March 2, 2007
Opening Statement:
COACH WALVIUS: I thought our team played hard today, didn’t quit. That was important to us. We turned the ball over a little bit too much. Stacy Booker’s twisted knee early in the first half, wasn’t it, or late in the first half, certainly affected us. She’s really been a sparkplug for us recently. We’ve relied on her quite a bit. But, you know, our team played hard. We didn’t do some of the things we typically do in guarding tendencies. We didn’t rebound the ball as well as we normally do. We turned it over a bit too much. But I thought the fight was there. The fight was there late in the game.
Q. Can you talk about being within eight late in the first half?
COACH WALVIUS: I think, you know, coming into this game, playing Tennessee, I think Tennessee’s playing great basketball right now. We knew we would have this game is won or lost teams playing Tennessee before it even starts a lot of times. Our team did not have that mentality today. It was a mentality of resolve to go out and fight and win and do the little things well. You know, I thought we played with some scrap and we were able to get some things done because of that. I wasn’t surprised by that. I thought our team did a good job.
Q. You mentioned Stacy Booker’s injury. Do you know how serious it is? I know you want to be in the post season. Would she be available? You don’t know yet?
COACH WALVIUS: I would hope so. We will have it evaluated. We took a very conservative approach with her today. We want to make sure she’s okay. We talked to her and she thought she could play. We have a doctor here to evaluate it. We’re going to have her evaluated in Columbia and see where it is. Hopefully so. She’s certainly very good. We are looking forward to post season. I’ll put in our plug for it. As I said, of all the bubble teams, head to head with those teams late, we’ve won those games. Of the RPIs, we’re right behind Auburn with RPI. SEC is a much better league this year. I know you all know that. You guys can see that. It’s a league the league has let eight teams in in the past. It’s definitely a league that should get seven or eight teams in this year.
Q. Was there any surprise by a little different look to the Tennessee scoring, a little less reliance on Candace, more balanced than some would expect?
COACH WALVIUS: You know, we know when Tennessee we certainly talked about that as a team and you saw this happen at points in time during the game. When Tennessee needs a basket, they’re going to go to Parker. She played hard. She did a nice job for them. Everybody on their team is very, very good. They do a nice job making decisions. They work the ball really well. They shoot the ball so well from the outside. Their defense is very good which creates a lot of offense for them. They’re tall. They rebound the ball extremely well.
Q. Was it a surprise they didn’t go to Parker all night?
COACH WALVIUS: No. Spencer does a great job shooting the ball. Hornbuckle does a great job, really takes the ball hard to the rim, can score off the dribble. They were really balanced and that’s what makes them so hard to guard.
