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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS REGIONALS: BATON ROUGEMarch 22, 2008Van ChancellorQuianna ChaneySylvia FowlesErica WhiteBATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA COACH CHANCELLOR: I thought it was a good game except we just got characteristically turning the ball over more than we've turned the ball over all year. For some reason we turned the ball over -- if I was going to give a game ball out tonight I would have given it out to Mesha Williams. I thought she was pretty good. 14 points, 7 rebounds and played extremely well, and we are pleased with tonight's win. Q. For Sylvia, this was one of the lowest scoring games in NCAA history by any team. Talk about the pride you guys take in playing defense, and did you do anything special? Looked like the typical way you guys played defense. Was there anything different? SYLVIA FOWLES: I don't think it's anything that was different about it tonight. I think Erica got us through because our defense style were her, and once we seen her get things going, she makes it much easier for everybody else to play defense. QUIANNA CHANEY: I agree with Sylvia, just basic defense, Erica gets us started on defense and just came out and played good defense. Q. Sylvia, could you talk about Mesha tonight and just having her in there with you? What kind of game does that open up for you? SYLVIA FOWLES: Mesha, the name speaks for itself. She's aggressive, she's going to get you points. She's going to rebound the ball and she's going to play great defense. That's something we see every day. Mesha has to guard me every day. She makes me better, I make her better. But just to have her on the floor at the same time, she makes things quite easy for me when I'm in the game. So thanks to Mesha. Q. Erica, you played such good defense. What are some of the keys? What do you try to do especially starting the game to disrupt the other team's offense? ERICA WHITE: Just try to get ahead on the ball and try to make sure that their point guard doesn't get comfortable and that she's not able to run her team's offense. Just try to get deflections. When my teammates see me doing that, I think they get energy from it, so you just try to get a hand on the ball. Q. Sylvia, how do you put a game like this into context? Obviously the games are going to get tougher down the road. You guys have a chance to make history with a fifth straight Final Four, which is looking down the road, but how do you put this into context? SYLVIA FOWLES: You just come out and you play to the best of your ability. It's not about the opponent, who you're playing. You've just got to come out and play the way LSU is capable of playing, and that's something we did in the second half. The first half wasn't as good, but you've just got to put things into perspective and think about the long run. Q. For the players, Coach Chancellor kind of touched on the fact that he wasn't pleased with the turnovers for this game. What's y'all's take? Obviously you dominated Jackson State, but what is y'all's take on how you played tonight? ERICA WHITE: Looking at the stat sheet that my coach has, we turned the ball over 22 times. I cannot believe we turned the ball over that much. I take a lot of responsibility for that because as the point guard it starts with me. My take on the game is just -- that's 22 possessions that we didn't get a shot, and it's 22 opportunities that we didn't get to score, and it's something that we definitely have to clean up, and that starts with me. But 22 turnovers, I'm shocked to see that on that paper. QUIANNA CHANEY: Like she said, 22 turnovers, possessions that we could have got a shot out of, and I had a few that I shouldn't have had. But we'll clean it up tomorrow in practice and just get ready to play on Monday. SYLVIA FOWLES: Me personally, I'm pretty sure we can clean it up. We have time. I'm pretty sure coaches will do a great job in practice tomorrow cleaning it up. THE MODERATOR: The student athletes are excused. Thank you, ladies. Q. Talk about Mesha, I guess. You had said earlier in the year you should have played her more. Are you kind of gearing her up for this run here? COACH CHANCELLOR: I thought that -- usually in the two weeks between the SEC Tournament and the NCAAs, I always try to evaluate some things I think I would have done different. So tonight I was determined to get her in earlier. She had 14 points and seven rebounds, which I thought was unbelievable. She was just inspiring. When I said it, I don't wish but two games I'd have played her more. We're going to make sure she gets in the game because she can just rebound the ball. I thought tonight we were pretty dominant rebounding. I thought our field goal percentage was good. We just were really just very careless with the ball, which is uncharacteristic of LSU. We only averaged 12 turnovers all year. We shot 50 percent, held them to 32 points. They shot 23.1 percent. That's pretty good. Q. What do you see in Marist? I know you watched a little bit of the game tonight. What do you think you can do to pose a problem for LSU? COACH CHANCELLOR: Just how tough they are mentally. They were down 11 and I thought they were in trouble. By the time I turned back around, they went from down 11 to up about 10, and they did it just because they're so tough. They don't ever give up. They play hard. Those two kids inside are tough. Their guards are tough. This is just a tough team. This is a team that, if I'm not mistaken, I think they beat Ohio State to go to the Sweet 16 last year. I wasn't in college coaching but I think that's right, so you'd have to look that up. This is a team that's won 32 games this year. I don't care who they played, 32 games is still 32 games. They've got a nice team. They beat a good team in DePaul. I thought DePaul was the best 10th seed in the country. They beat them pretty good. Q. How did the time affect you? COACH CHANCELLOR: The time didn't affect me at all because after practice today I went home, and because I was feeling bad, I rested most of the day. I would have been ready by the time I got here tonight. The New York Times guy was here, and I told him if Marist won the game that we would play at 6:00. You know why? Because they're out there in New York and I thought they wanted all them New York people to see that game at 7:00 Eastern. I thought if DePaul won we'd play at 8:30. That's good. I'd like to play at 12:00 in the daytime. Waiting on the game drives you nuts. Q. You were talking about making changes in the offense when you came here, but you didn't want to go much to the defense. Talk about what kind of defense you found when you came here and what makes them play so well, that sort of thing? COACH CHANCELLOR: It's the most amazing defensive basketball team I've ever seen. We do everything fundamentally sound. When I say this, when I see a men's game, I say, man, if they would have had Bob Starkey they would have won the game. There's so many things at LSU that is so sound, I don't want to change anything. We cut cutters and we double the ball and we do everything defensively sound without gambling a lot. That's why we gave up 32 points tonight. We led the country in defense this year for however many years in a row. We are really good defensive. Our rebounding has gotten better. I want to say this, I am amazed how good our defense is when you consider our rebounding is one little bit above average. It's not average, it's a little better than average, but it's not good. But tonight it was. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach Chancellor. End of FastScripts |
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