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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS & FINALS: OKLAHOMA CITYMarch 28, 2009Agnus BerenatoShayla ScottXenia StewartShavonte ZellousOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Coach Berenato from Pittsburgh, congratulations on a great season. Your opening comments? COACH BERENATO: On behalf of the University of Pittsburgh, we are excited to be here. It's great to make the Sweet 16 the second year in a row. It's something that a lot of people are surprised about but we aren't. We feel that we have a really good team, a team that really doesn't have any stars. We are just a well-balanced program. I just want to thank everyone here in Oklahoma as well as we just came from -- where did we come from, Seattle, right? Yeah, Seattle. And the University of Washington. The NCAA committee and all the schools and the host communities. They've been great. Our host, Caroline, has been wonderful, so to whoever picked here, and she has been a blessing for us and we had great soul food last night, we treated her, it was definitely out of her realm, but we like doing different things. We are excited about the game tomorrow night and excited about being here and we appreciate all of you being here. Q. Coach, Shavonte was lightly recruited out of high school. Why the heck was she so lightly recruited and what did you guys see in here that put you on to her? COACH BERENATO: My associate head coach Jeff Williams is the one who found out about her. He saw her and he has a great eye for talent. He can look and he has great vision. He just said this kid was going to be special. She was a great track athlete, M.V.P. of her track team for four years in a row. He had been in touch with her and said we have to go see this kid. So we saw her in open gym and we took a chance, but you have to remember that we only had six wins when I got to Pitt, they had three wins, so we doubled it, but it was a whopping six wins. We told her she could come and make the program and develop the program and she was into it. She was like, "how many games did you win?" And I said "six." But it's not like, for us, anyone -- my eighth grade daughter could have helped me. We had to get recruits, it was in the spring, we were starting a new year and we needed people to take some scholarships. We love her personality and she has a smile the size of California, so we thought we would like her. Q. Agnus, I guess by this point you're used to playing on the road almost in these games. Would you talk about coming to Oklahoma City to play Oklahoma? COACH BERENATO: I mean, you know, we knew we were -- you have to go on the road if you're not hosting, so we knew we were going on the road and the thought of being close wasn't even a possibility for us. We just -- I really thought we were going to go back to New Mexico, that's where we went last year, Albuquerque, I never thought about Seattle, but when it came on the board -- and honestly we couldn't see it, you couldn't see where you were going. When we found out it was Seattle, it was like, okay, fine, and then where do you go from there, Oklahoma. Okay, fine. And my team has done exceptionally well because the Seattle trip was a six-and-a-half hour flight out and it's a 3-hour time difference. Then we flew back home and the kids went to classes. And then to come here, I missed geography in school and I thought it was an hour flight, it was almost three hours. We had a charter, it was three hours, and it was like "are you kidding me?" It has been rough. When you look at other teams, they've had home seeds or been up the road apiece and they've come back home. Honestly, it's all part of the NCAA, but it makes it exciting and special. We handle whatever we're given, and I think that's what you do in life. Basketball is just like the game of life, and businessmen and businesswomen, we travel all the time. We travel to California to see a two-hour basketball game of a 17 year old and get on the red eye to come back home, so why not do it to get into the Sweet 16? Q. Coach, talk about the match-up between Pepper Wilson and Courtney Paris. COACH BERENATO: Obviously Courtney Paris is an All-American and averaging 16 and 14, and Courtney has a twin sister that's her side kick and she is playing at home. Pepper Wilson is a freshman and she doesn't have a sister that's a side kick, so what is there to talk about? I think that Courtney is really good. I like Pepper, she is a freshman, she is learning, getting better every single game. She has played in the rugged, Big East conference and played against some of the best talent in the nation, Tina Charles, Candice Bingham, Tina Vaughn are some of the best in the nation. She hasn't played against Courtney Paris, but I don't think it's a Courtney Paris show, it's her team against our team. Q. Coach, as you've looked at Oklahoma, what do you see Whitney Hand, how she fits in and the things she brings to the table for Oklahoma? COACH BERENATO: I think Whitney is a great player and she adds a lot to their team and she gives them the balance of the outside threat. When you listen to these games, and I saw the game with Georgia Tech and they talked about she was all that, and I guess she was a rookie in her conference, rookie of the year, and she was shooting well and the game before she hurt her hand. She was like after that 4 for 16 and by a lot of people's standards, that's not so bad. She cracked it open against Georgia Tech, and I think she allows them to have an inside/outside threat, and any good basketball team has that. So as a freshman, she has stepped up and Whitney looks like a kid that enjoys the game. I've only seen her on video, but I like watching her play because she has fun, smiles, I think that's really nice, and she has a hell of a shot. Q. Coach, when you've dealt with a player going out four or five games as a starter, I think people don't understand what happens to -- because you bring somebody else in and that person was a reserve and somebody takes their place. Can you talk about in general when a team loses a starter, they adjust and then that starter comes back, how disruptive that can be in general? COACH BERENATO: Well, I don't know that it's disruptive, I just think it's probably -- you went a couple of nights without dessert, and