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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: BATON ROUGEMarch 23, 2014Danielle BallardNikki CaldwellShanece McKinneyTheresa PlaisanceBATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA LSU – 98 NIKKI CALDWELL: Today this team showed a lot of toughness, and they showed that they can play this game for 40 minutes, and a lot of credit to Georgia Tech. With their defensive pressure and their defensive scheme, I felt our team handled that pressure very well, and again, this group has shown that they cannot only score the basketball when they need to but they also can defend it when they need to, and we did a nice job of getting on the boards. We did a nice job of sharing the basketball and just playing together as a team. Q. For Theresa and Danielle, based on how you guys finished the season, struggling down the stretch, how important was it for you to come in here and establish yourself how you guys played early in the year, dominance on both ends, pushing the both, playing with a lot of confidence? THERESA PLAISANCE: Well, coming off of that streak that we weren't very proud of, they came into practice with the mindset that we had a lot of things we had to work on, and at practice we really put an emphasis on the fundamentals and a lot of things we really got away from, partner passing and as simple as that, boxing out dribbles, things that we really took for granted and cost us in the end. Just worried about those things in our off week really helped us out, especially in this game going against a Georgia Tech team who averaging about 20 offensive rebounds a game. They do a great job of getting on the boards, and that was one of our things that we had to really buckle down on. But coming into a first‑round game we really wanted to put our all into it and let people know that this isn't the same team you saw two weeks ago. We've completely transformed ourselves into‑‑ I feel like we're a more mature team now. We're just going to build off of this win and just let the momentum take us. DANIELLE BALLARD: In the past we wasn't really getting rebounds, so every day we come to practice working on our defense, trying to get our defense down pat, especially getting rebounds so we do defensive drills, and each and every day we improve, and it showed today on the court that we went hard and we was aggressive on and off, offense and defense, and it just showed all the hard work we had in practice. It showed in this game. Q. Danielle, it looked like you all were really pushing the pace early, trying to set the tone. Is that something you've wanted to do before the game, and how did that really set the tone and help you get off to that early start? DANIELLE BALLARD: We were just sticking to the game plan. On film we saw that we could push down, push down, and after seeing in the game we kept going, kept doing it, and they kept getting exhausted and we just kept trying to doing what was best for us, and that was to push down on offense and keep getting them tired because we was running each and every day of practice so we was in better shape than they was. I felt like we had the upper hand on that. Q. Danielle, just how comfortable do you feel in transition, creating offense, you were scoring both ways. How much does that play into the way you like to play basketball, the way you played today? DANIELLE BALLARD: Well, like I said before, if I get stops, I pass it back to a shooter. If I don't get a stop, I just continue laying it up. This is my job, just penetrating and getting my players open and getting them open shots, being unselfish with the ball. Q. This question is for Shanece. I'm just wondering, are you surprised at this effort today, what you guys did today? SHANECE McKINNEY: Absolutely not. We went into this game thinking that it wouldn't be (inaudible), so we had it in our heads that we'll be playing on Tuesday, so the effort was definitely there today. Q. Theresa, there was that three‑minute stretch in the first half after you had that big lead that they started coming back and y'all couldn't find a bucket and then DeShawn came in and got three quick baskets for you. How big was that to get y'all back in the game and back really with your foot on the pedal? THERESA PLAISANCE: Well, first of all, I want to say that coming into this game our guards really set the tone for us. Danielle was doing a great job of creating for herself, and after she started creating for herself, everyone else started opening up, and that's when DaShawn started getting her shots. Early on DaShawn was hitting, and Danielle and Day had the hot hands so we knew we needed to get the ball to them. In that little segment where we really couldn't get a stop, I saw a team that wasn't a team that you would normally see. When stuff like that happens we used to crumble when adversity hit, and today we pushed through it. Coming in, going back down on offense, DaShawn hitting that three, that was a very momentum‑changing shot. That really got our bench on their feet, and everybody else like springing back on defense trying to get back into a stance, trying to get a stop so we could go on a little run. But that really started with the push the tempo of Danielle Ballard. She did a great job of pushing the tempo, and they really didn't have an answer for her. She did a great job today. Q. Talk about this being a big goal