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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 3, 2011Nell FortnerChantel HilliardAlli SmalleyNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE THE MODERATOR: Coach, opening thoughts? COACH FORTNER: No question, it's disappointing to lose. Especially when you have a senior as good as Alli Smalley, what a tremendous career she's had at Auburn. Just so proud of her. I hate that we lost this first game because I thought she played her tail off tonight, like a senior does. But I thought we got ourselves to the free-throw line. That's one of the things we like to do. But obviously we didn't knock down enough free throws to win the ballgame. That's part of our offense. Just kept us from winning the game. THE MODERATOR: Alli, your thoughts on the game this evening? ALLI SMALLEY: Mississippi State came out and executed a lot better than we did. We had a lot of breakdowns defensively. We didn't play with the energy we needed to win a game in the SEC tournament. THE MODERATOR: Chantel, your thoughts on tonight's game? CHANTEL HILLIARD: They just came out and they just executed better. We had a lot of breakdowns like they said. That's something we just had to clean up. By the time we started doing it, it was just too late. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Take us through the last play. ALLI SMALLEY: Yeah, that was exactly the look we were wanting to get. I came off of two screens. I had some daylight in the corner. I was a little bit behind the backboard, but it was a shot I should have hit. Just a tough break. Q. Chantel, as Mississippi State started breaking down the lead, chipping into it, did you gather around and point out a couple things you were maybe trying to do? As they started to build into that lead, what were you saying to each other? CHANTEL HILLIARD: We were talking about how we need to get it together. Alli got us together quickly, told us what we needed to do. We just talked about what we needed to do. Q. Chantel, when you were making your run, it seemed like there was a lot of down low happening. How did they start defending that? CHANTEL HILLIARD: We wanted to get the ball inside. That was what coach wanted us to do. They started double-teaming me. It was my job to know that I could shoot the ball or kick it out. It's kind of tough when they started double-teaming me. I had to find my outlet. It was tough. Sometimes I forced the shot, sometimes I didn't. THE MODERATOR: Ladies, you're excused. We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. As Diamber starts making her run there late, scoring the last 11 points, she was doing it in a variety of ways. How difficult is it at that point in the game to try to control a player like that who seems to be hot? COACH FORTNER: It's very difficult because her confidence was soaring at that point. She is such a versatile player as far as she can shoot the three or take out the dribble. When you get a player like that whose confidence is good, you have to make sure you cover up other shooters. When you bring help, you're leaving yourself vulnerable someplace else. Yeah, she was hard to guard. Q. Having the ball in Alli's hands, is that pretty much the person you want the ball in her hands? COACH FORTNER: Absolutely. I have a tremendous amount of confidence with the ball in her hands. She played a lot of point tonight. The reason why is because we thought she could get her shots off on ball screens, take advantage of some things. She's a first-team all-SEC player. This is her senior year. She played hard tonight. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach. COACH FORTNER: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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