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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: SPOKANEMarch 17, 2012Shenise JohnsonKatie MeierShawnice WilsonSPOKANE, WASHINGTON Miami – 70 COACH MEIER: I guess you've got to start talking about our defense. Idaho State has some great players, especially that starting lineup of theirs. They can really score and they take really nice shots. When you look at those numbers, you've got some of those really great players that they're 10, 10, 10 and 11, and they were 3 for 10, 1 for 10‑‑ that's our defense, because really, really for them, they're really a nice flow team. They run good sets. They made us work very, very hard and cover the court. You know, north‑souths we're good at. East‑west is something we've been working on in terms of court coverage, and they're a great sideline to sideline team. They move the ball so well. We exhausted ourselves, but it worked out well for us because I think that the tempo and our defense was the story of the game. Q. Talk about how you had absolute confidence in this team and you come up with your most lopsided win ever in the tournament. Just talk about the team's mental state. I would think coming into this game it seemed like everything was‑‑ COACH MEIER: Yeah. I told you yesterday that I knew we would play our tails off. I knew we would. Nobody held back. We have a saying that you have to support the pressure. If I'm going to go out on a limb and exhaust myself on ball pressure, then the other four behind me better support that effort. And we supported the pressure today, and whatever defense we were in, somebody was working, working, working that point guard. I think we really grinded out their point guards. They started the game and they had their head up, and by the end of the game ‑‑ by the very end of the game I think we had worn them down. But that was probably seven different people that had that job for us, and we just kept rotating, rotating, rotating, but it was all for the support behind them. You'll be a little riskier if you know your team has got your back behind you, and that's what tonight ended up being. Q. Just talk about the size advantage inside, getting the ball to Pepper, getting the ball to Sylvia early and the way you just dominated inside. SHAWNICE "PEPPER" WILSON: Well, I knew coming into this game that I would have an advantage. Obviously I'm 6'6", and their tallest player is about 6'1", 6'2". So before the game we discussed how it's important for us to use our size and our strength as an advantage, so we talked about it, and our main thing was just execute, and we came out on top. Q. Shenise, can you talk about the team's play in the first half and how you guys were able to jump out and sort of take control of the team, your work especially in that half? SHENISE JOHNSON: Yes, we also talked about that yesterday, as well, in the press conference. We didn't want to come down on our heels, we wanted to dictate everything that happened out there, and we showed that tonight. We were very excited. We wanted to show who we were and just take an opportunity to basically show who Miami is, and we were on our toes tonight. Q. Shenise, question about Idaho State and what you saw from them out there. SHENISE JOHNSON: They moved the ball very well. They had a lot of screens and a lot of action going on. We had to stay alert the entire game. They cut in front of our face a lot of times. Coach kept yelling at us, saying, Don't let them cut in front of your face, but we couldn't help it. But we had people behind us supporting it. But I thought Idaho State did a great job of moving the ball, as I said previously. They were very scrappy, physical, and they played their hearts out, as well. Q. Coach Meyer, it seemed like Idaho State really wanted to get physical with you guys. There was a couple times where players were back and forth, a hard foul. What did you see from them? COACH MEIER: Well, we expect that. We expect it and respect it. Go ahead and come at us. We want to be great and we want to be challenged, and we want somebody to find something that they think we're not great at and try to expose us for it because this whole season we've just been on a journey, and I think they thought one of their advantages was to push us off some of our cuts and try to slow us down, and I think that was really smart. He's a great coach. I loved it, I loved seeing it, and I loved how we responded to it. Q. You held them to 16 points in the first half. I know that was a season low for Idaho State. How good was your defense compared to the rest of your games this year? COACH MEIER: I think that we had a complete and 100 percent commitment to each other on the defensive end. I think there was no question that we understood our schemes. I told you yesterday, too, we're a very conceptual team. If we get our concepts and we see it developing, then we can play to our instincts, and I thought the staff did a nice job of prepping that, and we saw some opportunities that we could get and then you could see them unfolding that made us even faster than we are, that made us quicker than we are, because we had done a great job mentally of preparing and visualizing what we thought our opportunities would be. That's why it was so fun for me to see some of those freshmen making some high‑level reads and steals like Suriya McGuire, Michelle Woods, just broke on the ball. My favorite play of the game, however, was Pepper's steal