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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 8, 2013Tiaria GriffinJasmine HassellAndy LandersDULUTH, GEORGIA Georgia – 71 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Georgia head coach Andy Landers and student‑athletes Jasmine Hassell and Tiaria Griffin. We'll begin with an opening comment from Coach Landers regarding the game tonight. COACH LANDERS: I think, first of all, we beat a very good basketball team that's played very, very well lately. I'm really pleased with the way our team focused in their preparation to play this game. They knew what they wanted to do. We went out and basically did that for the better part of the 40 minutes. That doesn't mean that it all worked, but we were doing what it was that we talked about and what we had practiced.  I'm really, really pleased with our basketball team, how hard they fought and how well they executed. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Tiaria, you're a freshman, but you took a three‑pointer on the very first shot of the first possession. Any hesitation at all? TIARIA GRIFFIN: No. I pretty much knew what we was going to do during the play and I was just ready to shoot. Q. Jasmine, for the senior class, this is the last opportunity for you guys to go out with a real statement. What does that mean to you and the rest of the group? JASMINE HASSELL: It means a lot. Actually when we first got here, we had meetings, our senior classmen did, as freshmen. Our theme was changed. Before we leave here, we want to change it, we want to change it big by going out and winning the SEC Championship. Q. Jasmine, you got an early foul in the first couple minutes of the game. How did you turn that around and what did you do later in the first half and the rest of the game to be so productive? JASMINE HASSELL: I didn't let it get to me. My teammates stepped up when I got out. They carried it until I got back in there. I knew when I got back in there it was time for me to go to work. Q. Jasmine, how important was it for y'all to jump on top of them as fast as y'all did? JASMINE HASSELL: I mean, it's always good to get on top of a team because when you there, you can keep your foot there. We just wanted to make sure we came out and made a statement. Q. What gives you the confidence that makes you think you can cut down the nets on Sunday? JASMINE HASSELL: We work hard, we play hard. We play well as a team, we execute, do what we need to do. I think we have a good chance. Q. Jasmine, can you talk about the passing that set up some of the opportunities inside. JASMINE HASSELL: Yeah, our guys do an excellent job of executing the passes. We practiced them. They did a great job of putting the ball where I needed to score. If it wasn't for the guards, I never would have got the ball. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for Coach Landers. Q. Seemed like y'all came out focused and intent. Can you comment about that. COACH LANDERS: Yeah, I've just had a really good feeling about them all week. They've listened. We prepared before we left Athens to some extent for both Auburn and LSU. We really threw a lot of stuff at them, a lot of new stuff. You play in this league and you get scouted and everybody knows what you're doing. I thought LSU did a really good job tonight in the second half of adjusting to all of the new stuff. That's the league we play in. First I'll share this with you. We came over here. I told the kids before we left Athens, You'll never sit out in that arena this week. Tell your mom and dad you're on lockdown. We'll come in 35 minutes before the game to the dressing room, put on tennis shoes, stretch, come out and play. We'll get in the ice tub. 30 minutes from now we're going to get on the bus and go back home. Tell your mom and dad you won't be back after the game. Tell them not to drop by the hotel, your friends. That's the thing about playing close to home, you have to get everything on lockdown because everybody knows everybody. So we came over, and doing that, they don't have their cell phones, they're just locked in. We went to shoot around today. I told them, We're in a really good place, man. We watched the game last night together at the hotel, three‑tenths of a mile from here. I didn't want them to come over here. And that was great because we weren't doing autographs. I could hear our kids talking, There it is, there it is. They were able to see some of the things that we had worked on, how they were going to fit into the game when we played against LSU. They really did a nice job of focusing. Sorry I rambled so long. Q. In the conversation we had before Georgia won at Kentucky back in early February, the word you used to describe the Lady Bulldogs at that time was 'capable.' Where do you feel the team is right now? COACH LANDERS: I feel we're capable. I was right then and I'm right now. I think we have a very capable basketball team. You're the one that's got the television show. You can figure out capable of what. I'm just the coach. I just know we're capable (laughter). Q. What can you say about Griffin's shooting performance tonight, being her first ever SEC tournament game? COACH LANDERS: I can say, Throw her the ball. Again, I watched her today at shoot around. She just wore it out. I watched her yesterday. We didn't do shoot around here today. Yesterday we came in and shot around for about 30 minutes. She was stroking it really, really good. But, you know, there's so much that goes into that. Did she hit the shots? Yeah. But she moved to the right spots at the right time based on what her teammates were doing. Her teammates identified no look, no look, and then there she was, which is what we talked about. That's not open, that's not open. She's going to be open. Came out first play, that's exactly what happened. Looked here, looked there, Tiaria. You know, it took a lot of people to get Tiaria those shots, a lot of people doing right things. Q. The lockdown that you talked about, how different is that for you in the tournament? COACH LANDERS: I've done it before, on a couple of occasions actually. The last couple years, it's not like we go to the tournament and party or anything. We've actually come here and scouted games. What I've observed when we've tried to do that, and it's a great thing, but there's so much going on in the building. They're looking around. They're seeing people they know. They're eyeballing what somebody else on the other team is wearing. It's easy to get distracted like that. Last night we had none of those distractions. We were just sitting in a room with a television, and that's all. A bottle of water, focused. Nobody came in and asked for an autograph. Nobody wished us good luck. It was pretty good. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. COACH LANDERS: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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