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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS & FINALS: DALLASMarch 26, 2011Anne Marie ArmstrongJasmine JamesAndy LandersMeredith MitchellDALLAS, TEXAS THE MODERATOR: Coach Landers has now joined us from the University of Georgia. Opening comments, Coach. COACH LANDERS: Thank you. Obviously, like the other three teams, I'm sure, our basketball team is excited to be here and about the opportunities and the challenges that go with playing a very, very good Texas A&M team. We feel like we've played reasonably well lately and by and large played reasonably well throughout the season, with the exception probably of the last week of the regular season. We're excited to be here, think we have a good basketball team and one that looks forward to playing Texas A&M. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Coach talked about your relationship. Obviously you go -- COACH LANDERS: Way back. Q. Way back. You had a pretty good record against him when he was at Arkansas, and going into tomorrow, anything you can take from knowing him so long? COACH LANDERS: Well, as far as to work in our advantage in this basketball game, not a thing. Different time, different place, different circumstances, different teams. I think Gary, without question, has the best basketball team that he will have had that we will play against. This team is a better basketball team than any of those that he had at Arkansas. So the things -- and, quite honestly, if he told you he remembered the things that we did against each other back then, he was lying, because neither one of us can remember that far back. We can't remember what we had for breakfast. Q. Could you talk about Danielle Adams and the problems she presents and what you might do to try to combat that? COACH LANDERS: Well, I'll talk about the problems that she presents. I'm not going to talk about what we're going to do to combat that; got a feeling you got a fairly good relationship with Gary being from College Station. I hope you don't, but you probably do. But, you know, she's a very talented player. She reminds me of a player we had not too long ago named Tasha Humphrey. Tasha was a big, strong kid with an uncanny ability to score inside, much because of her size and her strength, but also because of her sense of where the basket was and how to get the ball in it. Now, where they differ from a lot of low post players, Adams and Humphrey, is that both of those two also like to float out on that perimeter and put the 3 ball up. And, you know, that's where it gets a little bit tricky. We've played other people. I mean, the kid we played from Florida State last week, 6'4", 6'5", big-bodied kid with great offensive skills down low but she didn't leave the block. The three bigs from Tennessee, very good down low, but they didn't leave the blocks. That's where it gets tricky. You've got to pick this kid up. You're talking to your defensive players, your 5 man in particular, about getting back, get back, get back, because Texas A&M wants to run on you. And then maybe for the first time all year you're telling her, oh, by the way, now get back up to the 3-point line and catch this kid before she catches the basketball or puts the shot up. So that's where it's tricky. Q. Coach Blair said he's copied a lot of things from you. He wasn't sure if you did the same. Is there anything -- COACH LANDERS: No, I copied nothing from him. But someone asked me earlier -- there's Sue Donohoe back there; she can attest to this. She was Gary's assistant at one time -- if I was at all surprised at Gary's success, and I told them no, he's copied about everything we've done. Let me -- I'm having fun this morning, okay? There are -- I actually see similarities in the two teams, and some of the things, not entire sets offensively, not the entire defensive philosophy. But I see us doing things that Texas A&M does, and I see Texas A&M doing things that we've done through the years. And I don't think it's that those pieces are necessarily about the two coaches. I think that it's more about a better way. If Gary and I were both very honest, we'd tell you that we're a little bit slow and it's taking us a little longer to get to the best way to do some things, but finally I think we've figured some of those things out, and we have those things, our teams have those things in common. Q. At what point in your time in Athens did you realize that you would be sinking in your coaching roots there at Georgia? COACH LANDERS: I don't know -- I don't know that that was ever a thought process. You know, when I took the University of Georgia job 32 years ago, I thought it could be a special place for women's basketball. It, at the time, may have been one of the worst major basketball programs in the country. And I mean that not just because of one or two things; a number of things had transpired the year before I got there. And, quite honestly, they just weren't very good from a competitive standpoint. But I felt like it could be one of the best basketball programs and one of the really neat spots to coach women's basketball. And I got there and rolled up my sleeves and went to work. And everything that has happened since is really a little bit of a blur, all of it. You know, there's never been a reflection time or a pondering point when I've sat down and said I'm going to stay here for a long time or, boy, we're doing good. You gotta remember, I took that job when women's basketball wasn't cool, and every day since women's basketball has changed. And so it's been enough of a job just to keep up and keep changing and keep improving with the times, which has really been a neat thing for me. I've never been bored. We've never taken a position where, boy, we're doing great. And we had some years back to back to back to back where we did great. We've just kept our sleeves rolled up for 32 years, and it's still a work in progress. Q. Can you talk about the matchup between the guards and the A&M guards and what that's going to be like? COACH LANDERS: I think those are pretty good matchups. I think overall Texas A&M has a little more quickness than we do, but if we were playing one-on-one, that would be a real concern. But we're not. We're playing five-on-five. So oftentimes you can negate advantage/disadvantage that a team or player may have with quickness because you are playing five-on-five. So I see those matchups on the perimeter being very good. I see the matchups at the 4 position being very good. I see advantage/disadvantage both ways at the 5 position. And I think at the end of the day the five kids that play the best together and have the most success, obviously, with what their team's trying to do is probably going to drive the outcome of this. I don't think it's going to be the back court or the front court or the 5 spot. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. We're joined by Anne Marie Armstrong, Meredith Mitchell and Jasmine James. Questions? Q. Jasmine, can you talk about the matchup between y'all's guards and the two Sydneys from Texas A&M? JASMINE JAMES: I feel like it's going to be a great matchup. We're both pretty -- have very good speed, as well as very good in transition. I feel like it's a very good matchup as far as height, speed, and just overall. So I feel like it will be a very interesting game. Q. Anne Marie, can you talk about -- the team has been in a shooting slump of sorts. Do you guys feel you need to break out as far as the shooting goes? ANNE MARIE ARMSTRONG: I haven't really noticed that to be honest. I think we just need to show up, be focused. A lot of shots may not fall, but in the big thing for us in this game is going to be rebounding. We need to crash the offensive glass whether we're making or missing shots to show up to get on the boards. Q. Anne Marie, along those lines, how do you combat Danielle Adams for A&M? ANNE MARIE ARMSTRONG: She's a great player. Great size, great shooting ability. I think as a team she's one of our main focuses of stop in our zone. We've got to keep her off the block as well as keep her from shooting open 3s and getting open looks. Q. Jasmine, coming off a big upset, you come up here, Baylor, and everybody is talking about Baylor and A&M, this is Big 12 territory. What's the mindset? Do you feel like you're the underdogs? Do you feel you're on house money? What's the team's mindset coming into the Sweet 16? JASMINE JAMES: We don't really worry about that much. We just have to come in and focus on the opponent. It's not a matter of what the rankings are or what the seedings are, we just have to focus on who it is we're playing. So we're just going to go into this game Sunday and just play hard and go out there and put everything we have out there. If we have a win -- if we win it and it's an upset in some people's eyes, then that is what it is. Q. Meredith, A&M's calling card is defensive pressure. I was curious if that's what was translated when you were watching tape and also how you plan to handle that. MEREDITH MITCHELL: A&M, they bring a lot of effort on the defensive end. They bring a lot of intensity. As long as we try to do our best to take care of the ball, we'll do fine against them. We've faced teams who have great pressure defense as well, but we should be fine. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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