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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 4, 2010Shantell BlackRenee LadnerBianca ThomasDULUTH, GEORGIA Ole Miss – 64 THE MODERATOR: We have Ole Miss head coach René Ladner and student-athletes Shantell Black and Bianca Thomas. Coach, if you could start with an opening comment. COACH LADNER: Just feels really good to get a win under your belt in the Southeastern Conference tournament, whether it was by one point or by ten. The game could have gone either way. I just believe it went to the team that made the last play. I think that was the difference in the game. It was a good game for both of us. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Shantell, you have the rebound. Talk me through that play a little bit. SHANTELL BLACK: I was just determined to do whatever it took for my team. I rebounded the whole game. You see I didn't score that much in the first half, but I played the role. I rebounded. I did all the dirty work. I was a trash player basically. That paid off for us in the end. Q. Coach, the final play, getting that shot after you had made a lot of threes all day, but being able to be in the right place at the right time. Shantell seemed to be able to do that, get it in. It was huge. COACH LADNER: She recognized it. She put it in the basket, and then made her free throw. She made the play when she had to. You have six seniors playing for their life right now. I think she understood the urgency. She just made a basketball play. Q. Bianca Thomas, South Carolina got off to a 10-0 start, you hit that three. Do you think that helped you settle down and bounce back? BIANCA THOMAS: Yeah, I think so. We came out very anxious. I think we just needed to settle down, get focused a little bit. Our shots started to fall early on. Q. Bianca, as a shooter, does it help you play in a second game in an arena, having got this game under your belt, to come out here tomorrow and have some familiarity with your environment? BIANCA THOMAS: It only just helps. We got our first game in. At the same time, playing Tennessee, got to play as hard as we did the first game. Really excited to get back out again tomorrow and compete and play hard. Q. Bianca, could you talk about playing Tennessee again. The team has played them. You played them tough, two games. How does that maybe help you going into a third game with them? BIANCA THOMAS: You know, Tennessee knows our tendencies and we know their tendencies. They know who we have, we know who they have. It's a matter of going out, putting the game plan together and just going out and competing. We played them two times already. We know what to expect. We know we have to bring it for a full 40 minutes. Q. Coach, can you just address that, too. You just played Tennessee, and four days later here they come again. Are there advantages or disadvantages for both teams when that happens? COACH LADNER: Well, I'll let you know tomorrow after the game for the most part. It's size versus speed. They're big, and we struggle with them on the boards. We're quick. They struggle with us in penetration. It will just probably be the team that takes care of possessions and makes the most of them. They, like any other team, make mistakes as well as we do. I thought when we played them at their place, just recently, that we did not get off to a very good start. I think a key in playing in any game, much less playing Tennessee, is I think you have to start off well. We dug a hole early with Tennessee at Tennessee. Because we don't have a lot of depth, it will be difficult for us to play at that level of energy for any length of time, even though we did bring it back 50-all about the 11-minute mark. What our team has to do is play consistently for 40 minutes. We have a tendency to get an eight-point lead, rest 30 seconds, and the next thing you know, the score is tied again. We have to play with consistency, regardless of who the team is on the floor. It happens to be Tennessee. We have a lot of respect for their program, and we are going to give it our best shot. Q. Back-to-back games, is that a factor depth-wise, or maybe that would wait for three games in three days to be more of a factor? COACH LADNER: I think you just have to play. You can be tired next Monday. It doesn't matter. You play a round robin tournament, you put yourself in this position. You owe it to yourself to leave it on the floor. I'm sure we'll have some heavy legs, but it doesn't matter. We have to regroup, reload, turn around, get ready to play the next game. Hopefully play a third game. Q. Does it worry you today getting outscored in the paint? COACH LADNER: Have you been following my team? Q. I haven't real closely. COACH LADNER: We get outscored in the paint quite often. So what we try to do is we try to counter that with perimeter play. So it's the norm. Rebounding has been a source for me all year, so we've decided the best thing to do is rebound by committee. If we can do that, we'll be in good shape. As I said last week at Tennessee, I looked up, there's an orange jersey with four legs. I'm not sure where we'll be, but hopefully we'll be on the interior and we'll have an opportunity. As Shantell said, kick it out, pick up the trash, play extremely well and extremely hard. Q. Would you speak to the competitive balance of this conference? Seems like the lower half of this league is stronger than it's ever been. It makes pretty much where you don't have any easy games. COACH LADNER: We certainly found that out this year. There's so much parity, so much strength. Coaches are doing an outstanding job. You can look at our season. We came out of January and just were playing really well, won five games, then teams got better. We got more scouted. Times got tough. I would not suffice to say that any team in this conference could win this championship this year. And that is a credit to the league and to the coaches, getting the right players here. It's been an interesting year. I really believe this is going to continue. I don't think it's ever going to be real top-heavy again. Q. You talked about your team playing for their lives. Are you openly talking about what they've got to do for the NCAA, or is that sort of a given they know that's a tough thing right now? COACH LADNER: I am brutally honest. So when we talk, I talk exactly about what is going to happen if we don't take care of our business. We have put ourselves with our backs to the wall. We had to come out and play a very tough matchup for us. South Carolina is a tough matchup. Very well-coached, very tough team. We got past one hurdle. I believe I told them several months ago if we were going to be Southeastern Conference champions, we were going to have to put ourselves in the right position. Right now we're in the position to win outright, make a run deep in the tournament to help is advance to the NCAAs. Q. Why don't you think it would be top-heavy again in the conference? COACH LADNER: Because I think we are recruiting extremely well. We're getting great athletes. Kelsey Bone was number two in the nation last year. She immediately changes South Carolina's program. We're getting good players, TV coverage. Players want to play in the Southeastern Conference because they're going to be seen on television. Again, we are the toughest conference top to bottom, as is evident in our standings this year. I'm not sure that any other conference can say that. Maybe the Big 12. We're comparable to them. I just think it's good coaches, excluding myself. I'm talking about those others out there. And good players. We're very competitive. We have the resources to be good and to bring great players. I just believe that it's no longer just the LSUs, Tennessees getting the key players. Now you're seeing teams on the bottom, quote unquote, rise to the occasion, as is Kentucky. They've gotten an exceptional group of athletes. A A'dia Mathies is an outstanding freshman to go with the others. You get one or two key players, they can turn a program in a hurry. I think we're all getting that right now. I think that's why there will be more parity. Q. Shantell, have you ever had a bigger rebound? What does this mean to you coming home and getting a win like this? SHANTELL BLACK: I think that was the biggest rebound of my career playing basketball. It just feels great to come back and do that in front of my home state and family and friends. Q. Shantell, getting behind 10-0, what did the team do to keep together like that to make the end possible? SHANTELL BLACK: I think we just stayed with the game plan. I think Bianca sparked us with that three. We just took it over from there, never looked back. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. End of FastScripts |
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