all of the sudden you got dessert again. It's kind of like you're in time-out, maybe. I don't look at it in a negative way. Things happen for a reason. I feel like maybe there was a reason her being out. I know it killed her, it probably killed Sherri Coale, but maybe the rest of the team was like, hey, we need this kid. And I think what happens to group dynamics, you're right in that they continued to build and grow, but unfortunately the person that's injured is on the sideline. So they're kind of feeling a little left out and they're not in on all the little jokes, and do you know what I'm saying? They can't be, every time the coach gets mad, "get on the line and run" and the kids are like, what, your feet aren't broke? Because there are group dynamics like that. I'm just sayin'. So the people that are working hard are like "you're so lucky" and she's like, "you're kidin' me!" It's almost like the co-worker that is sick, you're like, yeah, right, whatever, but you really need them. You need them to come back in, and your team has to move on, but the coach has to do a great job in the balance of reintegrating that person within the system, because women have feelings and those feelings get in the way. Q. Coach, I think you and Gary Blair went to the same media school by the way. COACH BERENATO: I love Gary Blair. Q. He comes here for games. COACH BERENATO: Gary Blair, we have vacationed before, without family and stuff. It's like on "You Tube," know what I'm saying? I can tell you a really funny story about Gary Blair. Q. My question was going to be about the guard match-ups, because you have veteran talented guards, Oklahoma's guards are more youthful. Talk about the match-up and how you see that playing into tomorrow. COACH BERENATO: I think that D-Rob is an awesome player and she makes Oklahoma go. She loves the transition game and pushed it into the paint. She likes to penetrate and kick, or if she gets into the paint, she is going to create things. At the same time, Xenia Stewart for us is so focused and driven, and she has size that maybe can come back, like D-Rob has to offer, the key for us is to limit her explosiveness in the paint. And I think Shavonte Zellous is playing at the top of her game, she is an All-American. My sports information person, Mindy, told me she has scored more points in the NCAA in the regional or the first and second round than any other person in the NCAA. She doesn't even know that, you know what I'm saying? It's like she plays because she loves the game. She really enjoys our team. It's not about her, she'll do whatever the team needs her to do. That's how I look at the guards from Oklahoma. I think their team is good as well as Hand. She'll do the same thing, she likes that 3-point shot, she is going to hangout there and shoot that, but if they need something else from her, I think she'll do it. I think they're going to be a great match-up. Q. In these first two games you talked about the tempo of the game and how you guys would like to speed it up. Do you feel the same way going into this game? Or is this a different theme athletically? How do you see the pace and the tempo going? COACH BERENATO: Paul, it's great you're here, so to my Pittsburgh people, we give you a special shout out! How about this weather, it's worse than home! We're not happy about that you guys -- no, I'm just kidding. I think the tempo is going to be really important but you know me well enough, Paul, to know that we are who we are. I am who I am, I'm not going to change. Somebody might tell me to change, and I'm like okay for a second, and then I go back to who I am. Both teams like to push, play up-tempo, push in transition, we're both aggressive defensive teams, whether it's man-to-man or a combination of zones and man-to-man and I think that's -- when you get to the Sweet 16 and you get to this level, I don't think anyone is changing the way they're playing because the way you play got you here, so why are you going to change? You've got to go with it and you're going to try to adjust to what Oklahoma might do or Oklahoma might make adjustments to what we do, but at the same time to change tempo, no, because that's not what got us here. Q. Are they similar to anyone that you played in the Big East? Do they remind you of anyone? COACH BERENATO: You know, that's like when my kid asks me to tell her about patterns, I don't know. I don't think like that. I don't know, you know? I just think in the Big East we're the best conference in the country. Bottom line. We play against everything. Running teams, against slow-down Villanova teams, against inside/out teams, Louisville made it to the Elite 8, we have four teams in the Sweet 16 and we have one that has advanced. So I would say, sure we're playing against someone like that, like I'm trying to think -- no one is like Connecticut, they're really good. We play some teams from out here, we played Texas A&M, we lost by 2 possessions, we played Maryland, beat them by 30, here in the Sweet 16. We've played a lot of teams that are here, Louisville twice. We've played Rutgers, beat Rutgers there, that was a tough environment and I will say that the Big East has prepared us for our environment. I think that's one thing that's important, you know. You go to Connecticut and it's sold out, whether it's 11,000 or 17,000, you go to "The Rack," which is Rutgers, which was in the top-three toughest places to play in the nation, and we were able to get a win there in a hostile crowd. Louisville had 12,000 people. Of course, all for Louisville! We played Gonzaga and Montana with their home crowds, but my 28 people were really loud! We brought the house down. It was awesome! So I don't know, but I think every team in the Big East has good guards, people coming in off the bench, that's why I think we're productive and that's why we have four teams left. