Texas A&M Head Coach Gary Blair
Opening Statement …
“We did alright when she (Rhyne Howard) didn’t play in the second quarter. That was the difference in the ball game – the second quarter when Howard was on the bench and we scored eight points and we didn’t take advantage. We missed free throws, we missed bunnies, we missed everything that we had and that’s on us. We’ve seen good defense from Florida State and LSU, to a bunch of good teams, but that’s on us to be able to score under pressure. We were going to the free throw line enough times and not making them… I give Kentucky credit. Howard is an All-American or will be an All-American and I’m sure Matthew (Mitchell) will talk to her a little bit about giving it up instead of shooting a 30-foot 3 like she did one time. She doesn’t need to, that’s how good she is. That’s how good she is, just tone it down because there’s nobody in our league besides (Chelsea) Dungee and (Chennedy) Carter that can create off the bounce and score with contact. Scoring for contact, a football play, a basketball play, that’s what she was able to do and just give them credit and give Kentucky’s other players credit. They knew who to get the ball to and they were doing a great job of shooting in the last 10 seconds of a possession and we were guarding decently and then we came off a couple times and left Howard alone in the corner and you don’t do that. You don’t leave (Sabrina) Haines unattended in the corner, we’re better than that. The hardest thing is, we don’t use an injury as an excuse, we played the game with about zero emotion for being No. 12 in the country and we were up at the end of the first quarter and it looked when they came over to me, we were about six or seven. We’ve got to learn to play with more emotion. We have enough fire power out there that we didn’t hit our shots, we only had about 14 turnovers against Kentucky, but I think we had worked on that before where he didn’t need to press particularly his two-three zone, we just started missing shots in the second quarter when he went to the zone.”
On Blair Green and how big she was in the game …
“Late in the shot clock, I think every one of them. Then she hit a mid-range shot in there that was very good. That’s why she was on the All-Freshman team last year. She’s just very solid. You’ve got to have complimentary players and that’s what Blair Green is. She doesn’t try to do too much, too little, she does just enough. And that’s what you’ve got to have when you’ve got a star player. You’ve got to feed her the ball, let her create for others. A couple of times, Howard did a great job of penetrating, dumping it over where we’d have to rotate to help because we couldn’t guard her one-on-one. And there isn’t a sportswriter in here that could’ve guarded her one-on-one either. But we could have done a better job or forcing her to her left, but we didn’t. She’s very good, folks.”
On Matthew Mitchell and his team’s style …
“First, he’s not undertalented. He’s got talent. They share the ball. He’s playing the system that he played three years ago before all the injuries and defections. Now, he’s got more depth, he can rotate them in. And that will happen, particularly when he gets McKinney back, who is a pretty good shot blocker and he’s got a kid out with an ACL. It’s back to the old-style Kentucky, yay. I hope we don’t see that style that we played today, or we’ll get our butt beat against Florida on Sunday. We’ve got to get better. It’s all on us right now. We scored eight points in the second quarter. We shot 20 percent against LSU in the third quarter and 20 percent in the fourth quarter. It’s not rocket science.”
Texas A&M Players
#4, Shambria Washington, Sr., G
On Kentucky compared to some of the other teams in the SEC…
“They’re a talented basketball team. They capitalize on their strengthens like Rhyne Howard who really came out and competed tonight. She did both ends, on the boards, offensively and defensively. Credit to them. They’re No. 11 and where they are in the nation for a reason.”
On how they played against Rhyne Howard…
“Very talented. She made the national team for a reason. She’s one of the top players in the SEC for a reason. She works hard on her game so have all the respect for her. She came out and did what her team needed her to do.”
#23, McKinzie Green, Fr., G
On what she learned being in this atmosphere and watching the game…
“It’s just a different atmosphere just because the SEC is the best conference in the country. Their guards had good pressure on us so just getting accustomed to that throughout my career.”