BATON ROUGE – LSU women’s basketball coach Nikki Caldwell along with Sheila Boykin and Raigyne Moncrief spoke with the media on Tuesday afternoon to preview this weekend’s NCAA Tournament.
LSU (17-13, 10-6 SEC) secured an at-large bid into the NCAA Field of 64 and is the No. 11 seed in the Albany Region. The Lady Tigers meet No. 6 seed and No. 25 South Florida (26-7, 15-3 American) Saturday at 5:30 p.m. CT from the Sun Dome in Tampa, Florida. The game will be televised by ESPN2 along with www.WatchESPN.com and the Watch ESPN app.
The LSU Sports Radio Network will carry the game on its flagship station Talk 107.3 FM in Baton Rouge. Patrick Wright, the voice of the Lady Tigers, will call the action.
For all of the latest news and information on Lady Tiger basketball, visit www.LSUsports.net.womensbasketball. Fans also can follow the program on its social media outlets at www.Facebook.com/LSUwbkb, @LSUwbkb and @NikkiCaldwell on Twitter, @LSUwbkb and @LSUNikkiCaldwell on Instagram.
LSU Women’s Basketball Media Session
March 17, 2015
HEAD COACH NIKKI CALDWELL
Opening statement…
“Congratulations to all of the teams whose name was called yesterday. We understand the excitement that everyone is feeling at this time of the year because of all of the hard work that each team has put into the season. We’re very excited to be playing against South Florida. When you look at our bracket, obviously, there’s great competition. There’s going to be great competition against BYU and Louisville. We’re going to focus in on the things that have got us to this position and have put us in successful situation. That starts with the play of our guards. Danielle Ballard, Raigyne Moncrief, and DaShawn Harden have shown that they can lead the attack, if you will. We’ve got a great support system in place with Sheila Boykin and Anne Pedersen as our starting five. We do expect contributions from our bench as well because this is a team sport, and we’re going to need everybody on their A-game.”
On handling the layoff between the SEC and NCAA Tournaments…
“You really just take time to rest right after the SEC tournament, but then you get back to your fundamentals because you don’t know who you’re going to play for a week. We’ve been focusing in on our defensive scheme. We’ve been focusing in on the things that we want to do offensively. A lot of skill development during this time – getting up a lot of shots, getting on the gun and really working skill development with both post and guards. We worked on setting screens, using screens and reading screens because we like to screen a lot around our offensive package. It’s just a great time to get back to teaching, and that’s what we have done this past week.”
On USF’s leading scorer Courtney Williams…
“A player like (Courtney) Williams, she’s so explosive and you cannot take everything away from her because she’s also great at transition. She has an unbelievable pull up jumper. She’s athletic, she’s quick and she’s smart. She also can distribute the basketball. She’s a player who obviously can make baskets, but she makes her team better. She’s someone who you’re going to have to limit her touches and have an awareness of where she’s at all times. She’s such a great athlete that you can’t be late on the catch because she’ll just elevate and shoot over you. We’ve played a tough SEC schedule, and we’ve played very good guards – (South Carolina’s) Tiffany Mitchell, (Texas A&M’s) Courtney Walker, and (Texas A&M’s) Courtney Williams. We’ve been able to go up against some of the best guards in the country so hopefully through our SEC schedule has helped prepare us to play someone of Courtney’s caliber.”
On playing a road game to start the NCAA Tournament and playing in a hostile environment…
“I think you’ve got to look at the fact that we’re excited that the fans and the community in the Tampa area are excited about women’s basketball. You want to have a crowd there. You want to have people with all four teams that will be there bringing their fans and their support and their family members to cheer these student-athletes on because they’ve worked extremely hard. We’re used to playing in hostile environments. We’ve been exposed to playing at South Carolina, at Tennessee, at Texas A&M and at Mississippi State. Last year, we’ve been to Kentucky. We understand that crowd. We understand what that means for the home team having been a team that has hosted first and second round play. When it’s all said and done, players make plays. Fans cheer and the outcome of the game is determined by the strategy, by the hard work and by your will to impose your game plan on your opponent. That’s the mindset you have to take. Again, I’m glad that we’re going to have fans there to support women’s basketball.”
On Danielle Ballard stepping up last year in the post season…
“Danielle Ballard will be our go-to player because she’s been there all along. During the postseason last year, she took on more responsibility because we suffered the loss of Raigyne Moncrief. We also suffered the loss of Jeanne Kenney. Ballard felt that responsibility to do more, and she did more. Her numbers were unbelievable. I think she was averaging 24 or 25 points a game and 12 rebounds. You typically don’t see those types of numbers out of a point guard. This year, it’s a little bit different because she can share that responsibility with Ray (Raigyne Moncrief). DaShawn Harden also has really come along as of late. The weight of the team isn’t just on her (Ballard’s) shoulders. I think that we’re going to have a more balanced attack as we continue our season.”
On her reaction to the team’s seeding and the matchup with South Florida …
“I think the seeding is what it is. I know that having to go and play at South Florida – In their last 10 games, they only suffered three losses and two of those came to Connecticut who is the number one team in the country. It’s going to be a competitive seeding but that’s NCAA play. That’s what you have to be prepared for that you’re going to play some of the best players in the country and some of the best teams in the country. You’ve got to be ready to beat the best. We’re going to be faced with a tough opponent in USF in our first round game. You as a competitor, you don’t look at NCAA and say that you want to take the easy way out because there’s nothing easy about nets.”
On being the No. 11 seed in a regional…
“We’ve been seeded higher in the past and still we were tagged as the underdog. I think in NCAA play, and I say this to our kids all the time even with rankings throughout the season that your level of play should not be determined by if there’s a number in front of your name. Even in the NCAA, all that is organization of who plays who when. Because we’re an 11 seed, that does not, to me, really validate if we are truly an 11 seed which you can probably say you’re the top 44 or 45 in the country … We’ve beaten some of the best teams in the country, and that’s what you carry into this tournament. You carry in how tough you’ve played South Carolina. You carry in that you went to a hostile environment with only (Danielle) Ballard back a couple of games, and you were able to knock down a top ranked team in Mississippi State. These are great teams whether they’ve got a number in front of them, and we’ve got to play that way in the NCAA Tournament. Us being an 11 seed when teams have come here and played at the PMAC, we were seeded lower and we were able to still advance. I don’t think, as a competitor, you shouldn’t put a lot of weight into a number in front of your name. That’s throughout the entire season, and that’s even through the recruiting process. I feel the same way about that when people talk about this is the top player in the country, she’s ranked this in ESPN and that. It shouldn’t matter. You’re in the NCAA Tournament, you deserve to be there and go play like one of the best teams in the country.”
On if she feels this team is built to make a NCAA Tournament run …
“I believe so. I believe we are built – when you look at this time of the year and our roster and the potential of an Anne Pederson knocking down shots for us getting eight to 10 points a game. Sheila Boykin being able to do what she’s been able to doing defensively by getting after people. Our challenge will be to sustain that effort and that type of focus for 40 minutes. I like the fact that our team has got better as the month has continued. We’ve played and again I’ve told them that if this was a 30 minute game against South Carolina, that game could have gone either way. That’s how close this team is. South Carolina is an unbelievable team so we can draw on that. We have, just like anyone else at this time of year, it is about how hard you are going to go out and execute your game plan. You can’t have those moments where we are spectating, and we miss coverage and brake down defensively. When our defense is working like a unit, we obviously have shown and proven that we can disrupt some of the biggest and toughest offensive players in the country.”