Quotes & video from weekly basketball press conference

Billy Kennedy

Opening statement...

“It’s a new season with some of the same issues, but hopefully we can improve in some of those areas. The guys were good in practice yesterday. They know we’re capable of beating Oklahoma, since we’ve beaten them before and we had an opportunity to beat them recently, but we’ve got to do a better job defending in the post and competing a little bit harder on the defensive end around the basket.”
 

You ever have a season where on the court there are so many bad breaks?

“Yeah, I’ve had some of those seasons. It’s usually the first or second year of rebuilding a program. I didn’t anticipate that happening when I first got here. I just did a press conference with the Big 12 and they asked me when did I see it coming, and I said probably the third week of me being here (I saw that) there were some issues that needed to be addressed and would take time to address.”
 

Is it an advantage to play the same team to open the tournament right after playing them to close the regular season?

“You know, I don’t know if it’s an advantage. I’ll tell you after the game. Preparation-wise it’s definitely an advantage, but it’s an advantage for both teams. The great thing is we had a chance to win up there after not playing very well—we didn’t think we played very good basketball. In the first half we had 9 turnovers and in the second half we got down 14. You can’t put yourself in those situations, yet we still had a chance to win. We were down one with the ball and got a steal, and unfortunately we didn’t get the right call to get the ball back and have another opportunity to take the lead. I think if we could have taken the lead, Oklahoma has struggled like us winning games at the end.”
 

Outside of the game at Oklahoma State, have you seen enough signs over the past few weeks that with you guys getting healthier maybe you can go up to Kansas City and surprise some people?

“Yeah. We haven’t had some of our guys have their best games. Khris and Elston have not had great games in the same game. David hasn’t not been in foul trouble. All three of those guys haven’t been on the floor as much and excelled together like they are capable of. I definitely think it’s a possibility for us to max out and maybe win one or two games that we’re not supposed to, but it starts with the Oklahoma game. I think we have it in us, but for whatever reason we haven’t been able to put it all together.”
 
“Not really. I haven’t really thought about that to be honest with you. We’ve had enough going on where we’re just trying to get better every day and focus on today and what’s ahead of us—recruiting, all those things. And I don’t know how much difference it would have made. I would like to think it would have made a big difference and we’d have won more games, but you never know.”
 

How do you prepare a team for a conference tournament where you hope you’re playing four games?

“Everything is about the first game. If you don’t win the first game of the tournament you feel like you’ve never been there. All the tournaments I’ve been at, we put all the emphasis on the first game, and from there you build off the momentum of winning the first game. We’ve got one coach who will break down Kansas and be prepared to get into Kansas right away. I’m familiar with Kansas also, but I’m more familiar with Oklahoma right now, and that’s where all our focus is.”

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Gary Blair

* I was very proud of the other teams in the conference for what they showed this weekend, handling pressure very well. All three bubble teams showed what they were about. It shows the balance and coaching in the league and how close we are, 2 through 10. It's been a very up-and-down week for me. To get 10,000 at your last home game and play Baylor so well, you hope to build off that ... the Texas Hall of Fame stuff was awesome ... you go to the state tournament and see Peyton Little win a state championship ... and then you go to Austin to play Texas for the last time in that arena. And Texas played so well. It's about motivating your team to play that 'one-and-done' type of thing, and they did a better job than me of getting their team ready to play.

We tried something different in that ballgame, starting Pratcher because I believed we needed more athleticism and defense to start the game, and for about 13 or 14 minutes I thought we were doing the right thing in the first half. Those points they scored right before half was a huge momentum boost for them right there. It looked like an NBA game, with one shot to go in the quarter, and it was a high-post screen and Anderson nailed a Jeremy Lin-esque shot. We didn't hedge the screen and she had a good look.

The second half was all Texas ... we tried a lot of different combinations, but when we get behind we really don't have that pressing-type team that can force turnovers that we've had in the past and that we need. Texas has maybe the best set of scoring guards in the league. We pressed them here and they were shooting layups on us, so we got two back over there and that hurt our offensive boards. As a result, we only got 10.

Before the game I told the team that someone was going to come off the bench and be the difference. Nneka Enemkpali came off for Texas and had 14 rebounds and played with energy. We're missing that on this team, a pure energy player. Sometimes Assarian is that for me, but I didn't use her. That's my bad. You get caught up in what's working and what's not. I didn't like the way I coached, nor the way my team responded, and I thought Texas played extremely well, being the underdog and having to win the ballgame. Hopefully that win will put all three of the Big 12's 8-10 teams in the NCAA Tournament. But they need to do something in the Big 12 Tournament. So do we. We need to find that swagger and confidence to play with. They wanted it worse than we did ... it's simple.

