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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT

March 4, 2006

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS

THE MODERATOR: From LSU, we have Coach Pokey Chatman, Erica White, and Seimone Augustus.
Coach Chatman, would like to open with a statement.
COACH POKEY CHATMAN: I thought from the first defensive possession, we established ourselves on that end of the floor. It was something that I challenged this team with leaving the locker room. I thought early on in the season we were stifling defensive teams at times and needed to get back to that. I thought it would set the tone.
It sort of washed away the fact that three of our first four or five possessions were turnovers. I really felt good on it, because we were locked in on it that end the floor. We were keyed into establishing ourselves offensively. I was pleased we carried that out throughout the game to the tune of holding Kentucky to 52 points and also shooting 57% from the field. All around great effort on both ends of the floor.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. Could you talk about Sylvia's injury. Did you see what happened exactly? How is very for tomorrow's game?
COACH POKEY CHATMAN: She's fine for tomorrow's game. I actually saw it on the monitor upstairs. It looked like she just came down on it wrong. I thought maybe she came down on someone's foot. But she's fine. She's going to rehab it, ice it, get in the cold whirlpool and get rejuvenated for tomorrow.
Q. Coach, could you talk about your team's ability to deflect passes and really alter shots during that seven-and-a-half-minute drought that you caused Kentucky to have.
COACH POKEY CHATMAN: Great question. One of our game goals was to make sure we got our hand on the basketball, try to get deflections. It's something that we chart in practice year-round. I thought every single player that came on the floor contributed to that. That made the pace a little faster than Kentucky wanted. I thought Sylvia was really active. Every single player. I don't want to call anyone out. It was a total team effort.
I haven't even seen a deflections chart. But I could tell from the way that Kentucky ran offense in that little span we were doing a relatively good job of pressuring them.
Q. It's getting pretty shameless how you take Seimone out to protect your record. It's a funny question. You need to smile.
COACH POKEY CHATMAN: No, no, no. You can give me a hard time (laughter).
Q. It was funny, same kind of scenario today as yesterday. How important is it at this point of the tournament your starters playing 30 minutes (indiscernible)?
COACH POKEY CHATMAN: I think it's huge. The numbers that I was looking at on the clock is the 10-minute mark in terms of players in their freshness. I know Sylvia would have been in the game if she wouldn't have gotten her ankle sprained a little bit.
I would rather you guys write about a bigger story, if we can salvage some of those minutes for our key players to have some freshness tomorrow. Tomorrow Seimone may be something for a sub, maybe 'get out of jail free'.
It's one of those things where, you know, Seimone could go off tomorrow, who knows. But I'll never, ever try to stick a player back in and get a record. There's just a bigger picture out there.
Q. Seimone, you guys obviously won the regular season championship. How much would it mean to add the tournament championship? Is that something you guys have talked about?
SEIMONE AUGUSTUS: Yeah, that's our goal. Any time we have an opportunity to win a championship, we want to go out and compete and win it. We focused on, you know, winning the tournament, but for the most part we just want to go out and compete. This is a tough time of the season when you want to make sure your team is running on all cylinders and everything that needs to be intact is intact. Right now it seems we're headed in a positive direction.
If everything keeps going the same, championship is bound to happen.
Q. Seimone, are you hoping to break that tournament record tomorrow, get over 30? For Pokey, how do you like this as a tournament site? Would you like to see it stay in the rotation?
SEIMONE AUGUSTUS: About breaking 30, I mean, if the opportunity shows itself, if I'm still shooting the ball well, our offense is working, I get the opportunity to score. If it gets there, then fine. That's not a focal point of mine. I would rather win the championship than score 30 points and not win at all.
COACH POKEY CHATMAN: In terms of the tournament being here, obviously we've experienced some success here I think Seimone's freshman year. I don't think, I know, her freshman year. This place has done a great job with it. Part of the reason why it's back here is at the end of the day, it boils down to those 40 minutes you get to play and advance and play again.
If we're fortunate enough to play well tomorrow and have a good showing, I'm sure I may campaign for it again.
