AMERICAN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 13, 2026

Kim McNeill

Kennedy Fauntleroy

Legacy Arena At The BJCC

East Carolina Pirates

Postgame Press Conference

UTSA 54, East Carolina 44

THE MODERATOR: Coach, why don't we just start with a general comment from you.

KIM McNEILL: Sure. Hats off to UT San Antonio. They came in and took care of business.

Unfortunately their performance showed that they wanted it a little bit more than we did tonight. We just didn't make enough game-winning plays. We got out rebounded by 14.

A lot of loose balls out there that I thought we could have had. We shoot 22% from the field. It's unfortunate because we had a good season, you know? To end it like this, people only remember what happened at the end. They forget about what happened at the beginning.

But it's just a hard pill to swallow for us going out like this. We're much better than what we showed out there, but hats off to UT San Antonio. They played hard and they deserved to win the game tonight.

Q. Coach, what did you see in the fourth quarter that changed for your team?

KIM McNEILL: I just thought all game long we weren't disciplined. We weren't executing the things that we had talked both offensively and defensively. The last day or so preparing for UT San Antonio, we talked about them doubling and packing the paint up, and we want to look for the weak side kicks; we didn't do that a whole lot.

Defensively, just allowing them to score the ball too easily. You know, simple penetration. We didn't turn them over in the press like I thought we would. Just not enough fight. We almost played like we had another game left, like this wasn't the last game possible, the last game of the season.

Like I said, that's just a hard pill to swallow because for a moment it's going to kind of put a towel over or a blanket over the 22 wins and the 14 conference wins. We broke a record this year; just a hard pill to swallow.

Q. Kennedy from a player's standpoint, what did you sense ans the game started changing in the fourth quarter?

KENNEDY FAUNTLEROY: Just some fouls. They took some shots all in the paint, got a couple fouls, and we shot the ball pretty terribly.

Q. Coach, you mentioned the 22 wins; where do you see this team being positioned?

KIM McNEILL: I think hopefully we can get a WBIT -- finishing second place in the league. I would like to see us play again. I don't want the last game of the season to be like that. We're much better than that but we've got to be more disciplined and we got to have a little more buy-in. You got to have a certain approach and a certain mentality going into conference play.

Everybody is 0-0 and everyone is fighting for something. I didn't think we did a good job of that today but I would like another opportunity and I think the girls would too to go out there and play East Carolina basketball and the kind of basketball we know we're capable of playing.

Q. Kennedy, 12 points for you, a couple steals, a couple of blocks. It seemed like everything that was coming hard to this team. Was there something that they were doing that made it that way?

KENNEDY FAUNTLEROY: They are the number one defense in the conference, but honestly, I think it's just our shot selection. I wouldn't take anything from them. We're a good team too. We just weren't playing East Carolina basketball today and we fell to that. So that's it.

THE MODERATOR: All right thank you, and good luck.