The University of Mississippi Athletics
Ole Miss Postgame Quotes
3/25/2007 | Women's Basketball
Ole Miss Coach Carol Ross
Opening Statement
"The greatest thing about winning is that I continue to coach these two young women (Armintie Price and Ashley Awkward) who are seniors. It has been such a privilege and we keep finding ways to keep coaching and their teammates keep finding ways to be teammates with them. It has been tremendous what Jada Mincy and Armintie Price bring to the court and there is nothing compared to what they bring into the locker room with their leadership. We also come from the mighty SEC like our next opponent (Tennessee). Championships run through Tennessee and we have respect for not only what they have done this season, but, the history of their program and for what they have done year after year. We will continue to take what's in front of us and compete against it and hopefully we will be at our best on Tuesday.
Talking about the gameplan against Oklahoma:
"We really don't gameplan a whole lot. I coach my team and don't coach other teams. I stay focused on our strengths. We are not going to deviate from what we do best. We are not going to let another team dictate how we play. We are what we are, for good or for bad. We are going to play the way we have to be to be successful. It's not who are the guards or who is inside, we are going to attack the ball. We are all energy based and about flying around making plays. That doesn't change from day-to-day. Now, whether we are good at that or not, does change from day-to-day. That's why we have losses to Rice and to UT-Arlington. Those are people maybe we shouldn't have lost to. But, when we don't play good defense, we can lose to anybody. When we play great defense, we can beat anybody. So, it's not a complicated formula for us, we just have to go and play."
On looking back to the previous game against Tennessee and looking at the matchup on Tuesday:
"Obviously, everything they do poses a big problem for us. They beat us pretty good last time. It wasn't a big margin, but, we never got into the game. They have Candice Parker who is so versatile, it's hard to find ways to get to her. The flipside of that she has a great cast. Bobbitt is quick and has great ability to move around. Hornbuckle who is a great playmaker. Spencer, who if you leave her open, you know what's coming. Anoskie is a workhorse and then you have a bunch of people coming off the bench. It is a lot for us, we obviously didn't handle it well the first time, but, we will try to figure out something better this time."
On the play of Oklahoma's Courtney Paris:
"She was doubling everything and our doubling of her was not effective at all. She is a great player and she plays with so much spirit. Sometimes that gets lost in how she does what she does. She's got great heart and there wasn't a whole lot we did to Courtney that affected her. She is tremendous for Oklahoma and she was able to push us back with her strength and get easy baskets around the rim. She was able to get second ones if the first one wasn't good enough. If we frustrated her at all, it might have been the fact that we go 94 feet from one end to the other. Other than that, her numbers don't indicate to me that we frustrated her much."
On the heat in the arena:
"We were happy it was hot. We knew we had to play fast. I told them in the locker room at halftime in envision being back in their old sweaty high school gym in July when some high school coach made them come workout when they didn't want to. This is what it is going to be like and we are going to go back to where you had the most fun playing. You are going to sweat, but for every drop you sweat, they (Oklahoma) will drop two. So, we talked about that during timeouts. Whatever you were feeling, multiply it times two and that's how Oklahoma feels. We knew we could play in the heat and we knew we could play fast. If we had to rest, we could do that on the offensive end."
On what she said to the team after timeouts that allowed them to come out fast:
"It is my job to know what my team needs. I knew they were playing hard, even when they weren't play well. I have never questioned their effort. I really think the game is simple and I let them play. They have the green light to shoot when they want, they have the green light to trap when they want to. I want them to have the freedom to play. In those timeouts, if I thought they were fatigued, I would tell them a dumb story or something to make them feel better than what they were feeling. I would try to encourage them to keep pressing on. I'm a storyteller anyway. You give me a 30-second timeout and I can tell a story. Sometimes, it's about having the will to put your foot forward one more time. We talked about doing that a lot, and told them they would like what would happen at the end of the game. To the kid's credit, they kept finding ways to compete. It wasn't easy, but they are great competitors."
On answering Oklahoma's run:
"They did a couple of things that irritated us. One was they were getting the ball reversed. The second thing was I had to call some of the traps off because our energy level was allowing us to give up quick baskets. We had the lead and we needed to protect it. It was better for us if Oklahoma had to make three or four passes instead of one. We pulled our traps back to conserve some energy. When they closed the gap, we had the energy to trap again and get the tempo back up. We had enough defensive plays that were made that turned into steals which turned into baskets or got us to the foul line which allowed us to get back out in front again.
Ole Miss Player Quotes
Armintie Price on frustrating Oklahoma with pressure: "We could see it in their faces as they came down the court, even before we set a trap. We knew they were kind of nervous."
Ashley Awkward on frustrating Oklahoma with pressure: "Being at the top of the defense I was putting a lot of pressure on their guards making it hard for them to even get the ball into the post."
Ashley Awkward on what your teammate means to your team: "She is the deepest and best player on the team. She makes it so much easier out there for the whole team by setting the tone. We just do our best not to let her down."
Armintie Price on what your teammate means to your team: "Ashley Awkward is my best friend for the last year. She is the smartest one because she knows everything from when to score, when to foul, and when to call time out. She is the one at the end of the game that wants the ball and to be the one to call the plays. She helps keep our focus by being the mind of the team."
Ashley Awkward on seniors' mission: "We knew last year when we lost in the NIT that we weren't going to let this happen again. Jada had an ACL tear last year and the seniors snatched her up to tell her that she was going to be senior with us next year. We got at it this summer, working hard, because we knew we had five freshmen coming in which was big. So that gave us three leaders along with a whole team ready to go."
Armintie Price on looking at Oklahoma vs. Texas A&M game: "We paid attention to it a lot. We watched film on Oklahoma and Texas A&M because we knew that they had played them and beaten they with speed and pressure."
Ashley Awkward on when Oklahoma made a comeback: "In the NCAA Tournament you know you are going to play great teams and no team is going to give up. We always expect a team to come back and give us their best shot. We had to make a run of our own by giving it our best shot and digging deep. That is what made us successful in this game."
Armintie Price on do you look forward to rematch with Tennessee: "We have to be, we play them next. Yeah we are looking forward to Tennessee because we know them well, they are in our conference, and a championship team. They have been here many times but we are going to do what we do best and cause them some problems."
Ashley Awkward on going full speed all game: "When you have someone like coach (Carol) Ross on your side line yelling go, go, go, you can do it's easy. She is a great motivator and knows how to get us going. She knows what it takes to make us successful and she does a great job of putting that in us."
Armintie Price on the size on the boards: "You have to be first one to the ball by reacting and moving your feet. We do a lot of drills where coach Ross throws the ball up to the ceiling and we practice boxing out."
