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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 7, 2013Melanie BalcombChristina FoggieJasmine ListerDULUTH, GEORGIA Vanderbilt – 53 THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started. We are joined by Vanderbilt head coach Melanie Balcomb, and student athletes Christina Foggie and Jasmine Lister. Coach, we'll take an opening comment from you and open it up for questions. COACH BALCOMB: Obviously I'm really pleased with our defense and the ability to continue to defend when shooting probably the poorest I've ever had a team shoot in the first half. The ability to just play through it is very difficult. I thought we showed a lot of maturity with a combination of some upperclassmen but a lot of underclassmen. Then Foggie came in and hit the big threes she needed to do, which is also difficult being out as long as she has been. And Jazz being the leader in keeping everybody focused, calm, getting the ball to the right people. I'm proud of the defense and the comeback and the resilience that we showed as a team in the second half. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Jasmine, how nice is it to have Foggie back on the court with you? JASMINE LISTER: It's great. There's definitely not as much pressure to shoot or score. I've always been comfortable playing with Foggie, that she'll knock a shot down. There's more energy on the court when she's out there, so... Q. You played against Kentucky earlier this season and it ended up being the worst loss. What is the mindset coming into the game tomorrow night? CHRISTINA FOGGIE: Definitely protecting the ball and being more aggressive, not letting them put us on our heels and basically protecting the ball and being strong with it, being aggressive. JASMINE LISTER: And playing free. We played really tight against them last time. Our goal is just to come out there and play tough like we know how to play. Q. What do you think it was that enabled you to turn the corner in the second half after such a slow start? JASMINE LISTER: Probably just the acceptance of, Okay, that was their run, but now we really need to focus and like do what we need to do, convert our defense into our offense, not just get stops but be able to execute our offense, as well. CHRISTINA FOGGIE: I agree. I think getting transition helped us. We were defending the whole game, but getting the offense from our defense really gets energy for us. That really made a run for us. COACH BALCOMB: Just like I drew it up (laughter). Q.  Do you want to talk on the offensive glass, you had 20 to their nine rebounds. How were you able to do that? JASMINE LISTER: I mean, our freshman, Morgan Batey, she's always been a great rebounder for us. She was fearless on the boards. She just kept going and going. CHRISTINA FOGGIE: Yeah, just basically finding the gap. Playing zone, you can find gaps. Morgan and Tiff did a really good job of staying with it, with their hands on it, coming out with it. Those were big for us. THE MODERATOR:  We'll take questions for coach. Q. Coach, what did you see as the key from the time you went from being down 6 to taking the lead? COACH BALCOMB: I definitely think what they were talking about. We tried to create some offense off our defense, not just stop them, make them take tough shots, but get in transition on offense and put them on their heels and get some looks into Tiff, get her on the block. To do that, we just had to get in transition. It was tough to get it into her when we were in a 2‑3. I also think Foggie being able to hit some shots and then all of a sudden the rim was open, it was like there was a lid on it, a lid on it. As soon as she hit two threes, then we all started to relax and realize, We can make shots, the rim is open. So much of it has to do with relaxing on offense. Once you're really locked in the way we were defensively, it really helped our offense. That consistent defense is what caused that to happen. Q. A'dia Mathies scored a season high 28 points against you last time. How do you go about defending her this time? Are you going to do anything differently? COACH BALCOMB: God, I hope so (laughter). We haven't sat down and gotten a game plan together yet for Kentucky. We didn't take Missouri lightly because they've been knocking off people. We're taking it one game at a time. We'll come up with a game plan tonight. She's going to get her points. She's a tremendous player, has a lot of accolades in this conference with the experience. So obviously we want to do a better job on her to start with. That will be a focus. And I won't tell you my secrets then either (laughter). Q. How encouraging is it to have a defensive performance the way you did after starting off so poorly on offense? COACH BALCOMB: It was real important because of the consistency. I've had teams in the past, you watch teams like this all the time, because they're not making shots, all of a sudden they can't defend. I think because of the injuries, because of losing Steph, then Christina was a main scorer for us, Kady had her moments. We scored 92 points against Mississippi State. He told me after the game we were a pro team and could score at every position, to going to a team that needed to hold people in the 40s and 50s to win I think says a lot for this team and where they've come. Not just the freshmen stepping up, but everybody understanding what we needed to do to win games. It wasn't going to be on offense. Our offense now obviously came when we needed it in the second half. But we are the best defensive team and rebounding team that I've had at Vanderbilt. I think that showed tonight. To be consistent, I'm not saying we won the SEC in the 40s against LSU one year, but the consistency we showed when we weren't making shots to continue to defend was impressive. Really proud of that. That shows a lot of heart and a lot of guts. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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