ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 6, 2026

Felisha Legette-Jack

Sophie Burrows

Jasmyn Cooper

Gas South Arena

Syracuse Orange

Postgame Press Conference

Louisville 87, Syracuse 61.

FELISHA LEGETTE-JACK: What a great conference this is. I said that earlier about Louisville. Louisville is a team that's going to go deep in the tournament. They have so many positions, like multiple people in those positions. We really had a great opportunity today. Without our point guard, it was very difficult to get the movement that we needed.

But I just love what Sophie has done. She really tried to manage the game, and Coop did a tremendous job, and loved Maddy's prowess out there, as well.

We found different things that's really kind of exciting about our team moving forward, and I just think that the score said a lot of bad things about what we did out there. And I'm certain that you guys are going to see that, as well.

But what I did notice is that we won some battles out there with some new people that hadn't played in a long time, and we learned so many valuable lessons that's going to impact us for the rest of our lives, more so than this particular game.

Q. What do you know about Dom's status, and do you expect to have her back for a potential NCAA Tournament?

FELISHA LEGETTE-JACK: Potentially, yes. Clearly, I am not a doctor, so I don't make those decisions. I leave it all up to Ms. Karen and our doctors. When we get back, we're going to assess that. But I don't know.

Q. I noticed that Louisville obviously had a very pressing defense that seemed to frustrate you guys at times. What do you feel like was the start of all that? Was there any point in the game where you were like, okay, we're overwhelmed at this point?

FELISHA LEGETTE-JACK: No, they do that all the time. That's how they play. They've been doing it for four years and that's their style, and I didn't want them to change because we have one less player. I thought we handled it initially, but after we got to the half court, we kind of stayed in wonderment as opposed to let's go, let's rock it, let's attack and run our sets.

We established that at halftime what we were going to do, and we just kind of fell back into the standing around thing. We have to understand we've got to get better with that.

Q. You mentioned some of the bright spots in this game. One of them had to be Uche who scored 20-plus points again. What did you see from her in this matchup?

FELISHA LEGETTE-JACK: She can play against anybody in the country. To me, she's a national player, not just an ACC great player. She's a national player. We have a few of them in our conference, and that's what's really cool about my colleagues. We go out there and get the best in the world.

I've got a really, really, really special young lady that's sitting right next to me as well. What Sophie can do is play multiple positions. She actually can play the 4, post people up and take them off the pounce and shoot a 3 ball, handle the rock. And so we got some pieces that's here. It's bigger than Uche. Uche becomes better because Sophie is on the team.

And then you get Coop now trying to fly around the floor a little bit and showing her top 40 in the country when she came out of high school ability, as well.

We don't have a go-to player, we have a go-to team. And our point guard really kind of offset us in a really dramatic way just one day ago. That really kind of put us on our heels today.

But yeah, we love what Uche can do. But we've certainly got more pieces that we're going to have to reset and figure this thing out a little bit more. We've got time, right? We've got like a week and a half to figure this out. And everybody has got to get healthy because we came out here and we got really banged up.

Q. As you mentioned, Louisville has a really balanced attack. They've got seven or eight players who are averaging seven points a game, but none of them are averaging more than 12. How do you game plan to stop such a balanced attack?

FELISHA LEGETTE-JACK: We did it last year and we did it the year before. We beat them. We had people that understood the assignment. They were just better than us today. We'll continue to grow and get better, too.

Q. If you guys do have to go forward without Dom for a little while longer, how do you think your team can work to fill that gap left by her?

FELISHA LEGETTE-JACK: I think we had possessions. I think we cut it to 10 with the ball and we blew a shot, and then we got beyond that 10, we're right there. And Maddy Potts played -- we needed a bigger guard and we went with her. We were playing against a smaller team. And that's where Liv and Gelo and Cam would come into play.

But we went tall ball and I thought that was really, really a good situation because we had people out of place. Because Maddy had been playing the 2 for the whole season. And now that we know we're going utilize her at the point where she came from high school -- came from Australia as a point guard -- we're going to give her the reps she deserves in that position.

But it's just like you -- you're a great reporter, but now they tell you tomorrow, you're the lead reporter and you've got to tell the story and you've got like 24 hours to. You're going to be good because you're good, but you're not going to be great because you're not prepared. That's what we're going to have to do.

We have a week and a half to get them prepared, and I think we're pretty good at that.

Q. As Jeff Walz' peer in this league, what do you see him do that has allowed for Louisville's sustained success?

FELISHA LEGETTE-JACK: He's a multiple Final Four coach, and that alone says a lot about who he is. He's a winner and he's a great guy, and he fights hard for a lot of things that's right for women's basketball. Kids go to him because he went to four Final Fours, right? We're getting that situation to happen for us. Right now we're still going under rocks and finding people like Sophie and Uche and Dom. And eventually Syracuse is going to be a name brand where people are going to come knock on our door like they're doing for him.

He's done the work, 19 years in the same spot. Are you kidding me? That is a lifetime in this business that we call our jobs.

Not only that, he's really great at what he does, and he's got a great system. I think -- again, I said this in November -- I think he's going to go far in the tournament because he has two people in each spot that's really, really powerful. Then you've got Notre Dame that's great, and you've got NC State that's great. You have so many people in our conference that's really good. I'm so proud to be a part of it.

Q. For either of the players, obviously Louisville came out swinging with the 25-12 first quarter, but you guys kind of hung in there in that second quarter and made it a close game heading into the half. I was wondering what Coach's message was to you guys and how you tried to apply that in the second quarter to compete with Louisville?

SOPHIE BURROWS: She just wrote on the board: You are enough. She tried to settle us down and make us realize that we belong here and we deserve to be here.

It was a tough deficit to make up in that situation, but she had that full faith in us, and I think that really helped us bring that lead back a little bit. But yeah, we just needed to calm down and play our game.