Q. Erica and Seimone, do you think making it to the Conference Finals, is it now a tradition for LSU lady basketball to make it to the conference final?
SEIMONE AUGUSTUS: I think so. We want to start a tradition of success and have something to go with our legacy. We've made it to the conference regular season, won, and now we're in the finals again for this tournament. I think it's a good start, you know, to start a tradition for us.
ERICA WHITE: We're always talking about our legacy in the locker room. We work hard. So getting to the championship, that's definitely something that we key in on. It's a good tradition to start here.
Q. Erica, Seimone was 13 out of 18. A lot of those were jump shots. Can you tell pretty early on when she's in the zone or in the flow of it?
ERICA WHITE: I always think Seimone's in the zone (laughter). You know, I never think she's off. Early on, I could tell when Seimone is in the zone. She makes a basket and she looks at me and we just give each other this look like, "Yeah, just give me the ball." I know to get it to her, she's going to put it in the hole.
Yeah, she was on it. I just want to say, since we're talking about Seimone, that three-pointer was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen from a teammate. Props to Seimone.
Q. LSU is the first SEC school to win the men's and women's outright title in the same year. Does that make Baton Rouge the capital of all things basketball?
SEIMONE AUGUSTUS: Of course. We are the capital of everything basketball. The only thing, (indiscernible) has a national championship. That's the only thing they have over us. Everything about us is successful. A lot of people didn't expect our men to even challenge for an SEC title. It feels great that both of the programs are doing good, and we're striving towards getting championships, further our play into NCAA play.
Q. Mickie said she thought they were a lot better team than last time you met, and your team also. Can you talk about the difference between the last two games, how much better you guys have gotten since then?
COACH POKEY CHATMAN: Mickie is right. We're both better teams. You know, that's why you toss it up and play 40 minutes, because it's a matter of who's going to be on their game, who's going to out-execute, who is going to neutralize the other team's strengths, who is going to stay true to your script and your own strength and try to neutralize your own weaknesses.
I think the fact we just established ourselves so early on the defensive end of the floor, and there's never really an answer for it, what's so good about it, so many of the players on the floor contributed to it. Usually when you talk LSU defense, it's Sylvia's blocked shot or Scholnda's steal. Erica did a great job of shadowing 00, not letting her get good looks at the basket. Seimone did a good job of tagging on the double-stagger screens, not letting Pfeiffer get her feet set. It went on and on and on. I think the fact we established that early by five players is what helped us gain some of that momentum.
Yes, they're a very good basketball team. It just so happens that we established some things early on and were able to carry it out.
Q. Seimone, you said the went weren't expected to contend. Y'all were picked behind Tennessee and Georgia. Talk about the play of Erica and Rashonta helping you be a championship team, have a chance to win a championship tomorrow. The point guard was a question. Obviously, you have good play there this year.
SEIMONE AGUSTUS: I think they've done a great job at not focusing on what people were saying about Tamika leaving, how you want to fill that gap. They came in with the confidence and the swagger that they were going to do whatever possible, regardless of who started, to make this team run on all cylinders.
I think they have done a good job of teaming up. If Chante gets in, we get out, we have a halfcourt game. Erica gets in, she controls the court. We just need a point guard. We have two point guards that can go out and give us what we need at any time during the game.
I applaud them for being able to take the criticism early on about not being Tamika Johnson. Our team allowed them to be themselves and gain confidence within our system.
Q. Erica, coach talked about that big defensive stops you made early in the game. Could you see it kind of start to deflate some of Kentucky's players? Maybe they just couldn't find their offense after that.
ERICA WHITE: Yeah, I can see it early on. We weren't doing well defensively. On offense, we were getting baskets. That's deflating to a team when you're getting easy baskets and stopping them on their end.
I could definitely see it in Kentucky. I think we were up by like eight or nine or something crazy like that. I could definitely see it.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

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