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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 3, 2011Renee LadnerValencia McFarlandKayla MelsonNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE THE MODERATOR: At this time we have Ole Miss here with Coach Ladner and student-athletes Valencia McFarland and Kayla Melson. Coach Ladner, your opening thoughts on how the game went tonight. COACH LADNER: I just think it's very difficult to win games when you shoot 26% from the floor. We did a lot of good things right, we just couldn't make the ball go in the hole. We tried to guide it. We tried to do everything in our power to score. We're one of the maybe top free-throw shooting percentage teams, we shoot the best free-throw percentage in the league, and today we were 13-26. We're not three-point shooting team, but they did a good job taking away the drive and we ended up shooting three. Probably should have been beaten worse than 12. Naturally I'm proud of our effort and I think the future is bright. THE MODERATOR: Kayla, your thoughts on the game tonight? KAYLA MELSON: The ball didn't fall in the hole. But I think our young team showed a lot of heart and determination and the will to fight. I'm very, very proud to be a senior with this group of individuals. I know they will do great things in the years to come. I'm just very happy for them. I hate we couldn't move on. But sometimes like she said, the ball doesn't fall in the hole. We got to be able to defend and rebound. THE MODERATOR: Valencia, your thoughts on the team's performance tonight. VALENCIA McFARLAND: I think we played hard, gave a great effort. This off-season, we're going to continue to work hard and grow as a team. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. You lost by 12, but it was a lot closer in the final minutes. What do you think you did well to keep the game close? KAYLA MELSON: They started off hitting the three threes. We limited those three-point shots from falling. We played great pressure defense, made them turn the ball over a couple times. In those latter minutes, I think that was something that I seen that was very well for our team. VALENCIA McFARLAND: At the beginning, they came out shooting threes. We had to stop that. Later they started driving. Couldn't stop them from driving. Q. Everybody knows you have a young team. I know it hurts right now. In a year from now, when you look back on the environment and the experience here, what do you take from that? KAYLA MELSON: From my standpoint, this will probably be my last game, you know, I think they have learned the urgency of the game. They have learned how much one possession can be to a game. I think they will be very great in years to come. They are young. Valencia is the leader. She's very mature for her age. I know she will get the team ready and they will be great next year. Mark that down: they will be great. VALENCIA McFARLAND: Now that I've had this experience, I know next year how it's gonna be and I can lead the freshmen coming in. Hopefully we can get more wins next year. THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student-athletes and continue with questions for Coach Ladner. Q. What do you think you did well late to kind of keep it so close when some of the parts of your game weren't working very well? COACH LADNER: For the most part we took very good care of the ball. We out-rebounded them. It was almost an 'almost' game. We'd be right there. They'd pick up the loose ball, knock a shot down. We were almost in every possession. Again, we're either feast or famine. For the most part these young players, you know, things like fouling a jump shooter, trying to block a three, allowing somebody to get a put-back with one second on the clock, those are things that they've had to learn. On the flipside of that coin, they've had a lot of game experience. You know, I've looked up this year with all the circumstances that we've had, Kayla has been out for 27 days. So they've had to play at a very high level for a very long period of time. Because Valencia was our only ball handler in the month of February, I would look up and we'd get the ball and they'd throw it directly back to her. I would say, We're not playing fast enough. It was almost a high school speed. Well, then I realized I was playing with high school players. When Kayla came back for the last practice, all of a sudden we kicked into gear and we were a collegiate team again. I'm extremely proud of this team. They played with everybody in the league, except for Tennessee and LSU. A lot of them have been one-possession games. They just didn't have enough gas or enough experience to finish the games. It's all led by the little dynamite, Valencia McFarland. She is an incredible player, mature beyond her years. She understands the game. She's a competitor. She's probably already lost more games this year than she's lost in her high school career. Through it all I've seen a lot of character. You can coach kids with character. So I'm extremely proud of my team. Q. What did you tell your players at halftime? COACH LADNER: Well, it's been an unusual season. This team has been behind in most games that we've played. We opened up the season, we played a tournament in Hawaii, we were down 18-4 against Gonzaga. Then we would climb out of holes and find a way to win. Valencia made the last shot in that day. The next day we were down 14-4. The next day we were down 16-2. We're constantly in battle. They've been down, so they know how to fight back. I tell you today, had we have made a couple of easy chip shots, I think we would have climbed back in because they never really think about losing. They always continue to think they're going to win. That's to their credit. We said, Take away the three. They didn't allow another three-point shot. We said, Get on the boards. We took care of the boards. Again, it just comes back really to one statistic: we absolutely could not find a way to make the ball go in the hole today. Lesson learned. That's going to happen. Again, I hope this is one more lesson that we've learned. You have to make stops on the other end and go back down and not force shots. I thought we got in a hurry. Sometimes we were always trying to create our own shots at times. Stay within the offense, and those are things you learn in experience. Then I can't repeat the other things I said, so there you go (laughter). THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. COACH LADNER: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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