from the backcourt, and she broke on the ball. That's not something that we practice a lot, that we want Pepper to be breaking on the ball for what we call the pick six, and I thought she did a fantastic job. Pepper was really into it today, and I was really happy for her. Q. Would you talk a little bit about obviously a different lineup and how that affected your pattern rotations and things like that and how they responded to it? COACH MEIER: Right. I think we probably had less possessions as we sort of kicked through more of our offensive sets a little bit, and not as much of our early offense showed up and then not as much of our late offense showed up for the first ten seconds of the shot clock and the last ten. We're just a different team now. So we talked about that in our preparation, and we talked about it just now in the locker room, how we can't just sort of jog through our basic sets and then think that there's a ten, nine, eight, seven, six thing waiting for us. It's not. So we just have to grow up a little bit more. But I actually think‑‑ I haven't seen my stats, but we talk about one point per possession. We try to be a one‑point‑per‑possession team. I actually thought, except for our turnovers, which I think is a function of just being disjointed and having some lineups that are different, but offensively in terms of execution we probably were right about at a point per possession, it was just less possessions for us. Q. I guess obviously this is a close‑knit group. Facing adversity the way you are coming into this tournament, do you see it even more so off the court? Did you notice it just in the body language today? COACH MEIER: I'll tell you what: Adversity is something that that's not‑‑ we don't have any real adversity. We have opportunity right now, we really do. You know, I grew up in a family where my mother was pregnant with me and had three kids and she was 27 years old and my father was killed in a plane crash. That's adversity. We're talking about a sport here. We're talking about basketball. We're talking about opportunity. And that's just how I see life. So something happened and we turned it into an opportunity, and I'm happy for everyone that did. Q. I talked with Idaho State a little bit about your pressure defense, more so the one‑one‑three, the two‑three. Can you go into that, what you try to look for? Obviously you have a lot of length on the defensive end, but what are you trying to disrupt most in other teams on the defensive end? COACH MEIER: Yeah, I think that it starts with the ball pressure, and it's very hard to ask somebody to absolutely exhaust themselves every possession, but that's their job, okay, so if you're on the point guard and we're just asking you just grind your legs, burn your legs, you'll see the language we just keep talking, it doesn't work unless point A is pressure and that person is one of the most unselfish players on our team. Whoever it is at that time is just totally giving to the team. They're not going to get to see it. They're not going to get any stats for it. They're going to be exhausted, and they just have to basically suck it up and do it. And to see everybody willing to do that today started the whole attitude of, okay, well, if you're going to kill yourself on that ball there, I'm not going to let you down behind you. I was very proud. I hope it was fun to watch because I saw it unveil, I thought, I'm really proud of this team, this is really awesome. This was like a symphony of response, and it was beautiful for me. But that's how I love to coach. That's why I coach. I love people to be there for each other. Q. Krystal moves into the starting lineup, got a couple quick fouls. How much did that bother you, because you probably wanted her to get a lot of minutes with that group? COACH MEIER: Well, Krystal and Stef were both in foul trouble, and you would think, wow, we're exposed now, and it just‑‑ the next person slid in and did their job and we slid in with freshmen and they slid in and did their job and then we had to take care of the ball a little bit and execute and go into the post, and the points in the paint ‑‑ and for us to get 32 points in the paint and for our bench to outscore any other team's bench 23 to 8 is a very big deal for the University of Miami, and that's nice. I just think we've adjusted, we'll move forward, and we responded in a way I really needed them to. Q. Having seen Gonzaga, can you talk about your impressions of them? COACH MEIER: I'm not going to get a lot of sleep from now until that game. They are awesome. They are awesome. They are awesome. Everything that I'm just bragging about my team, you can just turn around and say right about Gonzaga in terms of how they share the ball. They're in sync. I came just for the second half, but when they need a big three, it's not just one person who can hit it. Their end‑of‑the‑shot‑clock threes tonight were unbelievable, and I just wish it was the same kid, but it wasn't. We've got a lot of work to do. We've got a lot of court that we have to cover. They have our respect. They're an incredibly talented team and just so, so, so well coached. I almost have jealousy about how well coached they are. They're unbelievable. They get it in terms of concept, in terms of vision, in terms of finding the open player. They're unbelievable. They've got a heck of a cast. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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