Women's Hoops Preps for Round Two

March 23, 2009

NCAA Women's Basketball Championship

Click the links below to view interviews with Oklahoma players...

Sophomore guard Danielle Robinson
Junior forward Nyeshia Stevenson
Senior center Courtney Paris
Senior forward Ashley Paris

Related Links

Championship Central |

Blog |

Printable Bracket

Oklahoma NCAA Championship History

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- The University of Oklahoma women's basketball team practiced at Carver-Hawkeye Arena Monday in preparation for its NCAA Championship second-round game versus Georgia Tech.

The Sooners were tuned up for the Yellow Jackets with a one-and-one-half hour workout followed by another press conference and media session.

OU head coach Sherri Coale praised the effort that Georgia Tech played with in the first round and expects her team to meet the challenge Tuesday night.

"They played incredibly hungry with a great level of intensity and enthusiasm last night," Coale said. "What they did was not easy to do. They beat a very talented Iowa team on their home court in front of their fans. The deck was stacked against them. They did not have their key player.

" I thought their victory last night was an exclamation point. We know what we have to do tomorrow night. A lot of it has to do with cleaning up the glass and taking care of the basketball; two things we have been schooled on in the very tough Big 12 Conference."

Coale also said Amanda Thompson would return to active duty for Tuesday's game.

"What Amanda does for us is bring that toughness, definitely on the glass. That is what she is known for. Against the athleticism of Georgia Tech it would be great to be able to use her and I think we will have an opportunity to do that.

"Again how long she can go no one knows. We will have her available and we expect to use her."

The Sooner players are excited about a second-round matchup with Georgia Tech, too, and are looking forward to a team that plays a similiar defense to Texas A&M.

"I have confidence like I had at the beginning of the season and I'm just excited to play against Georgia Tech because," OU freshman guard Whitney Hand said, "they are a lot like (Texas) A&M and our conference has prepared us completely to compete at that level, so we're excited about it."

The game tips off at 8:30 p.m. Central.

Tuesday Broadcast Information
Dave Barnett (play-by-play) and Sarah Kustok (analyst) have the call on ESPN2's coverage of the Oklahoma-Georgia Tech game, 8:30 p.m. Tuesday night. The complete game will broadcast live nationally on ESPNU and on ESPN2's standard definition channel in Oklahoma and Atlanta, as well as alternate ESPN2 channels on DirecTV and DISH Network.

ESPN2's high-definition channel will show whip-around coverage of all active women's basketball games.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Additional Quotes from Monday's Pre-Second Round Press Conference

Oklahoma Head Coach Sherri Coale
Opening Statement:
"We are very excited to still be playing in the NCAA Tournament. We are looking forward to our competition against what I thought was a very inspired Georgia Tech team. They played incredibly hungry with a great level of intensity and enthusiasm last night. What they did was not easy to do. They beat a very talented Iowa team on their home court in front of their fans. The deck was stacked against them. They did not have their key player. I thought their victory last night was an exclamation point. We know what we have to do tomorrow night. A lot of it has to do with cleaning up the glass and taking care of the basketball; two things we have been schooled on in the very tough Big 12 Conference."

On the importance of Amanda Thompson's return:
"I don't know that that has been talked about very much and that is okay. What Amanda does for us is bring that toughness, definitely on the glass. That is what she is known for. Against the athleticism of Georgia Tech it would be great to be able to use her and I think we will have an opportunity to do that. Again how long she can go no one knows. We will have her available and we expect to use her."

On Amanda Thompson's toughness:
"She becomes other-worldly. When she sets her mind to it she can take the entire team to another level. It emulates her passion for the game and she has an opportunity to do so because of her intestinal fortitude. She is a tough kid who loves to play. She will pay for it on Wednesday I am sure, but she will give us all she has."

On how much she has seen Georgia Tech play this season:
"I have actually seen them play a couple of times on television earlier in the year. I saw them play earlier in the year against Connecticut - I watched that one live at the time. I have seen a couple of ACC games along the way. They are different without the kid (Alex Montgomery) that hurt her knee. Obviously last night they showed they can still be effective in her absence."

