NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL SEMIFINAL - SOUTH DAKOTA VS MICHIGAN

March 26, 2022

Kim Barnes Arico

Naz Hillmon

Leigha Brown

Laila Phelia

Intrust Bank Arena

Michigan Wolverines

Sweet 16 Media Conference

Michigan 52, South Dakota 49

THE MODERATOR: We welcome the Michigan student-athletes, Naz Hillmon, Laila Phelia and Leigha Brown. Head coach, Kim Barnes Arico.

COACH BARNES ARICO: Well, that was an unbelievable basketball game. I'm not sure what I look like. I borrowed some clothes to get here because we had a celebration in the locker room. But really proud of the way our team played and really proud of the way that they finished the last four minutes of the game.

South Dakota had an incredible season, has an incredible team. They were really impressive and we had to do everything that we could to come away with a victory tonight. Just proud of how we finished the game, for sure.

Q. Congratulations. Laila, you guys were up 5 with less than two minutes left. South Dakota tied it up. What's going through your mind before you made that layup with the time running down? South Dakota has not all the momentum but it seems like the crowd is getting in with them. What was your initial reaction?

LAILA PHELIA: So once I knew the clock was running down, at that point I knew I needed to attack the basket and I felt like my teammates gave me a lot of confidence right before I did end up going in and they told me, now is not the time to hesitate.

COACH BARNES ARICO: I like it. I like it. I was telling you to just score. I said "Just score! Just score!"

LAILA PHELIA: Yeah. She was yelling at me to score.

Q. Laila, I did catch a moment earlier in the game when Coach said to you, just go, you gotta take the shot, don't hesitate. So for you to do that, was that in the back of your mind there, that you had the confidence of your coach to go make a play?

LAILA PHELIA: Yeah. That right there, that gave me the most confidence in the world. I felt like just being able to have the head coach sit there and tell me to go score and don't hesitate at all, I felt like that really helped a lot. I know that she has faith in me.

Q. Ladies, after you worked so hard to get to this point, what does it mean to be able to go to Michigan's first-ever Elite Eight game?

LEIGHA BROWN: It means a lot. Obviously we have made history throughout this entire season, but we wanted to continue to keep doing things that have never been done before and go through the highs and lows that we did this season, I wouldn't trade this team for anyone else, wouldn't trade this coaching staff for anyone else. So super proud of us, and everybody that made it happen but we're not done yet. We want to keep making history for sure.

NAZ HILLMON: Super excited and I think every time we make history, I think about all the people before us. Some of the teammates that we had who wanted to get to this point, players who we don't know but have helped to build and establish what we have, our culture, our system, working toward putting Michigan on the map.

Not only thinking about what we did as a team but all the people who came before us to kind of get this ball rolling.

LAILA PHELIA: As a freshman coming in, I felt like just being able to come in here and know how hard these girls have worked so hard already, and honestly, like, right now I'm so happy for them, because they worked so hard day in and day out.

Q. Naz, I'm wondering what it was like fighting against Hannah for that entire game?

NAZ HILLMON: It was a good battle. Obviously -- I don't even know what to say. Sorry. It was a good battle. She's a tough defender, really works in the post on offense and really tries to get her positioning. I think one of the things about -- I always think back to our conference and how that has really helped and prepared us for this tournament. So within that battle just thinking of the players who were like her in a sense, not like her in a sense and trying to figure out how I can be most successful, but a great battle, definitely.

Q. Naz, what do you think you were able to do to bounce back after a slow start?

NAZ HILLMON: I think I tried not to focus on the offensive end, I think sometimes my defense gets me going, and trying to be rebound. I knew if I could continue that motor and get my teammates second opportunities by getting offensive boards, that would help me and I can get into the flow of things.

When I'm not thinking about it too much I think I can just maneuver throughout the game and have a level head about me. So try to do the intangible things to get myself going and not necessarily focusing on trying to score buckets at the time.

Q. Naz, you play Louisville Monday. It's been a long time since that loss in Louisville. How much have you guys changed since that loss?

NAZ HILLMON: That game taught us a lot about ourselves and that was an important game for us. We always talk about how losses are lessons, and that's exactly what that game was. We figured out how to put people in better position, how to space ourselves out more. I think we've become a lot more confident since that game and having that previously happen to us, so early in the year definitely did help our growth offensively and defensively.

