NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - WASHINGTON VS TCU

March 22, 2026

Tina Langley

Avery Howell

Sayvia Sellers

Hannah Stines

Schollmaier Arena

Washington Huskies

Media Conference

TCU - 62, Washington - 59

THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started with an opening statement from Coach and then take questions for the student-athletes.

TINA LANGLEY: I just want to begin by saying thank you to our young women. What an incredible season. I'm so proud of them. Just to sit up here with 'em it's hard not to be emotional because you love 'em so much. You know the work that they have put in and who they are and the way that they serve and love one another, and our community and our university. So you know how much I love you. I'm really proud of them. Proud of our seniors. We had four young women join us four years ago, which you don't hear any more. I'm so proud of them. They came in and they helped us build our program year after year. We continued to improve because of the dedication to the culture and to the growth of our program. Then we had Yulia join us this year, an incredible addition, everybody smiles because she brought such joy and hard work to our program. So just an incredible group of seniors that are going to go on to Dominguez things. They're going to be leaders in whatever they choose to do. So we're so proud of them. Great game today. I'm really proud of coming into this environment, a great environment, tremendous environment, and competed at a high, high level and left everything out on the floor today. So very proud of them.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Can you guys talk about that first half and just the defense that you played and just to hold them to 19 point, just what things were working well for you guys in that first half?

AVERY HOWELL: I think our coaches had a really good scout coming into this game so I think we were executing that at a really high level. We know they ran and run a lot of ball screens. So a lot of it was navigating that. Our bigs did a great job, and we at the start kind of let them get some O boards but we limited that as the first half went on. So I think that was just us executing the scout and the work our coaches put into giving us as much preparation as possible at a pretty high level.

Q. This was a real defensive slugfest. Can you talk about what made it difficult to score on TCU's defense?

AVERY HOWELL: Yeah, I mean we know they have a great defense. They have a lot of athletic guards, so that made it challenging. They were pressuring us a lot, I would say, but I think we still found a way and we still put up a lot of points. We had a lot of good points from Brynn, I think she scored a lot inside. Then it was pretty versatile around, everyone kind of had 10 points, everyone was scoring a little bit. So I think that was easy for us, just because anyone could kind of -- like it was a versatile, multiple people were scoring, not just one person, so...

Q. I know it didn't turn out how you guys wanted, but can you just reflect on the year you've had and what it's meant to you.

HANNAH STINES: Yeah, I mean I'm extremely proud of this team and I think we have grown a lot, each of us individually and as a collective. And, yeah, I'm just really proud of us, and I think that you have seen improvement throughout the year and I'm just going to miss them a lot.

Q. Hannah, just to kind of build on that, I mean it's been pretty fascinating to see the way that Brynn has played throughout her freshman year. Sienna Harvey came off the bench and gave you minutes as a freshman. Obviously Avery is a sophomore, she will and junior next year, but could you expand on maybe just how bright the future can be for this program as it continues to build from what you were a part of and helping set that up.

HANNAH STINES: Yeah, I am definitely confident that we're leaving it in good hands. I think the most important thing is the people that they are. They're all humble and they're all hard workers, and, yeah, I'm excited to see what they can do with the program.

THE MODERATOR: All right, we'll now open the floor to questions for Coach.

Q. In that first half just the things that you guys did well, like the defensive side, and what happened in the second half to where it maybe you were not doing the same thing as the first half.

TINA LANGLEY: Yeah, well really proud of the way we came out. I thought the toughness, the focus, the connectedness on the floor, the communication was really high in a very tough environment. So really proud of the way we did that. I just think ball screen coverage-wise we knew how we wanted to cover wing ball screens, slot ball screens, sometimes some guard to guard ball screens. I think that they understood the sets that were being called. I thought obviously we are beneficial in that we have them in front of us at first. So I thought our entire team was connected. You could feel the bench, you could feel everyone communicating. It was just really connected. Obviously when you change ends of the floor it gets a little bit harder in a loud environment and do I think that it was a little harder to help and communicate. I thought they did a really nice job though of -- early on we in the third we had some tough moments, and understanding if we were taking or if we were staying, if we were bringing in two and we were switching or not. So I think as we got better, as the game went on and we had some big stops along the way as well. It's what they do, it's what they do well. So we knew they would have good moments in the game.

Q. How did you feel about your team's physicality in this game. It was a very physical, back and forth game?

TINA LANGLEY: We got off to a tough start with foul trouble. So we felt like we came out and played strong and physical, but we -- and I thought we handled the foul trouble pretty well. I think people came off the bench and had a great mindset. We were able to spread it out, so that's good. But we did try to maintain that physicality as best we could.

Q. At the end you're down three only like 6.4 seconds left. Did you get the play that you want, the show the that you want and like how did it look from your advantage point?

TINA LANGLEY: Yeah, I mean obviously I was going timeout advance and I didn't get that timeout fast enough. It did end up being okay since they had fouls to give, so we had more room to work in. So we were able to get those fouls drawn and they were able to secure the ball. They did a great job with that. They ran the play really well and, you know, I thought that the team executed at a high level, so it was what we were looking for and I thought she took a great shot, and she made a lot of great shots in the game that gave us a chance to be in that position.

Q. How do you continue this momentum into next season? You guys were able to pick up your first March Madness win since 2017, how do you plan to carry that into next year?

TINA LANGLEY: It's always about the people. Hannah said it beautifully, these young women are very humble, and they work very hard, and they're incredibly connected. They're just different. You go into our locker room and you see, I mean we almost didn't make it to media, I don't know if we were going to make it here because there's a lot of love in that locker room. That is something that you just, you can't put words to. So every young woman that gets an opportunity to play with these young ladies is really, they're really blessed because, you know, we say all the time it's a blessing to do hard things with people that you love. And there was a lot of love in that locker room. So I'm excited for the future, I'm excited for these young women. These young women are incredibly defenders, I can't seen say it, we were in there for a long time. It's a weighty thing to be a leader. And you step into these moments and you're tasked with some really difficult things. And they stepped right into the fire, and they're not afraid, and they're not afraid to serve each other and to step up and do hard things. So excited for the future. I'm sorry I said too much for that.

Q. Can you imagine hosting a game at Washington and would that be the next step? Like last year First Four, this year you win your first NCAA tournament game. Is next year that year when you get into that top 16 seed?

TINA LANGLEY: It's a great question. I think we already talked about it a little bit because we always want to learn from anything that we can grow from. We had a few losses that we thought we had a great chance to win. And had we had a couple of those wins, we were probably in the conversation. So it was just an opportunity to learn. When you look back at a game if you let something slip away, it does have an impact on seeding. But we also had some great wins. Some great wins on the road. So we gave ourselves a chance to be in that conversation. So our mission statement is becoming, you know, every day is an opportunity to get better and to learn from where you've been. So I think that we could use this as a great lesson.