PAC-12 CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 3, 2021

Charmin Smith

California Golden Bears

Postgame Press Conference

Oregon State 71, California 63

THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions for Coach Smith.

Q. You battled Oregon State very well. Very young squads. Six freshmen on the floor at one point, two high schoolers. You had several close games, including this one, over the season. What can you take from that, playing teams close, even though your record doesn't reflect that, into next season?

CHARMIN SMITH: Yeah, I think we got a lot better, right? We weren't really ready for what -- we weren't ready for the season. It took us a while. It took us a while to figure out this conference.

I just saw a ton of growth. It's a tough situation when you have to rely on freshmen. Then outside of that, we had two sophomores in Eve and Leilani. A ton of youth, a ton of growth.

I'm proud of how we finished. I wish we could have some of the earlier games back. I think it would be different outcomes in some of those situations. But this is our journey, this is how it was supposed to be. We have a lot of things to build on and a lot of reasons to stay motivated in order to be better next year.

Q. Could you talk a little bit about the message to your team at halftime. What did you tell them to get on the 9-0 run to start the second half?

CHARMIN SMITH: I told them to stop sleepwalking. The 11:00 start, I don't know what it is, but we were kind of in a daze there, not sharp. This was even in the first quarter when we kind of had a lead. It was kind of back and forth there for a little bit.

I just didn't think we were as present as we needed to be. I told them, Hey, wake up. The game started, let's go.

We liked getting Eve on the ball. The ball screen action started hurting us in the second quarter. They started knocking down some of those soft jumpers. We knew we couldn't switch because of our size at the point position, so we made a change and put Eve on the ball coming out of halftime. I think that was a significant difference in how we were able to get a run going because it limited what they could do offensively for a bit there.

Q. You had some injuries over this season as well. Can you give us any updates on injured players, how they're looking going forward?

CHARMIN SMITH: Yeah, it's my hope and expectation that Jazzie, Cailyn, Sela, and Alma will be ready to go next year. I hope so. It's kind of early on to see. We got a couple months here to know how they're progressing in their recovery.

So far things are going well, and I look forward to having a healthy squad next year.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you so much.

CHARMIN SMITH: Thank you.