Q. Naz, you mentioned on the TV side how well South Dakota played and how scrappy they were. How scrappy was South Dakota? Was that the scrappiest team you ladies have seen all year?

NAZ HILLMON: Yeah, they were definitely scrappy, they fought and clawed to the last minute, they were in there running around for every rebound, trying to take charges throughout the game, everything in between. I do think that I go back to, like I said earlier, our conference, scrappy.

So many people in our conference that play to that level and that magnitude and they try to get in there and get every rebound and make it tough. Not necessarily always about the X's and O's but how hard they play on defense.

Definitely a scrappy team, I put them up there in that list but I do think again our conference helped us prepare for that.

Q. Naz, Amy hasn't had the year she wanted. She wasn't part of the Sweet 16 run last year, what does it mean to see someone who has been a teammate for years play such a big part of the game down the stretch and play such a big role?

NAZ HILLMON: I think we talk about this often how you don't know what bag somebody is going to come out of and what's really dangerous about that team. And just to see Amy get her stuff going on the defensive end. She was everywhere getting tips, deflections and scrambling around and to see her being be successful means the world. Obviously my classmate and to see her growth and development, and to see her be in that moment and to be so successful meant the world.

Q. How does it feel to make your first Elite Eight?

NAZ HILLMON: It feels great, Emma. Thank you for that question.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies. Questions for Coach.

Q. Coach, the last sequence there, the last play on offense, was that where it was supposed to go? Was that an option or did you consider even a timeout there late?

COACH BARNES ARICO: I don't remember the last play. Walk me through it, Matt. Which one?

Q. Their possession ends with Laila scoring but it looked like you moved the ball around, looked like you were trying to go inside, did they take that away? And what option was Laila and did you think about a timeout?

COACH BARNES ARICO: Yeah, we ran an action to try to get inside and we obviously couldn't get anything inside. But Laila is going to be a phenomenal, phenomenal player with us and you've been with me during the course of the year when she made great plays against quality, quality opponents, whether that was when we played Baylor, or when we beat Iowa at home, she makes big plays. Sometimes if you tell her we are running it for her, it makes her think a little bit too much. As a freshman I just want her to be able to make a play. That's what I encouraged her to do during the course of the game because she was thinking too much. Even the turnovers she had late, she was thinking too much and not just playing. And that's why we always try to tell her to play ball, play the game.

And when she had the ball in her hands, I was confident something good would happen if she wasn't thinking about it and I just let her play and she was able to make that layup. That wasn't the initial action but if she has the ball in her hands late in the shot clock, we want her to go to the basket for sure.

Q. Coach, like I asked Naz, that game in December is a long time ago now. She said that helped you guys, helped change you guys. What about that game helped you, propel you guys to where you are now and how do you feel it helped you so much?

KIM BARNES ARICO: Louisville is a great, great program and it's a place that I feel like I have had to go to a lot as the head coach of the University of Michigan. This year was another example of that. They were phenomenal. They really disrupted us and took us out of what we wanted to do and that was important for us to learn from and grow from. They have a great team. We learned a lot from that game about us and what we needed to get better at, and we had to learn how to be a top team in the country, and I think we took a lot from that game for sure.

Q. They didn't end up falling but when you brought that half-court pressure those doubles, did you expect that South Dakota would get all the open shots they did?

COACH BARNES ARICO: We play a different style than a lot of the teams that they played. Just going back and watching the film of their first two tournament games, who they beat, two Power Five opponents that are awesome teams, they defended it differently than we did tonight. We wanted to give them a different look. I think it sped them up and made them take quicker shots than maybe they wanted to take.

I think in a game like tonight both teams didn't have a ton of shots falling. We have a great, great shooter in Maddie Nolan and she didn't have a ton falling for her either and we wanted her to continue to shoot. And I think sometimes in this environment that's the case, but we wanted to give them a different defense than they faced.

Q. Did you have to say much to Naz after her slow start or did you think she would figure things out?

COACH BARNES ARICO: I thought Naz actually had an amazing, amazing start and then they had to review that play. That took like two minutes and Naz went from being, like, zoom, here, getting every rebound and having a tremendous amount of bounce, to we were sitting and watching or waiting for the replay to be reviewed for a long time. I think that deflated our momentum early in the beginning. Then we started to take some quick shots, which is what we -- when we watched them beat Ole Miss and Baylor they had a tendency to do.

