Everything Kellie Harper Said After Win Over No.12 Texas
No.16 Tennessee trailed No.12 Texas by 11 points at one point in the fourth quarter on Saturday afternoon, but Kellie Harper's team stormed back to send the game to overtime, which would result in an eventual 74-70 Lady Vols win. Following the win, Kellie Harper met with the media, and you can view everything thing she said in the transcript below.
Opening statement...
"Really excited to get this win. Obviously, it's a big win for our program and showed a lot of guts by our team, and they're excited about how we were able to pull it out. Can't say that it was pretty, but you can definitely say it's gutsy. One thing I feel pretty confident about when our team takes the court is that we're going to play hard and we're going to fight. We're going to fight to the buzzer no matter what. We had people step up and make some big plays when we had to make them. Our defense got tight down the stretch, and we're able to come out of here with a good one."
On the team's free throw shooting…
"Well I think we were, going down the stretch into overtime, we were pretty focused, and I thought our kids locked in. They stepped up there with a little more confidence, and you know we talked about it this week, that's what it takes. Our players can make free throws, they just have to step up and do it."
On Tamari's impact through the first four games…
"Right now, Tamari is playing with a toughness that's just different. We talk about toughness; it's not always physicality. Toughness is making the right play mentally. She's able to stay in the game give us long minutes. She wants the ball, she's doing a great job defensively, and just really proud of her and how she's playing right now. She's just continuing to grow."
On the statement made by today's win…
"I don't know that we're in there worried about statements and such. I don't even know that our team's worried about what the rankings are. To me, this is more about what we can do and really talk about our program and our team. I think it's a statement inside that locker room, and I think they know how we can win. They know they can depend on each other, and I think that they know everybody has a role. Even the players that didn't play have roles that were really important tonight. I think when you have that complete buy in and confidence, it pulls you together and gets you through a tight game."
On the focus on rebounding…
"Rebounding is important. I've talked about that quite a bit. It's always going to be an emphasis, it's always been an emphasis of mine as a coach, and I do think a lot of that had to do with my time at Tennessee. It's always been a big deal at this program. I thought we gave up too many offensive boards tonight, but down the stretch, we got the defensive boards when we needed them. And for us, crashing the boards offensively, we're a problem for a lot of teams with our board play. You know that's an area of pride for us, and we want to continue to emphasize it and obviously understand that it's going to be game plan. Our opponents, that's going to be one of their number one game plan items. They want to check that one off."
On Sara Puckett stepping up…
"Sara's really talented. I thought her three in the second half was huge for us. I don't know when it came, I don't know what the score was, I just remember thinking, 'oh, we needed that bad.' She made another big-time play, just making a nice pass inside. She's growing up pretty quickly. This is a freshman who is playing with a lot of poise. She has a great frame, great strength and a very high skill set."
On thanking the fans for their support…
"Going off the court, I realized I needed to thank the fans because that's the first time we've had that in a couple years because of COVID. It made a difference. Our fans got into it, they got loud, and I think they had some influence on both teams. I hope that we continue to provide a product that they can be proud of, that they are going to get excited about, and you know it's fun. This is fun basketball, and we want our fans to feel like we're theirs, that we're there for them and they can show up and be there for us as well. I thought it was great to see, it was really great to see, that's what Lady Vol basketball looks like."
On the performance from Jordan Walker and Jordan Horston..
"There were times that I could tell that our team, especially the Jordan's, thought they were fighting it. I thought the few times they were probably a little tired, but they were fighting. They weren't going to let it show. What we ask them to do is a lot: to guard and then to handle that pressure the entire time. Not going to play a clean, mistake-free game. They had guts, then they both made some big buckets for us when we needed that as well. I still think one of the stats on here that maybe the MVP stat on here was Tamari (Key) playing 39 minutes. She can affect so much on both ends of the court, you have to account for her on the offensive end. They're trying to do some different things when we're on defense to try and combat her and her presence. She just looked confident out on the court. She knew if she made a mistake, she'd bounce back from it really quickly and knew that she needed to be out there for her team."
On Tamari Key's presence…
"Our game plan has to change if she's not on the court. We have to do things differently if she's not out there. We expect her to be out there a high number of minutes and our game plan is built around her to be honest with you. Still think that there are things that we can do better with her, for sure. Getting these wins, her playing a lot of minutes, it's a start."
On Rae Burrell..
"Rae has been a big cheerleader. Just trying to encourage her teammates. I think she's trying to be really positive and continued to have a voice even though she's not playing. In addition to Rae, I thought some of our players who didn't get any minutes due to the nature of the game, I thought their voices were really good. They were coming in, really trying to energize a very tired crew. When I say everybody, everybody helped this win, even the kids that didn't make the stat sheet. They helped us get this win."
On switching to zone defense…
"We've played primarily man-to-man thus far. We've had that defense in. I think we've shown it a little bit. We've not run it a whole lot. They know we got it. We felt like a changeup would be good for us. We were struggling. We talked about a couple of different options and decided to go with that one as our changeup in that moment. There's no doubt that changed the tone of the game. Took them out of rhythm. After they missed a couple shots, they got a little bit hesitant offensively, that helped us. Gave us some momentum in that fourth quarter."
On close games helping going forward…
"I'll be honest with you, I don't know if we win this game if we hadn't already faced close games down the stretch. You learn from it, you try to get better from it. When you have those games and you pull it out, it gives you confidence when you get in that situation again. We're not trying to do that, don't get me wrong, I would rather not have to worry about that. The way this season has played out, when we take the court, we believe. We believe, whether we are down 10 going into the fourth or we are tied going into overtime. Our kids believe."
On Tamika Catchings being recognized…
"Saw her sitting over there and thought, 'wow, wonder if I could sneak her in the game.' I was thinking if we try to sneak Tamika Catchings in the game, we would probably get a play, but I would say that Vic Schaefer wouldn't like that very much. I would say that she is amazing, I love her. So glad that we had the opportunity to honor her for all of her recent accomplishments. She had a chance to speak to the team yesterday, and it was very powerful. I'm really grateful that she still stays very connected to this program. We had several alums in the house. It was good to see. At one point I'm sitting there thinking I wanted to win for so many different reasons. One, just competitive. One I want it for our team. I'll be honest with you I wanted it for our alums, and I really wanted it for our crowd. I really wanted it for those two reasons as well."
On plans for this week due to travel…
"With the travel day on Tuesday, we're actually going to take that day off to try and get an off day a little bit closer to those games. That means we're on tomorrow. It won't be anything strenuous for a lot of these players. We'll do film sessions, and we will get together as a staff and figure out how we want to tackle tomorrow. Some players are probably going to get a couple days off here. They've played high minutes, if they don't have the legs under them, if they're not playing good, then it doesn't matter what the scheme is they aren't going to get there. We have to make sure that our players that are playing heavy minutes are going to be able to recover quickly. Our training staff does an excellent job with that."