Lady Frogs Practice, Meet Media in Lubbock
3/21/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 21, 2009
LUBBOCK, Texas—TCU held its first practice since arriving at the site of Sunday's NCAA Tournament First Round matchup with South Dakota State Saturday at United Spirit Arena. The Lady Frogs practiced for an hour on the court after appearing at a press conference featuring Head Coach Jeff Mittie and players Helena Sverrisdottir, TK LaFleur and Emily Carter.
The following is a transcript of Saturday's news conference:
Head Coach Jeff Mittie
Opening statement:
"We are obviously pleased to be in this tournament and pleased to have our season continue. We've been in this thing eight of the last nine years. But I am excited to be in Lubbock. It's been a long time since we've played close to home in the NCAA Tournament. I think it will be great and hope for a good fan turnout; this looks like a great region. (We're) ready for some excitement here with South Dakota State. (Texas is) a big state, so it's not exactly close to Forth Worth but only about five hours. It should be a great regional."
On the previous success in Lubbock and the atmosphere and using as an advantage:
"That's a familiar spot from a year ago, obviously. We did play well here. We had a great game against Texas Tech. We (broke through) that wall, a losing streak over a period of time in the Southwest Conference. It is a different year though, I don't know. I love this building. I think this is a great facility. This might be my favorite facility all across the country and we've played in some pretty good ones over the years. The people here are great, the fans here are very knowledgeable about women's basketball. You don't have to go very far to drive on Marsha Sharp (Freeway). It's fun. It's a great place for women's basketball. It's exciting to be in Lubbock. We're excited to be in the NCAA Tournament. You're going to hear 64 coaches say that here in the next couple of days. But we are really looking forward to this matchup. South Dakota State has an excellent team. You've mentioned the Cinderella part of that, we've been on that side before when we first got in the tournament many years ago. That's exciting for their fans and exciting for their players, coaches and everybody involved because it takes everybody to be successful—the administration, everybody. So I think this is an interesting four-team bracket."
On how well the team is playing right now:
"This team has surprised in many aspects. For most of the year we started four sophomores and a junior. We only have one senior on this team. We were putting in a different offense. I did feel like we probably wanted to control more possessions than we have in the past. My statement was that by February I hoped that we could play more out of that. It's kind of been funny because our offense towards the end wasn't playing as well as it had in the middle. We started to see that come back the second half of the (UNLV) game, although that was a disappointing loss for us. We played a team that played fantastic. (UNLV) played unbelievable that night. We did score 52 points in the second half of that game and I'm hoping the offense is coming back to the way it was the middle part of the season. I like our team. This has been one of my favorite groups to coach and they try to do whatever it is that we ask them to do as coaches, and they have been a great group to coach."
Emily Carter
On what challenges South Dakota State presents:
"They're a really good team. We know that they've only lost two games this whole year so we know they're going to come out and challenge us. They have a lot of good shooters and they hustle a lot, so I think that we're going to have to bring a lot of energy to the game like Coach has stressed - just play the full 40 minutes. It's that time of year when you know everyone is playing at their best, so we're going to have to come with our full energy."
On addressing South Dakota as the Cinderella story and how the media affects the hype:
"I think we know that they are a good team. We try to ignore just all the outside (distractions) and people saying things, but we just stay really focused on this right now and we're staying focused on our gameplan. We know they've only lost two games, but I think we're taking that kind of as a motivation just because we know that they are a really good team. We just want to come out from the beginning and play hard."
TK LaFleur
On if the non-conference schedule has prepared TCU well for this stage:
"I think it has prepared us very well. We had some pretty challenging games. So I think our pre-season schedule was tough enough to prepare us for a situation like this. I feel that we draw back on that experience and use it towards this game and this tournament."
Helena Sverrisdottir
On expecting a big supporting crowd:
"We definitely hope that we'll have some fans there and we're just really excited to be playing right now."
Players Mentioned
