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BIG 12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 12, 2010

Amanda Thompson

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

Oklahoma Â– 59
Baylor - 54

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by the Sooners from Oklahoma, Coach Sherri Coale and her two student athletes, Amanda Thompson and Danielle Robinson. First of all, congratulations and your thoughts on tonight's game.
COACH COALE: I thought it was -- thank you, and I thought it was our kids' will in the second half. Just a refusal to lose and a sense of uncanniness and display of grit that they have displayed all year. Danielle Robinson was special to play 45 minutes and carry us in scoring the way she did, help on defense, I thought Joanna McFarland was a true freshman in her first Big 12 Tournament was really good, gave us key minutes. Then Nyeshia joined us for the party a little later than I would have liked, but she did join and you say she did a great job.

Q. Danielle, can you talk about penetrating all night and having to shoot over and around Brittney Griner? She got 10 blocks but you were able to get shots perform.
DANIELLE ROBINSON: Even if she did block it, we were able to get out-of-bounds and set something up underneath, she is a great player. The thing for me is I had to shoot the jumper instead of taking it to the rim, figured it out late, obviously, but better late than never.

Q. Amanda can you talk about the Baylor match-ups, you guys have. They always seem to be fantastic, and tomorrow night you have another match-up. Talk about that as well.
AMANDA THOMPSON: The match-ups are always interesting, of course they have Brittney Griner, but I think we have to work on what way as a team we can help each other out and we all stepped up to the plate and came out with a win, tomorrow night is another match-up, bedlam series, baby, let's bring it.

Q. Danielle, talk about Ny catching fire.
DANIELLE ROBINSON: Ny told us over and over "I'm coming, I'm coming" and she came at the right time. Even if she's not hitting if the first 35 minutes we know she's going to knock 'em down that's just her mindset, she's going to keep shooting.

Q. Danielle, can you talk about from your perspective, a game like this, tight, back and forth, do you sort of enjoy, relish this type of night? You look to be enjoying yourself.
DANIELLE ROBINSON: You have to. It's part of the game. Not every game is going to be a 20-point victory, sometimes you have to grind it out, and it was about toughness tonight, and we're so proud of our effort. We're just looking forward to tomorrow.

Q. Amanda, Nyeshia hit two big 3's that put you in good shape but she hit a drive that Brittney Griner didn't block that got in. When you saw that ball go in, is that when you thought, hey, this is one we've got tonight?
AMANDA THOMPSON: It was a sigh of relief running back on the court, she finally got a shot off. We had been going back and forth but we were fightin' from behind and that drive to the basket definitely put us forward and I felt like we had the advantage and I was just so proud of her.

Q. Amanda can you talk about Abi on Brittney Griner, she won the battle of the boards.
AMANDA THOMPSON: I felt like she battled all night, even though she was in foul trouble she didn't back down to the height advantage. She blocked out whenever she could and even if she got blocked on the offensive end she was fighting to get the ball back, and it was a night of toughness and Abi brought that toughness, and so did Joanna McFarland. I was proud of 'em.

Q. Amanda, last we saw you guys you couldn't not hit a three, tonight you guys are 2 of 10, talk about that and was it frustrating at all tonight?
AMANDA THOMPSON: Not really. Throughout the year we've -- our 3-pointers have been going up and down, and when we're not making 3's we have to find another part of the game that we can take advantage of. I felt like we did that by driving to the basket and looking for D-Rob on the drives and the short jump shots, and we can't rely on 3's, we have to rebound and play defense and just work hard.

Q. Danielle, you've had a lot of these battles with Andrea Riley and she put up 43 tonight, talk about tomorrow. Such a show case for point guards.
DANIELLE ROBINSON: Yeah, I've battled her for three years now, and guarding her is not an individual effort, definitely a team effort. I think last Sunday we did a great job. She got her average 25 points and tonight she did what she had to do to win. It's always going to be a battle, it's postseason. So it's win or go home.

Q. Talk about 10th turnovers tonight. Season low, I think.
AMANDA THOMPSON: We'll let the point guard take care of that.
DANIELLE ROBINSON: We checked in transition, but we didn't force anything. That's something that we're going to have to carry for the next game tomorrow, taking care of the basketball because teams convert on the other end and we can't have that.
THE MODERATOR: Ladies, thank you very much, we're going to let you go back to the locker room. Coach Coale will take some questions.

