Opening Statement … 

“Well, a tough game for us tomorrow. Middle Tennessee is always well coached, Coach (Rick) Insell is one of the great coaches in our profession and we have had a great series with them the past few years and they are always really difficult to prepare for. We will have to work really hard between now and tomorrow night to see if we can earn the victory because we will have to earn it. They are always great at executing their offense. They have an outstanding 3-point shooter in Abbey Sissom, who is just one of the best 3-point shooters we have seen. Ty Petty is one of the best point guards that we will play against. They are just relentless about trying to run their offense and get the ball into the post. So a big challenge for us defensively. They have played really tough pressure man-to-man defense and we had some success last Sunday against it, but we made a lot of mistakes against tough man-to-man defense. We have been working hard at it and we will have to work hard today and tomorrow to see if we can get ready for a really good Middle Tennessee team.” 

On the turnovers vs. UofL and how to correct those …

“Well, Louisville was really aggressive and probably the most athletic team we have seen and I did a poor job of helping the players adjust during the game. We turned it over on our inline out-of-bounds plays seven times. I think the rest of the game was probably pretty – I mean, you are just going to turn the ball over some against a tough, aggressive defense. That is where we fell short was on the inline and that is under our basket on offense. That was a great learning experience for us and Louisville really bothered us with some switching defenses and just pressure. So it was more pressure than we had seen. So really great for us to have that experience. We have tried to work on that and will continue to work on it because Middle Tennessee is certainly capable of playing multiple defenses. They can mix defenses. Coach Insell is really good at that. But one thing they have done consistently good this year is pressure. They have made it tough and one pass away on you. We will have to be ready to take care of the ball. Turnover margin is big for our team and it is really offensively important because we are not creating a ton of turnovers on defense.”

On taking care of the ball and leading the league in assist-turnover ratio …

“Yeah, it has been good. I think that Taylor Murray is doing a good job with it. Makayla (Epps) really had a tough time but she got the bad stats because of how we played. She turned it over seven times and that was all out there throwing it underneath. For the most part, we have done a better job. Our post players are not traveling. We used to travel and just traveled so much last year when we would catch the ball, so they are doing a good job and it is going to need to be a strength of our team as we go forward. But they are smart players and they work hard. When we are down low in a stance, we have good ball handlers and we are not being careless with the ball, we can be secure with it and have good ball security.” 

On Taylor Murray’s biggest growth …

“Well, the things that I want her to do well at and get better she is doing right now. She was fantastic from a leadership standpoint. She has always struggled – admittedly herself – it is difficult for her to project and be loud and be talkative. That is just not her personality. She is one of the finest people we have every recruited here and that I have had the privilege of coaching, she really is a high-character person, but just not real talkative and not real loud. Sunday at Louisville, she really tried to step forward and lead. I was out of sorts on a few things that happened in the game and she was in that environment and I thought Louisville had a great crowd and it was hostile. I thought she was just fantastic in her growth and her leadership. She was calming the team down. She got demonstrative with them one time when they wouldn’t get in the huddle and stomped her feet and said, ‘get in here!’ Those things are not easy for her. I really admire how hard she is working for her team and trying to be a good leader and trying to be a good point guard. That is an area that I am seeing growth and we want that to continue to happen. And she is just rounding into a complete player to view herself as a top-level guard in this league. I mean, she had 21 the other day, I hope people continue to try to take away Epps and Maci (Morris) and think that Taylor can’t do it. I think that is what the approach has been in a couple of games and that would be making a mistake because she is really shooting the ball well, scoring the ball well, taking care of it. She needs to view herself as a top-level guard and keep working hard.” 

