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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 4, 2017Gary BlairAnriel HowardCurtyce KnoxGreenville, South Carolina Mississippi State - 66, Texas A&M - 50 THE MODERATOR: I'd like to welcome Texas A&M. Coach, if you would start us out with an opening statement, please. COACH BLAIR: The two best teams are going to play for the championship tomorrow. That's good for the SEC. We had a great run through the tournament, a great run, particularly after coming off four tough losses to finish the season. I think we've got our mojo back. I think we executed very well during the tournament. Again, we got off to another slow start. Couldn't hit the inside shots early. When that happens, you just lose your confidence. I thought Mississippi State played great. Sometimes when you play the third day straight, the last game every night, it just wears on your team and your coaches and the whole nine yards. That's not an excuse. We were practically ready to play. We played Mississippi State so close two times. We thought we should be 1-1 against them before we came into this game, but we didn't do it. They are a better team right now. Our job is to raise our bar and to get up to their level. They're trying to raise their bar and get up to South Carolina's level. They'll have that opportunity tomorrow. They'll have a good chance because Coates won't be playing for South Carolina. They'll have a good chance. But proud of this team. One stat that is remarkable, since we've been in the Big 12 and the SEC, we've gone to 11 out of 13 semifinals, finals, or we won it. That's very, very hard to do. 11 out of 13. We've been playing on Saturday, Sunday for the championships. One of the biggest keys of the ballgame, here is a stat I don't think I've ever competed against a team that had all five starters without a turnover. Not a single turnover. That's a credit to their ball handling. He's running the same weave offense that we used to run. I don't have quite the personnel to run that offense. He's running more of a four-player weave offense, and that's very good. His kids are good with the ball. I just thought when we missed the shots early, we couldn't get back into it before half. Open it up to my young ladies, Anriel Howard, who had one heck of a tournament. And Curtyce Knox, she just broke the SEC record for assists in a single season. Congratulations to her. We could have finished a few more shots, she really could have broke it. I'm proud she got it done even before the NCAA tournament. Hopefully she can stretch it out there far enough where nobody can touch it for a few years. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Anriel, do you sort of go along with what Coach Blair said as far as your feeling about your run here at the SEC tournament? ANRIEL HOWARD: Yes, most definitely. I mean, we played our hearts out the first two games. I mean, we did really good defensively and offensively in the first two games. Tonight, we just couldn't give it all 40 minutes. But I'm really proud of my teammates and the coaching staff for fighting as hard as we did for this tournament. Q. Curtyce, I know it's a five-letter word, but kind of a four-letter word, tired. You are talking about six players playing three days in a row. How tired are your legs right now? How much are you looking forward to being able to slow down a little bit over the next two weeks? CURTYCE KNOX: I think these few days off that we're going to have is really going to help my body with recovery. I just don't like being tired as an excuse. Looking at my teammates, I know I have to be on the floor for them, try to fight for 40 minutes. Q. Anriel, you're known for your rebounding skills. When you look at a stat sheet, realize Missouri only got three offensive rebounds yesterday, scored five points off of those, Mississippi State gets 15 and scores 21, you can buy into that and realize how important second-chance points off of offensive rebounds are? ANRIEL HOWARD: Definitely. Coach Starkey told us that stat coming in the game that Missouri only had three offensive rebounds. Tonight wasn't going to be like that. We all had to box out as a team. We fell short of that. Q. Gary, your thoughts on the difference in the offensive rebounds? COACH BLAIR: It's effort. When you run a weave offense, we're playing a matchup zone against it, they're rebounding from outside more than they're just rebounding from the post position. They share the ball. When they do miss shots, the ball is bouncing over my post players. That's where the guards have to help us out with defensive rebounds. That did not happen today. When they're out there shooting 16 threes on 10 misses, I'd say they probably got at least half of those misses off of the threes. They made all the hustle plays. Last night, we made all the hustle plays. That's what comes with three games in three nights. We'll never have to do that in the NCAA tournament. You always have a day off. This was just tough. But, hey, we're finding a way to do it. Being tired... She had a year and a half-year-old with her all last night, too, in her room. You can get tired that way, too. Mama has done a pretty good job. The rest of us, we don't have excuses. Anriel and I, we had a good night's sleep. ANRIEL HOWARD: Exactly (laughter). Q. Curtyce, speaking of the assists, y'all aren't about personal records, but did you ever imagine you're going to finish this season with over 300 assists? Did you believe you would have the ability to do something like that? CURTYCE KNOX: No, not going into this season. Assists wasn't a really big thing that was on my mind. I give all the credit to my teammates. I got two great shooters on the wing, Anriel at the high post, Khaalia. I give them all the credit because they finished the shots. COACH BLAIR: We got one thing, if you remember in 2011, we got beat three straight times by Baylor. We got the opportunity to play them the fourth time. I would love to play Mississippi State the fourth time because that means we're in the Sweet 16 or the Elite 8, okay? That would be fine. We relish the opportunity to just keep playing. Gosh, we were just hoping for the NCAA tournament. Now all of a sudden, we were hoping for a top four seed. We're going to be a six seed. We will be a six. I'm hoping that Auburn gets in as the 18 because I think they very much deserve it because they played the schedule. There's some other teams that are playing their way in, like Purdue just played their way in, playing for the championship tomorrow. We still have a chance to host. I'm pulling for Stanford to be a three and for us to be a six. This would sort of be like when Florida had to come to Texas A&M because of the Rod Stewart concert in 1994. They beat Florida that year, too. That's what we got to hope. But look, good tournament. Everybody behind the curtains watching and listening, good tournament. Glad you're behind the tournament. If you show up over at my hotel, I'll buy you one cold beer, but I said just one if you're back there behind the curtain. Thank y'all. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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