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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 1, 2012Tom CollenLyndsay HarrisC'eira RickettsNASHVILLE, TENNESSEE Arkansas – 67 THE MODERATOR:  We are now joined by Arkansas head Coach Tom Collen and C'eira Ricketts and Lyndsay Harris. Coach, if you could start us off with some opening comments. COACH COLLEN: Just proud of our kids, the way they came out and played early in the game. We talked about trying to come out and play well early, first four minutes, next four minutes. Thought we jumped out to a good lead. We shot the ball well, our defense was good. Second half we did what we needed to do. Didn't put them away quite ‑‑ for a while, but we made enough plays in spurts that got the lead up to 20 and kept it there so we could rest some of our kids. All in all, it's been six years since Arkansas won a first‑round game in the SEC tournament. I'm as proud of these kids as I can be that they stepped up tonight and did it in a big way, and now we can prepare for our next game. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Tom, could you talk a little bit about what you did defensively, how much you mixed things up early. COACH COLLEN: Yeah, I think we've been a pretty good defensive team all year long. I give credit to my wife, she handles all that. I don't try to get involved with it. We have a good scheme. I think we switch out ball screens pretty well with our four player, keep people in front of us. We were worried about Byrd a little bit. They didn't give her the ball early like we were afraid they might. We controlled McFarland off the dribble. I think we rebounded okay with them. I felt like that was a key. I felt like if there was one thing they could do, if they missed shots, they could get to a lot of offensive rebounds if we didn't block it out. I thought we did a good job of keeping them to one shot a possession, for the most part. Q. You shot almost 50% from the floor. How do you bring that up against a tough LSU team that's been playing hot recently? COACH COLLEN: I think I'd rather go into that game shooting 50% than shooting 35%, which is what we normally shoot. We're very up and down, a little inconsistent with our shooting. We know that. Our defense has always been our forté all year long, been our strength. We know they're going to come out and play a lot of zone against us. We're going to need to be able to make threes at some level, the way we shot the ball against them down here, I don't think it can be all threes. I don't think we can go out there and think we can shoot them out of their zone. Too good a zone. I think we have to mix it in and out and we're going to have to shoot the basketball well against them, no doubt about it. Our team is always good defensively. When they step up and make shots, they can beat anybody. They'll have to step up and make shots tomorrow. C'EIRA RICKETTS: Just like coach said, our defense, we count on our defense to do a lot for us, to help us get going. We hope our shots fall tomorrow like they did today. We have to just stay together. Q. Coach, talk about what the difference was in the two games with LSU and what you'll emphasize for tomorrow. COACH COLLEN: It was what we just talked about. The game was tight early in the first half when we were down there. I can't remember the exact minute mark, maybe 10 or 12 minutes to go in the first half, we started knocking down threes against them, gained a lot of confidence. Dominique Robinson hit some threes, Lyndsay hit some threes. We were just on fire. I think they were probably shocked that we shot the ball as well as what we did. We got such a huge lead, and we never let up. We kept the pedal down on them the second half, kept making plays. They never really had a fighting chance to get back in the game down there. The game at our place was completely different. It was a defensive battle. We didn't make shots. They made some adjustments in their zone that I thought were good adjustments. We've seen those, we feel like we know how to adjust back against that now. But I think it will still come down to our ability to make shots and rebound. Definitely two games. The second game at our place looked a little bit more like the way LSU looked defensively against most of the teams in the SEC. When we played them down there, they didn't look like that at all. I think she would probably tell you that. Q. Lyndsay, could you talk about the teams three‑point shooting. Ole Miss, they went to their zone. Were they daring you to shoot threes or were they slow getting out there? LYNDSAY HARRIS: They were face guarding me. We have confident shooters. The thing we try to work on in our zone is moving the ball, getting it into the high post. I think our post players did a good job of finding our shooters early. We were able to lose their defensive players around the three‑point line. Once one person starts making them, I think everybody gets confident. We were getting open shots and they were just falling today, so... COACH COLLEN: We spread it around, too. Lyndsay hit one. Dominique hit some. I think the one that got us going that hurt Ole Miss was when Williams stepped up and made back‑to‑back threes for us. I don't think they expected that. She's a good three‑point shooter. Doesn't have a good percentage. I believed it would go in the basket today, and it did. Hopefully it will tomorrow. We need that. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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