On the Georgia Tech team she saw against Iowa:
"I think there were a number of things. I think Iowa had a hard time blocking them out against the zone. If you look at the points in the paint I believe they had 46 points in the paint against Iowa, and most of those were offensive rebounds or at least slipping inside the zone. Their post kids are really tough and they never quit working and moving around. They move on that pivot foot until they have an open shot. I thought their aggression kind of had Iowa off balance and I'm not sure they really steadied the ship. We know how that can happen. I think that happened to us against Texas A&M in the Big 12 Tournament. So there are some similarities there. Basketball is a game of nights, as we have talked about at this tournament.

On Georgia Tech's press versus Texas A&M's press:
"It is a little bit different style. I don't know anybody else that does what A&M does and they way that they do it. Georgia Tech comes at you with the traps; hard athletic traps from side-to-side. You have to survive that wave. Once you cross they come at you again. You can never ever relax. They do dump back into a man. You have to survive the first part of it to get to that. We feel like we can have some success once we do survive it."

On Georgia Tech's inside presence:
"They are big and they are very physical at every position. They really go after the ball when it comes off the glass. When it goes up, they are going to get it and they do that purposefully and with great athleticism. Our block outs will have to be as good as they have ever been. We understand that and we know going into tournament play you have to guard the basketball and you have to rebound. All those things will remain true tomorrow night.

On Georgia Tech's being the wrong/right team to be facing in the second round:
"One of the things we do is to figure out where we are in the bracket and what our potential road may be. We sit down and dissect every possible thing that could happen. We talk about how and why our experiences over the past four months have prepared us for this. We are so fortunate because we play in the Big 12 Conference and we see a slow-down tempo like Iowa State and Kansas State, and then we see the versatility and attack mode the way Texas A&M plays. So we see a little bit of all of that. In our preconference schedule too there is not anything that we have not seen. Having played Texas A&M particularly in such close proximity over the last three weeks, We think it is exactly the right team and that we are as prepared as we will ever be for it."

On the play of the Big 12 Conference:
"We have become one another's biggest fans. As soon as that bracket comes up, as long as our paths don't cross, as soon as our game is over we are running to see how Iowa State did or how Kansas State did. We want the Big 12 Conference to win and win and win. In the offseason, believe it or not there are a lot of bragging rights. We took a lot of smack from the Big East last year. We both won eight in the first round and then they kind of had us in the second. We are very proud of what our fellow teams have done and I think there are several that have a great shot at winding up in the Sweet 16."

On the difference between Bob Stoops and herself rooting against/for the Big 12 Conference:
"I think it is a definite difference in the way the sports are set up. Football doesn't have an NCAA Tournament at the end of the year. They don't have a point where we all start at zero and there are 64 of us fighting for a crown. It is completely different. The length of the basketball season enables you to get good preparation from those opponents. So in a way it really helps you in the pursuit of your goals. And Bobby is famous, in Norman and in Iowa City, shall we not forget."

Oklahoma Senior Courtney Paris
On similarities between Georgia Tech and Texas A&M:
"Yes, definitely. They press a lot and they crash the boards."

On the team's performance early in the second half:
"I thought we came out poised. We took care of the ball and didn't have any turnovers. We hit shots and finished those layups we were missing early."

On the relief of having a now neutral court:
"It's like going on Christmas trips and you play on a neutral spot with not a lot of people there. Coach always says you have to bring your own energy and stay in your own bubble, so we have to really focus on that. With our bench and us on the court, we have to really create our own energy in the gym."

On Courtney Paris being 14 rebounds shy of 2,500 points and 2,000 rebounds:
"I'm just thinking about one more win to go to Oklahoma City."

Oklahoma Freshman Whitney Hand
On confidence of tomorrow night's game:
"I think as a shooter, when you're going through your highs and lows trying to get back from a hand injury, after you hit that first couple, it's kind of like, `whoa, ok, this is just basketball'. Obviously, I kind of went cold the second half, some games you just go cold. I'm not worried about it. I have confidence like I had at the beginning of the season and I'm just excited to play against Georgia Tech because, they are a lot like (Texas) A&M and our conference has prepared us completely to compete at that level, so we're excited about it."

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Related News

Related Videos

Sponsors