Let's go back to the drawing board with a 0-0 record. Last year the Big 12 Tournament started with us on a roll because we played so well at Baylor. There's no roll this year. We're going to play a Kansas team that lost its best player seven or eight games ago but has another girl playing like she's the best player and a girl who's one of the better point guards in the country.

* Our seniors have experience but they don't have experience in leadership. We're hurting for chemistry on this team. We're trying to find a point guard that can create offense for others, we're trying to find a monster rebounder that can go get the job done like Destiny Williams does for Baylor. We're hurting for chemistry. They all like each other, but the chemistry on this team, for this year, has to come from within the coaching staff. We all have to be on the same page. We have to be the leaders of this team, and we have to show them the way. We have to get the momentum going and have a happier team. We don't have a finger-pointing team, we don't have parent problems, but we're lacking chemistry. When you don't have certain things that you've been used to having, you've got to create things another way.

Are we as good an offensive team as we've been in the past? No. We don't have a go-to player we can depend on. Four players are going to finish the year in double figures ... someone's going to score. But who's going to get you 22 and 15 when you need it? All four of those double-digit players are very good. It's the first team I've had with no 'player of the week' or 'freshman of the week' honors. At all. That's because there's no star. You're not waiting on Danielle Adams to score 25 or Sydney Colson to get 12 assists. Those are things we don't have. So you have to do it with chemistry, trust in each other on defense and making plays. We had a chance to make some plays yesterday and didn't get it done.

* The two fiery personalities on this team are Vic and I. We're the odd couple that's worked together for 15 years and we're working together to find the solution. We've got to instill a bit of us in them. Sydney Carter gives you so much by how hard she plays, but she can play a whole lot better, playing that hard, when she doesn't have to be the go-to player too. If you had to have Dominique Kirk be your go-to player, he wouldn't be as effective in his role as he was for the men's team. One of the keys on our board before the game was that this is where post players start dominating as you get deep into the season. We've got a balance between inside and outside, but we're not getting enough.

* We've alternated point guards all year. Matchup-wise, I was better with Pratcher for this game. Alexia Standish had a couple threes, and that's great, but she gave up a lot of penetration on the defensive end. Everyone did. When I look at Kelsey Bone, she gives up as much as she gets. So do you take out the potential game-changer and put someone in that's going to get you more hustle plays like Karla Gilbert and Kelsey Assarian do? It's tough, because I've got coaches lobbying both ways. I've got to figure out which is the best option. Where do you draw the line and say, 'Hard is better'? Just because you go hard on every play ... or do you try to develop the players who are making mistakes but have more potential.

* That's why they pay me the middle-size bucks (chuckle), to figure out a way to create that chemistry now that we're in the postseason. When I go talk to them, I have to show the mistakes of the Texas game. We're not going to show the positives, we're going straight to the mistakes. Then we'll show Kansas and the adrenaline and emotion they have going right now. They haven't been in the NCAA Tournament in nine or 10 years now, remember.

* Did we play that bad yesterday, or did they play that good? We still ended up shooting 40-something percent, but they made some tough shots. Does it make Duke not good, that they lost to North Carolina, probably cost them a 1-seed? That's part of what makes basketball so special.

* What we could earn up there is winning the Tournament and getting a 3-seed in the NCAAs. What we could lose is dropping to a 5-seed (if we flame out). We've played six NCAA Tournament teams out-of-conference and possibly two more depending on how some of the mid-majors finish. The committee will look at that. Now, we've lost three of four. All against the Big 12 South. Oklahoma played their last four games against the Big 12 North and went 3-1. We went 2-3 against our opponents in that stretch. We're supposed to be a big dog, not a chihuahua.

When teams have chemistry problems, you usually think of kids not liking each other, seniors not talking to freshman, etc. We don't have ANY of that. We just don't have a proven leader, like how Danielle Adams was with the way she played and wanted the big shot at the end every time. We have to stay as a team and find a way to do it a different way. Next year I'll lose three senior starters and have six freshmen coming in, so we'll have to find a way to do it differently again. But look around the country. UConn has shown they can lose. Notre Dame has the TEAM, like we did last year. Stanford's out on the west coast and we don't know who they're playing, it could be Russia or Poland for all we know. They're very good, but the Pac-12 may only get two other teams in.

Those are your big four, but after that everyone's the same. Two through nine in our league are almost the same. But we'd like to be above that pack. We have to play consistently.

* All we're trying to do is beat Kansas. We've played them twice and played well in both ballgames. That should be motivating enough for KU, but we should be able to remember what we did against Kansas to win both ballgames. They're coming in playing for their lives and we're coming in trying to get better as a basketball team. We know we're in. But I'm trying to make sure I know how to plug in the right people at the right time.