BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 7, 2025

Darnell Haney

Kelsey Ransom

Mohegan Sun Arena

Georgetown Hoyas

Postgame Media Conference

Georgetown 58, Providence 56

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Darnell Haney and student-athlete Kelsey Ransom. We'll start with an opening statement from Coach.

DARNELL HANEY: Hello, everyone. I want to give kudos to Coach Batth and the Providence group. It's a tough group, a veteran group. They came and gave us everything we asked for.

Proud of our group for persevering. We got many in some foul trouble in the fourth quarter, and we had to kind of do something a little bit off on a tangent a little bit. We went to some zone because we had to kind of protect the paint.

Our group did a great job. We just put the zone in two days ago. Yeah, two days ago we put the zone in because we knew we were going to have to use it.

Proud of our group for adjusting and doing that. Here we go. It's go time.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Kelsey.

Q. Kelsey, you played a lot of minutes today, really big minutes. Where did you get the energy to pull out this win?

KELSEY RANSOM: Probably when I woke up today. You get the opportunity to play basketball, so you kind of go out there and give everything you have. It's a blessing to be healthy to go out there and play, so the energy just comes from the fact that there's an opportunity.

Q. Career high for you today in scoring as well. We've talked to your coach plenty in the past about you handling and taking on so much leadership. 36 of your team's 58 points. A lot of scoring from you. How do you handle the pressure that comes with knowing that every team is looking to get you, and you're still able to produce offensively?

KELSEY RANSOM: I mean, being in the position I'm in is a blessing and a fantastic position to be in. Not everyone gets the opportunity to do what I do on the floor. So credit to my coaches for trusting me to do that and my teammates for trusting me to do that.

We put each other in the best possible position. So it's 36 points, but that's 36 points off of great screens and fantastic passes, and my teammates knowing where I need the ball and us getting rebounding and getting fast break points. It all starts as a collective on defense.

When we just follow the game plan, it gets us to where we need to be. Whatever the box score is what it is. As long as we're getting that win, that's all that matters.

Q. One of the things I absolutely love about you is how humble you are, and it's we, we, we. Where does that humility come from?

KELSEY RANSOM: I mean, there's five people on the floor. There's 13 people on the bench. You can't do it by yourself even if points reflect it that way.

When you are down, you have to rely on your teammates and your sisters. When I'm having my bad days, they're there for me. When they're having their bad days, I'm there for them. That's the culture we have. You have to pour into everybody else to get good things for yourself. And the selflessness that Coach Haney instills in us as a team gets us to where we have to be.

Q. Can you just take us inside your mindset stepping to the foul line with the game on the line?

KELSEY RANSOM: We do this every single day, and we do clutch free-throws every day. I work on my free-throws in between every single drill while I'm tired and fatigued. I stepped up there, and I said, I've done this step up and knock it down. It's just one of those things that you do enough times, 10,000 times is the rule, and it just becomes habit.

Again, credit to the coaching, to practice. We're 12 in a row, and it shows.

Q. What's it's like to be on the road and away from your fan base and to come into somewhat of a hostile environment to get the win? What's it like to be in an environment like this?

KELSEY RANSOM: One thing about Georgetown, there's always Hoyas everywhere. No matter where we go -- we were in Canada, and there was Georgetown. You're always going to find a Hoya somewhere in the stands. We have great parents and families coming.

It's just great to be able to go out there and entertain. Basketball is a sport. It's a game in the grand scheme of things. Just being out there, being able to run up and down the floor for a while, for 40 minutes. I mean, if you just hear things on the sideline, people are yelling, people are screaming, that's great. You're putting on a show. That's what you want to do, and that's the opportunity we get to do.

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

Q. You've had the chance to talk about Kelsey at length. Earlier this season you've mentioned how her name belongs on the wall at Georgetown, one of the greats. Today she scored a career high this late in her career. What is it about her that she's able to push herself to that next level always and keep impressing?

DARNELL HANEY: I had a conversation about this a couple of days ago. We were talking about Kelsey and what is it? I think the kid just has an unbelievable will, right? That's what came up.

As a matter of fact, I was having a conversation with Lee Reed, our AD, and Kelli Myers. Her will gets her over the hump. It's not the prettiest, right? It's just her will. She will not be denied. She's the ultimate -- and we call them -- here we go again -- outside dog, right? The ultimate winner. She finds a way to get it done.

She may get behind and sometimes the competitiveness in her -- sometimes it gets her in trouble. So I got to tell her -- I would rather tell her to calm down, Kels, right? I don't want to have to tell our players to giddy up. I would rather tell her whoa, right? Sometimes have I to tell her whoa. But that's okay.

I would rather do that than tell her to giddy up. She just has an unbelievable will. Great kid. Great family. She has built a legacy. I told her that last year, and she just added to her legacy tonight. Unbelievable performance. Unbelievable.

She put this group on her back, and she went to work.

Q. Coach, what do you do to get ready for the next game? The competition is going to be tougher this next round. What do you do to prepare?

DARNELL HANEY: It's tougher, and it's different, right? I think we're prepared. We're prepared for them because we've seen them. We've had some situations that we've been in with them where we've had to use some of our bench, and now they know what it's like playing against a team like Creighton.

It's a very well-coached team. They make shots. Coach does a great job with them, and they got some really good players. We just have to be ready. We have to do some things defensively that are going to be totally different from Providence because Providence is a totally different team. But we're going to be ready to go.

7:00 tomorrow. We got some time, so we'll be ready to go.

Q. Going back to talking about the zone two days ago, and you trusted this unit so much to put it into game today. What does that say about this veteran experience that you have on this team and your trust in your players that there's something this new, and you are going to go after it in the Big East tournament and be successful at that?

DARNELL HANEY: I think we got -- the veteran leadership that comes from a Siobhan Ryan, right? She was in the huddle saying she wanted to go to the zone. Siobhan Ryan, let's go to the zone, late in the game.

Kelsey Ransom, right? They wanted to do that because it was something that Providence hadn't really seen, and they were killing us inside. They got our bigs in some foul trouble, right? We wanted to make sure we did a little something different to kind of throw them off.

Sometimes you throw something at the wall, it sticks. So we threw it at the wall. It stuck. We got them to take some shots that they didn't want to take. They got a couple of lobs over the top for some scores, but those are two-point shots. We wanted to make sure they weren't getting and-ones and get in foul trouble. Offensively we had to spread them out.

They tried to go to the zone on us, and then we got some good efforts. This is the next time we're going to be able -- we didn't get a chance to get in this gym. So our shooters, they hadn't seen that ball go in in this gym like they would have if we had a shoot-around.

Tomorrow we get a shoot-around. So I'm excited to see Rivera. I'm excited to see Ryan. I'm excited to see Hession get some shots and those shots fall.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

DARNELL HANEY: I didn't do this before. I want to give glory to the man above who does a great job and helps us in this team tremendously. Thank you.