So we just needed to slow down and I think the first quarter kind of got us into that and then we did a better job in the second quarter.

Naz is an All-American for a reason. I always feel like she's going to get it going. There's hardly many times throughout her course of four years where she hasn't gotten it going and even days where she doesn't have great scoring, she is a tremendous passer and a tremendous defender. So I knew it would only be a matter of time.

She was awesome, and we went to her at key points down the stretch for sure.

Q. Coach, congratulations on the Elite Eight. Can you reflect on this team's resilience? Because it wasn't the easiest end to the regular season with Illinois not getting rescheduled cost you probably a Big Ten Championship, losing in the Big Ten Tournament, how did you regroup as a group to get to this point?

COACH BARNES ARICO: I think that's probably the biggest question that has been -- the biggest challenge question that's been faced to me and to our team. You hit the nail on the head. And I don't know if everybody talks about it, I don't know if everybody knows it but we don't have any Big Ten Championship banners hanging in Chrysler Arena and this year we had an unbelievable opportunity to hang one and because of a snowstorm and a cancelation we had one less game. That's crushing and that can be devastating and that can change the outcome of the year, for sure.

We lost two games in February back to back on the road where Leigha Brown didn't play. That's crushing, that's challenging. You know, we win one of those games -- and two of them they were heartbreaking. We win one of them, we win a Big Ten Championship.

So there were a lot of things that happened during the course of the year that we could have crumbled and said well, woe is me and why did this happen to us? I'm sure alone in our moments we do say that, but I think the great quality about this team and this program has been the ability to get back up every day and to come together and say, well, now we have something to prove.

And we have motivation and we have to go out and shock the world and say that somebody made a mistake or it wasn't supposed to be this way. It was hard. It's really, really hard because I think in 20 years I'm going to look up and that Big Ten banner is not going to be there and this team deserved it more than anyone I've been a part of and that's never going to go away.

But the moment that we had today is never going to go away. So I'm just so happy for this group. For them sticking together and for them -- we're still playing. There are eight darn teams left in the country playing and we are one of them. That's pretty incredible.

Q. When Naz wasn't getting it going in the first quarter, Laila took advantage of it and at one point had 11 points and I think the number two scorer was at six points with Naz. What does it mean when a freshman steps up and the top players aren't necessarily getting the bounces they want?

COACH BARNES ARICO: Yeah, we always say the dynamic duo or the Batman and Robin or the Kobe and Shaq in Leigha Brown and Naz Hillmon, but the more we can get players around us, the better we're going to be and Laila Phelia has been special for us all year long. She received the National Freshman of the Week one week, she was All-Big Ten freshman team in a league of awesome freshmen.

She is just special and she is something we don't have, a dynamic we don't have: The ability to get to the rim against anyone and the ability to knock down three's. She is just learning everybody. She is just a baby. And she wants to learn. She is just a sponge and her upperclassmen love her. She is an unbelievable and incredible defender, it's hard to take her off the floor because of how she defends. When she got going, that was really great for us, and I felt like, hey we're going to be in really, really great shape because that added another score to our one-two punch.

Q. Coach, you seemed more emotional than usual at the end of the game. You seem like you're still pretty emotional right now and I know part of that is because of what you were answering about with Mechelle there. It feels like this means a lot to you.

COACH BARNES ARICO: Yeah, I mean, Matt if anybody knows, it's you. You've been with us for a really long time. You've been here since I first got here ten years ago. I've been telling the players in the locker room even since the Sweet 16, like, there is a lot of great coaches, a lot of great coaches and a lot of great players that never have the opportunity to be where we are today. Never. And they go through their careers hoping and wishing. I get to be a part of a team that's been there twice, and a team that, like, you don't want to -- by the end of the year most coaches are like, man, I can't wait to go on vacation or I can't wait to have a day off. Like, I don't want to leave these kids. I don't want it to end because they are so incredible to be around and they're such a special group.

But where Michigan is, this block M, if anyone told you ten years ago, you would have said no way. We have players that came in here with this vision and this belief that they could do something incredibly special. They wanted to be a part of that block M and that excellence, and here we are sitting at the table going to the Elite Eight. It's just a dream like you could never imagine, but it's people that came together and created something incredibly special. It's awesome.

THE MODERATOR: Thanks Coach.