for you to make sure you got that second game. THERESA PLAISANCE: Well, you know, coming into the P‑MAC it's always nice to play in front of our crowd. I love these people here. They're a big part of the reason why I came here, just the fan support and the support of everyone. You can walk into a store and they'll be like, oh, you play on Sunday, good luck, thanks. Just little things like that that really makes this place special. Being able to have that second opportunity to play in our home is unbelievable to us. It's something that we don't take for granted, and we really look forward to playing in front of these people that care so much about it, and in return we want to do the best we can so we keep them on their feet and keep them excited but we're just a tumbleweed, and when they go, we go, and it really helps us out. Q. Shanece or Theresa, can you talk about a point guard leading the rebounds? SHANECE McKINNEY: Well, I just feel like we can do the dirty work and let the guards come in and get the rebounds. It's okay with me as long as we get the rebound. I know that usually people think the bigs are the ones that should get the rebounds, but we actually wanted to clear out the other big people so Danielle could get 25. THERESA PLAISANCE: Danielle just did a great job on boards like she always does. That's another weapon of Danielle Ballard, the fact that she's such a great rebounder. Danielle comes in out of absolutely nowhere and tries to tip in. She's not scared of big bodies in the paint, she's not scared of contact. Danielle is really fearless when it comes to rebounding. She did a great job for us on the offensive end and the defensive end. 17 rebounds is outstanding for anybody, much less a guard, but it was really not shocking coming from Danielle. She's just a great athlete, and rebounding is one of her strengths. Q. I wanted to ask Danielle, Georgia Tech is such a guard‑oriented team, was it a challenge for yourself and the other guards to one‑up them a little bit because there was so much of a focus on stopping their guards? DANIELLE BALLARD: Yeah, Georgia Tech has some awesome guards. They can defend. It was very hard going against them. We had to be really focused on what we wanted to do, either take or pass out, but it was very difficult going against these girls. There are some good players on their team. Again, my props to them because they're good, too. Q. Danielle, the other coach said that the team that LSU was tonight was not the team she saw on film the last 10 or 12 games. Would you agree with her? DANIELLE BALLARD: Absolutely. This team is a different team. We had a different mindset. We're going to come every game with a different mindset, but it's just going to go‑‑ we're just going to look better each‑‑ we're just going to go harder and harder. We just want to win. Going to take each game at a time, just going to go hard and we're going to give our all. People are going to continue seeing a different team. They're not going to see the same team as they did today on Tuesday. We're going to be a different team every day, and we'll continue going hard and staying together and just being one family. Q. Coach, who was that LSU team out there today, and where has that team been over the last 10 or 12 games? NIKKI CALDWELL: The team that you saw tonight has been there. We have been there for 20 minutes here, 30 minutes. They just put together a 40‑minute effort as a team. Georgia Tech really did a nice job of attacking offensively with their different weapons with their guard play, and we did, we challenged our guards from the time we left the SEC Tournament to try to be the best guard play, because you go as far as your guards go, and I thought that was evident. I thought Ballard set the tone for us, but she's been setting it in practice. Jeanne Kenney, being able to play her off the ball allowed us to do a lot of different things in that regard. I like the play of Shanece McKinney night how. She's really being aggressive, not only offensively, but defensively she's become that stopper for us. Players are becoming who they have always been. They're just realizing it now, and better late than never. That's what I tell them. I'm proud of this group for playing this game with high intensity for 40 minutes. Q. Coach, were you curious on how this team was going to respond to how they finished the season? And also, all the players talked about how things were different in practice. It was more intense, a lot of running. What changed about practice that kind of turned the light on this team? NIKKI CALDWELL: Well, we had 11 days to practice, and we didn't have to worry about a game the next day or have to taper or things like that. We were able to stay with certain action, and the two things that we really stressed was our defense and our board play. We wanted to control the boards, and tonight we did that. If you can control the boards, you can control the tempo of the game. We did a nice job of keeping a very offensive team off the glass and not allowing them to score as much as we've done in the past. We've had a tough schedule. I think the one thing that I told this group is having coached, played, won SEC championships, our last several games, that's a tough stretch, and if you add the SEC Tournament play, a lot of teams would have struggled with that schedule, too. When you look at playing at Kentucky, at Texas A&M, at