ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 2, 2023

Amanda Butler

Amari Robinson

Clemson Tigers

Postgame Press Conference

North Carolina 68, Clemson 58

AMANDA BUTLER: I'm really proud of our team. That was a tough one, and we've got to give North Carolina a lot of credit for making it tough, in particular in the first half.

You know, we didn't play our best basketball in the first half and left a little bit of an advantage to them going into halftime.

But again, our team made adjustments, made corrections. We didn't give up the threes in the second half. We didn't turn the ball over in the second half like we did in the first half. But unfortunately, dug too much of a hole for a good team. Just really proud of our fight. Amari was freaking amazing. If you were at the game, I don't need to tell you that. She's one of the best players here.

Q. Coach, just kind of looking at the differences, the turnovers, is that kind of the glaring thing that sticks out as the thing that went wrong the most?

AMANDA BUTLER: Yeah, yeah. That's the glaring thing. We obviously had a lot of conversations about that, and that was the problem when we played them the first time. Just too many turnovers in the first half and fought back and didn't do that in the second half, but again, just gave them a lead by giving them extra possessions that they capitalized on.

Q. Amari, what was working so well for you out there tonight?

AMARI ROBINSON: I couldn't even tell you, honestly. I think I just went out there and knew that you have to give it your all. I do that for my team day in and day out, so I wanted to make sure I could do everything I could do to help us be successful tonight. But I'm still proud of us.

Q. I assume this isn't it for you. Are you hoping to play in a WNIT?

AMANDA BUTLER: Yeah, we've got a great team, and the thing that's so great about our team is that we just keep getting better. So the longer our season goes, the more that we're going to continue to improve, and this group loves each other, and they want to play as long as they can for Hannah and for Brie, and we are a postseason team. That's the caliber of team that we have. So we need to rise to that challenge.

Q. After Eva Hodgson hit those three threes at the beginning of the game, what adjustments did you make going forward?

AMANDA BUTLER: You know, that's a bad question to ask a coach because we obviously knew what Eva's capable of and had talked a lot about it, so there wasn't really a coaching adjustment. It was just, again, reminders of like hey, guys, we know what her job is out here, and she's doing it really well, and we're making it really easy. So let's do a better job of communicating and closing out and trying to take that away from her, and then I think there was a greater sense of urgency in the communication and the response in our defense.

I didn't mean your question was bad. I hope that didn't hurt your feelings.

Q. Ruby was actually one of the players that didn't have too many turnovers tonight. She had a rough shooting night but got her eight boards. What did you see from her in her first postseason experience?

AMANDA BUTLER: Yeah, exactly what you said. Ruby -- I think when you're a player like Ruby and you come in from high school and then you're making the adjustment to college, you still have so much of your identity wrapped up in scoring. Ruby, I think, this season has really matured into understanding she's so much more than a scorer. She played, I thought, fantastic without the basketball today, really got her hands on a lot of rebounds, like you said, played a relatively clean game in terms of turnovers. Just scratching the surface of what Ruby is going to be for us, and again, back to the earlier question, the longer we play, the more she's going to improve this season, as well. Really proud of her effort, her maturity and her energy to do those things that don't go in the scoring column.