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you for your comments. COACH BERENATO: Thank you to all of you. On behalf of the University of Pittsburgh but also for our game and unless you guys take your time and your time is the most valuable thing you have, unless you take your time to write about women's basketball, our game won't grow and our game is an awesome game. So thank you very much for being here. (The players enter the room.) THE MODERATOR: We're joined by our student athletes from Pittsburgh. Q. Shavonte, I was asking Coach about your recruitment, and I was curious if you might be willing to reflect a little bit. You're on this four-year journey, not done with it, but when you think back on it, can you talk about your development as a player, lightly recruited and now where you are in your senior season? SHAVONTE ZELLOUS: I would say my freshman year was a long year. As you know, I didn't play due to the transition of high school to college. But I think I learned, and I had to learn really quick. I think my maturity level has grown from my freshman year to now. I think my success comes within my teammates. I think they're being here with me for all four of my years has helped me. Xenia helped keep me on track, and I think the coaches have done a great job with that, too. And it was a matter of me getting into the gym, working on my game day in, day out. And Coach Shea, who is now at the University of Connecticut, helped me, too, when I was working out over the summer, and she helped guide me into doing things the right way. Q. Shavonte, it seems like you guys are playing a string of road games. Talk about what it's been like in the tournament and when you expect facing Oklahoma so close to their campus? SHAVONTE ZELLOUS: From a team standpoint, we're used to it. Coming to the Big East we had to travel to UCONN, Rutgers, Louisville, so traveling is not a big thing for us, we enjoy traveling, to be honest. We're well prepared, we come into the game with confidence and we know Oklahoma is a great team and they have a great post player Courtney Paris, and she has a great supporting cast. We're just glad to play. That's it. Q. Could you talk about the match-up that you guys are going to be facing tomorrow? You obviously have experience and talent at guard. Oklahma is more on the youthful, talented at guard. Talk about the match-up of guards in this game tomorrow. SHAVONTE ZELLOUS: I think the match-up is going to be something to watch. Both players get to the free-throw line, very active on the defensive end, there will be a lot of pressure, so I think it's going to be a good match-up for everyone to see. A lot of explosiveness, a lot of quickness, a lot of leadership and key play among the guards in the perimeter and trying to get the post into the game as well. It's all going to be something to watch. Q. Xenia, when you've watched film to get ready for Oklahoma, what have you seen from Whitney Hand and what does she bring to the table for Oklahoma that makes her a good player? XENIA STEWART: Whitney has a very good shot, we got to know where she's at. From the videos we watched we can't let her get a shot off. But I feel as though she can't get the ball without the point guard penetrating and drawing in the defense, so if we can know where she is at all times, we can limit her touches. We're not saying we are going to shut her down completely, and she is wanting to score, but we're going to try to disrupt her a little bit in her game. Q. Shayla, talk about the prospect of playing -- sounds like it's going to be a packed crowd, but chances are good it's going to be people wearing Crimson not Pitt colors. Can you talk about that? SHAYLA SCOTT: I think Washington helped us prepare, playing both Gonzaga and being in that environment, when you have a lot of people rooting against you helps you to stay together as a team, helps you be calm and listen to your coaches. We're well prepared for that and we've played at Louisville and Connecticut, where a lot of fans aren't rooting for you, and I think that's helped us to become prepared. Q. Shavonte, could you talk about your men's team and y'all are here. Do you have much contact with them? Are you watching? Are they watching you? Talk about that. SHAVONTE ZELLOUS: I don't know if Shayla wants me to say that, but she keeps in contact with the men's team pretty good. (Chuckles.) But we keep in contact with them every blue moon, they're focused on trying to make it to the Final Four and we're trying to focus on getting to the Elite 8, so there is not that much contact besides Shayla, but that's about it. THE MODERATOR: Shayla, did you want to follow up? SHAYLA SCOTT: My boyfriend is Gilbert Brown, so I talk to him about the game, give him pointers, and they're always in the background being loud, and they're screaming, but we're all in the same position and it's exciting to both be fighting for a national championship. Q. Shayla, for a long time Pitt's men's team has been growing in popularity and y'all have been doing the same thing. Has that been cool to be a part of, as they've grown and gotten attention, or are you trying to aspire to the same level that they have? SHAYLA SCOTT: We have come so far, they had six wins when I came here, it's an enjoyable thing. We have media people coming to interview us, our games are on TV now, Shavonte being an All-American is exciting and getting into the tournament three years in a row, it's great. I'm just happy that we have made the program as successful, and congratulations to our men's team, who are doing well this week. We're happy for them as well. But I think mostly our fan base has grown due to our success and I feel like we're getting to the level that they are at. Q. Shayla, follow up on the women versus men deal. If there was a men's team playing Oklahoma -- like if the Oklahoma men were playing here in Oklahoma City and it was the Pitt men, they would be screaming and hollering about the home court advantage, this is terrible, there were a lot of teams that end up -- Duke gets beat on Michigan State's court. How do you guys approach it mentally to say, hey, it doesn't matter, we've got to go out and play. I know the Big East prepares you, but this is supposed to be a neutral tournament and a lot of folks end up playing on a home court, how do you deal with that? SHAYLA SCOTT: We just try to go out and play our game. We like a lot of people rooting against us and we're like, hey, why not? We want to go out there and upset them. You know what I mean? They're close to home and we want to be like, you know, we can play in this environment and we can take care of business. THE MODERATOR: Ladies, best of luck to you tomorrow. End of FastScripts |
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