On Taylor Murray stomping her feet to get the team to huddle and if they pointed it out on film …

“Yeah, there are a lot of lessons in that game and it means so much to our team and we were so close to winning the game. Some really negative things happened in the game that are so discouraging and you have no control over or there are negative things you cause yourself, there are all sorts of plays in the game that will allow you to get down if you allow yourself to do that and we just cannot be that kind of team. They are not robots out there so they need each other to help. Makayla so many times has encouraged her teammates and so she was down a little bit and that was great because it is hard for a sophomore to say that to a senior, but I think what is good about this team is that there is a true genuine caring and love for each other so I think Taylor trusts that Makayla will receive that and vice versa. So those are all leadership lessons that you are trying to teach that we will not be perfect and have leadership breakdowns throughout this season, starting with me, it happens. But if you got a group that cares about each other, you can always lift each other up no matter what happens. Those are the kinds of things we are talking to our team about. I just want our team to understand that we, through all the hardships and all the difficult things that happened, we are sitting in a spot where we have enough to be a very good team and they just need to believe that and understand that about themselves and we just have to get a little bit more active and value the defensive end a little bit more and rebound a little bit better out of the zone, which is a great thing that came out of the Louisville game. I think we will be better going forward because of the that difficulty we went through. These are all the things that we are going to need to be successful and I really believe our players and that we are going to do it.” 

On what he saw from Alyssa Rice that he liked in the Louisville game…

“I thought Alyssa was just so tough for us defensively. She really helped a lot of people get the ball out of the straight-line drive. She played really smart defense. She just played some tough minutes on a day where Evelyn was struggling and I just think that she is getting close to having a real breakthrough. I think she just keeps getting better and better. She’s working awfully hard and I think she can see the improvement. She gave us great minutes.”

On how much of Alyssa’s game is about confidence…

“Well she and Evelyn both, I just need to do a better job. I really have to … this is what’s made all this great for me, I’m learning so much. I just have to coach them and make sure that I am giving them information that’s going to help them. They don’t need to be yelled and screamed at, they just need to be taught. I think it’s really important for both of those to have confidence and it’s important for me to not build them up artificially and give them false hope or false confidence. But every single day, coming in with a plan on this is how we’re going to get better because both of them want to get better. Both of them are not playing their best yet. They both have the best basketball in front of them and so, we just have to do a good job as coaches, starting with me, of giving them information that helps them get better every day and trust that they’re going to give you a great effort. And they’re not going to be perfect. Having a deep roster, sometimes you can pull the hook real quick and then you just put somebody else in there. So, really you’ve got to find out how each player responds best and I think confidence or knowing that the coaches believe in you is real important for Alyssa and real important for Evelyn and we believe in both of them. We just need to do a good job coaching them.”

On the conditioning the team goes through to give them the ability to get up and down the court…

“Well, we’ve tried to take a lot of pride in our fitness and our basketball fitness over the years. It’s been one of the hallmarks of the program and has allowed us to achieve the success we have, one of the main ingredients to it. It’s nothing fancy, it’s just a commitment to it. We have a great person in charge of those efforts in the summer in the way of speed, agility, quickness and conditioning and that’s John Spurlock. So, we start every June, four mornings a week, 6 a.m. workouts, and those are difficult Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. With a combination of speed, agility, strength, basketball fitness, mental toughness, those kinds of things. And then we just have always tried to make our practices as demanding as possible and try to make practice tougher than the game. So, the kids work hard. They have to run a lot. They have to be in great shape and I think it’s in our culture now and we really look for players, as we’re out recruiting, that have that kind of energy. You might be really, really talented, but if you play in a kind of laid back fashion, it’s probably not going to fit here. You’re going to kind of have to be a grinder and somebody who wants to work and somebody who wants to push themselves because it’s hard to get in your best shape. You can get in good shape, but there’s another level you have to go to get into great shape. So, there are a lot of demands on them and they’ve met them. You know, we are not perfect and we had some break downs because we were exhausted and tired. You know, basketball is a tough game, but I think that just our commitment to it and our placing value on it and getting players that are willing to work that hard has been the reason for our success.”

On what the players do over winter break…

“Well, Coach Cal is a lot smarter than I am so he’s got a good name for it. We just try to practice real hard during the break, and in the break for us, we try to take stock of where we are and what we’ve done well through the non-conference. Again, December will be a real tough grind. We’ll get a lot of information in December, and we’ll try to take all that and really try to figure out what’s our identity, sharpen things up and try to go into SEC play being the best we can be. So, it’s a great time to improve.”