved to the point that really helped them in my mind. That other little kid is tough and really played well, but she's just a tough match-up for us at the point. She's really a good player. And Elliott is -- what I hate most, I miss Elliott's daddy. I sat in the stands tonight and listened to him. He plays as hard as she does, and I enjoyed dad as much as I enjoyed watching Georgia and Kentucky play. Q. Your first answer in what's changed about LSU is that they're having more fun, that you went to Dairy Queen as soon as you won the regular season title. Are you doing anything fun with them tonight? COACH CHANCELLOR: At LSU we don't celebrate semifinal wins. I don't mean that bad. We're going to celebrate the championships. That will probably be milkshakes or something, I don't know. Q. Sylvia was mentioning that she tended to get too hyped up sometimes for big games. Is this something you've talked to her about early in the year, or how has that come about? COACH CHANCELLOR: We talked to her about watching fouls. You cannot get in foul trouble. Then we talked to her about that you were going to get banged across in the lane. Don't let that bother you. Then we said get in big games and just -- you're a great player. Sometimes Sylvia, you think Sylvia is a great player. Sylvia don't think that all the time. So in turn I tell her all the time, I don't never talk to her -- I usually call her big one or a great player. Great players think they've got to make great plays and they've got to be a factor in the game, and you can't be a factor in the game if you're all nervous and hyped up. Q. No matter who you play tomorrow, I think it's safe to say that the winner is going to be from the state of Tennessee. Are you going to tell your ladies anything tonight, tomorrow morning, not to get wrapped up into the team that has the home field advantage? COACH CHANCELLOR: We don't even mention that. We played Tennessee in Knoxville, they had 17,000, 16,000. We don't bring that up. All you're doing is creating a negative in the players' minds. Last time I checked the basket was ten feet high, and if we can put it in there we'll win. We're just looking forward to playing in the game. We'll actually start just as soon as the game is over with and we will prepare for the players in the morning. We won't be -- we want them to get a good night's rest and then we'll be meeting with them in the morning, not tonight. Q. You mentioned the play that you all put in for today's game. Can you go into a little more detail about it without giving it away? The play that you put in, the BB? COACH CHANCELLOR: We just tried to put in -- we run a lot of motion here so we can put in quick hitters on the day of the game that nobody had scouted. We put a little play in for Chaney. She didn't score off of it but big Syl scored three times off of it. They were doubling us outside and I thought it was a good move by Bob. I want to say this, too, the player most unappreciated at LSU is Erica White. We bring Chaney in here, we bring her in here, we get questions about Thomas' play. Poor old Erica runs this team, is the whole heart of our team and gets very little credit in some people's minds. In the coaches' minds a lot of credit. 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
|