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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: BATON ROUGEMarch 22, 2014Kaela DavisMaChelle JosephTyaunna MarshallSydney WallaceBATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA MaCHELLE JOSEPH: First of all, we're just very excited to be back in the NCAA Tournament after six straight trips and sitting out last year, to be back for the seventh time in eight years is just very exciting for our program. We felt like that year we had off made us more hungry, and I really give my players a lot of credit because they did a lot of work in the off season to turn things around and get us back in the NCAA Tournament. We've obviously had some very good play down the stretch against Florida State. We lost our starting point guard in Sydney Wallace and she wasn't able to play the last three games. I think it showed a lot of poise and composure and strength of our team to go ahead and win two games without her. Obviously we lost a game that was disappointing to us against Duke in the ACC Tournament, but I think that loss really turned things around for us the last couple weeks. We've had some very good practices and feel like we're playing our best basketball at the right time. Q. Sydney, can you just talk about how you feel now at this point coming into the tournament? SYDNEY WALLACE: Well, I feel good. I've taken the right steps and everything in getting back to where I need to be, just resting and making sure I'm doing what I need to do and just gradually getting back to where I was before, getting up shots, kind of just sitting down and learning and watching, also. I feel like I'm ready, and I'm ready to play. I'm good. Q. MaChelle, talk about having to play on someone else's home court. It usually happens every year in the women's tournament and it's something you have to deal with. What do you tell your players? MaCHELLE JOSEPH: It's interesting, we've had a lot of experience at this in our seven trips. We've probably played on a home court five of the seven times. But we understand where women's basketball is at this point. We understand it's not something that's ideal but it's something that's necessary. We're trying to grow our game. We've got to do what's best for our game at this point. And it's one of things where you would like to be on a neutral floor, but you're not so you have to embrace the opportunity you've been given. We've had success at this, so it's one of those things we don't really talk about. It's just like for us it's another ACC game on the road. It's a very good match‑up for us, and we're excited to be here and have a great opportunity to play in front of some great fans. LSU does a great job drawing attendance give and we're going to embrace this opportunity and go out tomorrow and give them the best effort we have. Q. How do you feel about next year going back to the old format? Do you feel like that's a positive move or do you think eventually‑‑ do you see this tournament being on all neutral sites at some point? MaCHELLE JOSEPH: Well, to answer your first question, as far as going to the top seeds hosting, I think I like that better because I do think that they've earned those seeds. They've earned those rights to host if you're a top seed, then you've earned that right. As far as the second, I would like to believe that long‑term that the women's game will grow to the point where we won't have to be on home courts and we can have neutral sites. That's what we're doing right now, is trying to grow our game and get to that point where we can copy what the men have done and draw enough fans that we can play on neutral floors. Q. Obviously they have experienced guards, they've got post play and then you've got someone who can step outside and shoot from the perimeter. Just talk about what you see and the challenges they present. MaCHELLE JOSEPH: Well, LSU is a veteran team. They play a lot of seniors. They have a lot of upperclassmen. Their go‑to players are both seniors that have played together a long time. Obviously we have a lot of respect for the SEC and the teams in that conference, so we understand that they're a very competitive team with a lot of different weapons. It's just‑‑ I've watched probably 10 games that they've played this year, and I feel that it's a very good match‑up for us. I think that the strength of their team is their guard play, and obviously they have the inside presence, but she is more of a face‑up post player. I consider it a perimeter game mostly for LSU and for us. So we like that. I feel like in postseason, you get to postseason with inside play, but you win in the postseason with guards, and I think I'd put our guards up against anybody in the country at this point. Q. Ms.Marshall or Ms.Wallace, talking about guard play, there seems to be a lot of intrigue in the match‑up with LSU guards, and I wonder how you think about how that's going to dictate what happens in the game? TYAUNNA MARSHALL: I think when you play anybody, you have to have respect for whoever you're playing, but me and Syd being experienced, and we've been here before, and then Kaela who's a hard‑working player that she is, we're going to come in and play our game regardless of who we are going up against. We have respect and we're going to give 100 percent regardless. Q. This question is for Ty. If you had a word or a phrase that you would use to describe this year's Rambling Wreck, Georgia Tech, what would that be, please? TYAUNNA MARSHALL: I think if I had a word, I guess I would choose resilient. The things that we've been through over the past year, you think about this year and the games that we played, just being resilient, getting back to where we want to be, getting back to the postseason, that was our focus from the jump to getting back to playing in the NCAA Tournament. So we were resilient enough, to play games that we lost and we battled back from it. Coach always said, it's not what happens, it's how you respond and we've responded well over the past year. Q. This question is for Kaela. If you had to describe to someone who hadn't seen your teammate Ty play yet, what would you say about what we are prepared to see from her this weekend? KAELA DAVIS: I mean, Ty is amazing. She's just an amazingly hard worker. She's just an example of how the game should be played at any level. Obviously within our program specifically, but she plays hard, and she's all over the place, and it's a show. It's an exciting show for sure. I'd be excited to see it. Q. MaChelle, you've scored 90 points at least seven times this year, averaged about 80 points a game, and this is an LSU team that's struggled with rebounding, struggled with turnovers. Is that fast pace something you're going to want to establish in a game like this? MaCHELLE JOSEPH: Well, it's been an interesting year for us because we built this program on defense and rebounding and we never really won games outscoring people. Well, with Ty Marshall coming back being our all‑time leading scorer in the history of our program and Kaela Davis coming in as a freshman and being a prolific scorer for a freshman, she's scored the most points of any freshman to ever play at Georgia Tech, and Ty is our all‑time leading scorer and then Sydney Wallace, who is a prolific scorer as well, we've been able to win games on the offensive end, and that's been exciting for me, because obviously I love offense, but back when we started this program we didn't have those types of players. So this year has been exciting down the stretch like you mentioned, before Sydney had her injury, we were scoring pretty well, amazingly well, and it's one of those things where we feel very confident now on the offensive end. We've seen a lot of zones, a lot of junk defense, a lot of the things we know that LSU are going to throw at us. It won't be the first time we've seen them. That's what the ACC does for us. It prepares us for games like this. There's nothing really at this point in the season that somebody can do to us that we haven't seen all year long. We're excited about the match‑up. We have tremendous respect for what LSU has been able to accomplish this season, but we feel like we're playing our best basketball, and we're ready for the match‑up. Q. Ty, if you could, I know we talked a little bit about LSU's guards, talk about your impressions of Danielle Ballard? TYAUNNA MARSHALL: She's a very strong point guard, somebody we watched tape on. We know we have to box out and she's a great rebounding guard. Like I say, we're coming in strong. We're just going to play our game, regardless of who we're going up against. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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