Baylor Press Conference Quotes

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Head Coach Kim Mulkey

Opening Statement

It’s a little cold for us, but we’re excited to be here and we’re ready to play.

 

On their season

Any time you lose great seniors, you have to worry about replacing them, and those seniors that won a national championship graduated last year and we had a lot of holes to fill. I think with youth a lot of things happen. I think unexpected or unfair expectations are placed on them because of the success of the program, but the expectations in our locker room were realistic. I think this bunch of players has exceeded my expectations as a coach. We’ve beaten some teams we shouldn’t have beaten, up until the last week of the Big 12 season we were tied for first place, and we’ve only lost seven basketball games. All seven of those games have been to ranked opponents. So, they’ve had a very good year, and we’ve grown a lot. We’re very excited to be here, we’re very excited about our seed and look forward to playing. 

 

On “beating some teams we shouldn’t have beaten”

I don’t think anyone thought we stood a chance against LSU early in the year with all their returning players and all the inexperience of our basketball team.

 

It’s been an interesting season, we had to replace coaching staff. We had two new coaches on the staff learning the system and then when you add the number of freshmen that we rely on in our eight player, nine player rotation, I think they have to buy into what you’re doing--the hardest part as a coach when you don’t have senior leadership. We only have two seniors on our team, and those two young ladies have done all that they can, but they haven’t been in the program four years. Sometimes we place expectations on them to lead their basketball team when they’re still learning the system themselves. The other senior is a junior college transfer that has not been with us for four years as has Bernice. The thing that you’ve got to understand with youth is that you’ve got a lot of excitement in them and they want to do things right. Patience is a key word and I think more so than any other year I’ve coached, patience was something that I really had to learn because they’re going to try hard for you and try to work hard for you. Making the same old mistakes over and over again was frustrating for me as a coach but not unexpected when you have that much youth on the floor.

 

On preparing a young team for the NCAA tournament

The first thing you do is congratulate them on getting here and then you make them understand that this is a business trip first. Then you make them understand that when they walk off that floor, win or lose, you leave everything on the floor. I think sometimes you can prepare freshmen or players that have never experienced that before by telling them, but I think until they get out there on that floor and really experience it they can’t understand or grab it. I think that when they have to go out there and practice in a little bit, I’ll probably have to calm them down because we do practice hard and they’ll be excited. That’s a good problem to have. You hate to coach a team that didn’t play hard. You hate to coach a team that wasn’t excited.

 

 

On Chattanooga

You better guard the perimeter shot, and you better respect them. They’re very well coached and they’re very good. <?xml:namespace prefix="st1" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"?>Anderson is a double-double player in the paint. Anderson isn’t all they have. I think they play very hard and they’re in a program that expects to win. I think Coach Moore, if you look at his track record, is a winner and those kids expect to win. Regardless of where they’re seeded and who’s expected to win or isn’t, they think they should win the game and that’s the way they play. I don’t think I’ll ever have a team that’s upset because we didn’t respect an opponent or we weren’t prepared. If ever a team that I coach is upset in an opening round game, we’ll acknowledge them and say they were better than us tonight. It will never be because we overlooked them or we weren’t prepared. Chattanooga has had our attention and we’ve been working on them since we got game film on them. That’s all we’re focused on right now.  

 

Jhasmine Player, Sophomore / Guard

On their season

It has a lot to do with the coaching. A lot of people really didn’t know what this team was going to be able to do and at times we really didn’t know. I think the coaching stood out a lot because only a good coach can get out there with that many freshmen and sophomores and make this team to what we are right now. We haven’t lost to any teams we weren’t supposed to, and so I think right now, we’re in a pretty good place as a team.

 

On Chattanooga

I have to credit the coaches. They keep us focused on every team. We did a great scouting report on UTC and we know they’re a great team that is really well coached. We didn’t look past them, we’ve been watching them on film since we found out we’d be playing them and we’re just focused.

 

Bernice Mosby, Senior / Forward

On their season

I feel pretty good about this year. We have great coaches who’ve been teaching us a lot this whole year. We have players on our team who are willing to learn and I think that played a big factor in this year also.

 

On the final games of collegiate career

I have mixed emotions right now. One of them is not wanting to go home, and the other is being excited and being able to play for such a great coach like Coach Mulkey and being able to show my face at this university. But at the same time, I want to go home on a winning note. I’ve been sitting in my room thinking and trying to focus a lot, thinking about what I can do to help this team in North Carolina to win these last two games to help my team to the Sweet 16. It’s been good being with my team but at the same time, no words can explain it because this is the last go around. I’m going to just try my best and leave it all out on the floor.