Georgia, Alabama, who's really come along with Coach Curry, and then having to play two No.1 seeds, Tennessee twice and South Carolina. So I told our team, our record should not reflect who we are as competitors, and I wanted to make sure that they understood that, that they are one of the best teams in the country, and when they play for 40 minutes and they put their mind to it and their heart that they can beat anybody in the country. Q. Did you feel like you could outrun them today? Was that the case? NIKKI CALDWELL: We felt as though we conditioned and have been conditioned to keep that pace. We talked about that at halftime, and I knew Ballard had logged a lot of minutes, but she's playing at a different level of competitiveness, so she was going to push through. And we pushed them these last 11 days, and I think that is something that they were able to draw on, and we talked about it and said, some of you guys ran track, and it's going to be a track meet out there. The team that really pushes through that point of exhaustion can come up with those easy baskets, make those lay‑ups, get some run‑outs, and we were able to do that. Our strength and conditioning coach has done a great job of training our team mentally and physically, and we continue to weight train through the season, we try to go two, sometimes three times a week to maintain, but we also have a little bit more depth this year than we did last year around this time. When you've got 10, 11 bodies that can get out there, you're not as afraid, if you will, as a coach to say, hey, let's run. Q. You've said all year this team is still looking for a complete 40‑minute game. Was this either the closest you've seen to that or was this a complete 40‑minute game? NIKKI CALDWELL: I felt it was the closest that I've seen, although they made some runs in the game. It's a game of runs, and Georgia Tech is a very good basketball team. Watching them on film, their ability to score the basketball with three go‑tos on the perimeter, that's a tough task for any team to defend. Again, we talked about the board play. We said if we can just control the boards, we'll have a shot. So our team did a very nice job of executing that aspect of the game, and then this time of year you've got to make lay‑ups and free throws. Our game plan wasn't to just settle and shoot jump shots. We wanted to get to the basket and go score, and they did just that. Q. Two things: First, Moncrief, what's the best update you can give us on her, and second, just your take on the all‑cart game of Danielle today? NIKKI CALDWELL: Well, Moncrief, we're going to have her‑‑ obviously we didn't want to do anything because we don't know what's going on exactly right now, but we're going to have her looked at tomorrow, so we'll know more about that tomorrow. We're just going to stay hopeful, and obviously she's somebody who is just a tremendous asset to our team. She's a player that is explosive to watch. She's such a great athlete. But she's also a great teammate, and I know that whatever the outcome, we're going to be behind her 100 percent, and she's going to be that player that's going to be‑‑ if she's missing or if we don't have her, she's going to be that player that's going to be jumping up, cheering her teammates on. Ballard just played like a woman possessed. She played like somebody that said, I can't be denied. And when you have your point guard playing with that type of attitude, that mentality, it filters throughout our team, and so she did set the tone for us that we can be aggressive against their pressure, against their press, against their buzz defense, that she took it upon herself to be that player that I'm going to get‑‑ go to the glass as hard as I can, and obviously 17 rebounds, that's tremendous. She's just that player that is a very special player. Q. When a point guard rebounds like that, does it ever worry you about getting back on defense? NIKKI CALDWELL: That's where Jeanne Kenney comes in to play. We've made Jeanne Kenney our safety, and we send her back. It's a game of numbers. If you're going to crash and force the boards, you hope that you're going to come up with it. Our goal was to come up with 50 percent of our missed shots. But if you do crash the boards and they get the rebound, it is going to put a little bit more pressure on our transition defense, but we were coming up with it, and it worked. Q. Georgia Tech's coach said that over the last 10 games she's watched of you guys, this was a totally different LSU team than what she saw on video. How much is winning in this kind of environment as much about an element of surprise as it is about fundamental basketball? NIKKI CALDWELL: Well, I'll tell you, you look at our last game before Georgia Tech, and we were playing Tennessee in the second round of play at the tournament, and the first 20 minutes of that game was similar to what we did today. We were able to extend ourselves early, were able to set the tone. We were attacking their pressure. We just didn't sustain it. That's what we did today. We sustained it. So yes, she's right. She probably hadn't seen a team, our team, at its very best for 40. But there's always been that turning point where we know, okay, if we can get from 20 to 30 to 40‑minute game that we can pretty much play with anybody. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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