Q. Sherri when Ny came off she was 0 for 4 from 3-point range, and you stopped her and said something to her. Can you share what you said?
COACH COALE: I don't remember, Lynn. I tried everything that I could think of to get her immersed in the game so I'm not sure which of the 14 tactics I attempted. That might have been -- I just knew that Ny could affect the game not only because she can score, but she just is full of personality when she imposes her personality on the game.
We are better as a team when she does that and we are affected by that. Just trying to find the button to push to get her going.

Q. Talk about Joanna's development. I know it's going to be a fight down there any night in the Big 12, but it looked especially tonight from the physical end of things she was down there battling and playing hard.
COACH COALE: She was and if you look at her body she is bruised up and cut up and she's always fighting, whether it's an opposing player, game time or Abi in practice, and she is a physical post player and she relishes those battles. I thought she showed a lot of poise. We called her number and showed confidence in her in the first half looking for a little pick and pop and a pin on the baseline because she can shoot it, and I felt certain if she had looked at the basket she might have made those two.
She was in such a hurry, all panicked on the two attempts, but overall I thought she was great, got some rebounds, blocked out even when she didn't get the rebound, which is one reason that Abi had higher numbers than Brittney Griner did, when Abi wasn't in the game she was taking Brittney Griner out of picture, so somebody else could get the rebound.

Q. Sherri, did Brittney Griner look the same as the other two times you played her?
COACH COALE: Looked exactly the same to me.

Q. Sherri, did you have a concern, was it a conversation with your post players about how tightly this game might be called?
COACH COALE: No, we just -- we talked about championship behavior as we always do and about trying not to put ourselves in a foul situation early which has been a topic of conversation every time we've played Baylor. At their place we struggled, we had two post players get two fouls within the first 3 minutes of the game so it's a thing we always talk about when we get ready to play those guys so nothing different.

Q. What did you like most on Danielle's stat line?
COACH COALE: 0 turnovers.

Q. Talk about that.
COACH COALE: I say that and how do we score enough points to win if we don't have her scoring. I thought her decisions the with ball -- she did a nice job of changing speed in transition, checking and rechecking and being sure about what she did. I thought she was -- kept herself from being frustrated, which could be really easy to get frustrated when you keep going to the rim, and she is a clever finisher. She has all kinds of ways she can finish. She hit a nifty scoop, and she shot a couple of those layups at 10 feet with an arcing hook and still got blocked.
She kept her head and to understand to play and hit a key jump shot late and made everybody go "okay" and our team looks at Danielle, and when she is looking good we think we can do anything.

Q. Sherri, Brittney Griner hit one that was short and you guys got the rebound and you went nuts on the sideline, you made a wind mill motion and all kinds of stuff.
COACH COALE: I did?

Q. Yes, but do you remember what your emotions were and why that play got you fired up?
COACH COALE: I have no idea, I don't remember wind milling. I bet that was attractive!

Q. Your thoughts on only seven turnovers.
COACH COALE: Again, I thought Jasmine -- Jasmine had 4 assists, 0 turnovers, when your two guards can handle the basketball with 0 turn overs you're going to have success and I think it's particularly important when you're not making shots and the percentage was not all that good and you can't give away possessions and, again it's all about speed, it's about playing at the right pace whatever that pace is for you, and I thought both those guards were fantastic.

Q. Another bedlam game you guys were excited to get done with the regular season, and it hasn't been a week since you played these guys, a little odd or how do you approach tomorrow?
COACH COALE: It's odd, but you expect that when you come to your Conference Tournament, so our guys are excited. I think maybe not having the complexity of the Iowa State film you wonder about those 432 sets they run, you know what Oklahoma State is going to do, you know?
Andrea Riley is going to score! That sounds simple and it's hard to keep her from doing that, at least it's fresh in our minds and we'll go and try to get prepared and do exactly what we did last weekend.

Q. I know you've talked about this during the course of the season about how good the point guards play in the Big 12, but this is a big showdown to see Danielle and Andrea Riley, just talk about that match-up.
COACH COALE: Well, Danielle's speed and quick wit make her exceptional, we discussed that before. Danielle can also score and Danielle can also get her teammates baskets, and she defends like crazy, and I think that's one of the things that makes her a premiere point guard.
There is not a phase of the game that she is not committed to being excellent at and I think that sets her apart and puts her maybe, if not in a league of her own a league that's not very crowded. I like the way she leads our basketball team I like her swagger and the way she involves her teammates so if I've got to defend Andrea Riley and head-to-head and defend her I'm glad I get to do that with Danielle Robinson.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much, we'll see you tomorrow.

End of FastScripts

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