March 26, 2006

Recap | Box Score | Notes

Baylor Head Coach Kim Mulkey-Robertson

I compliment Maryland. It's a very good basketball team. We fought very hard and tied the game. Just give them all the credit. They deserved to win the game. They were the better team.

Q: Coach, do you feel you and your players left it all on the court tonight? You've said all year 'if we get beat, we'll get beat by a better team' - do you feel in your mind that's what happened?

MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Well, the effort was there. Those kids fought hard. I believe in complimenting the opponent when they're better. Maryland was better, they were bigger and stronger than us in every position tonight. I thought the first five minutes of the game is when the game was won. I thought they took it right at us. I thought we fought hard, I thought we left everything we had on the floor, effort-wise. Did we play very well? No. Did we shoot very well? No. You can break it down in a lot of areas, but those kids fight, that's all they know to do. These two young ladies [Scott and Young] leave Baylor with a national championship ring. They've raised the bar for our program. They're great examples for the freshmen they taught this year.

Q: Coach, can you reflect back on the legacy Sophia [Young] is going to leave on this team?

MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Sophia Young, she's going to be a two-time Kodak All-America. We've never had that since I've been at Baylor. She's just a person who elevated our program. She's put us on a level to win a national championship and I said last year when we won it, coaches can coach a lifetime and never have an opportunity to get to a Final Four and win one. These young ladies had an opportunity and they capitalized on it, and they're leaving Baylor with a national championship. Those things are hard to come by.

Q: Do you see Maryland as a team that has the tools to win a national championship? And talking about Sophia Young, do you see Crystal Langhorne as that kind of player for Maryland?

MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Yes and yes. You want me to elaborate? Why do you ask the losing coaches to elaborate? [chuckling] Yes, they are very strong in every position. They have post presence that is big but also a scoring threat. Then they have a perimeter game that is very solid and shooting what they shoot from the perimeter and you have that many players averaging in double figures, they're hard to guard. Langhorne dominated the game from start to finish. We had no post player on our team who could guard her. They said, coach, why don't we go to the zone? We fought back to tie the game in the last 3:55. You may correct me, I haven't looked at a stat sheet, we had some really, I don't know the word, not very good plays when we allowed them to take a seven-point lead into the half. And what do you do? So you come out, you have a freshman take the first two shots for you the second half, which you don't want. Then she gives up a three-point play, so now you're down double figures. You're sitting there as a coach thinking 'I can't go to the zone now'. They're going to light you up. And what'd they shoot, sixty-something percent in the second half from the three? It was just a game of that kind of low. I thought again the Achilles heel was their perimeter shooting for us.

Q: Kim, how much did that take the momentum away from you, that run and particularly the last play before the half?

MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Sure, it took the momentum away. But again, I'm going to teach and coach and go on. We had two freshmen involved, and what happened? You've got a freshman that should have been guarding the inbounder and she got off in no-man's land and was not doing anything. And you had a freshman who allowed Langhorne to catch them. But it's my job to challenge them, and to teach them as well, so if they're ever in that position again it won't happen. But sure, that kind of deflates your bubble a little bit.

Q: Will you talk about what you do have coming back next season and what they've learned from this group? Does the future look bright?

MULKEY-ROBERTSON: Well anytime you lose you don't ever think the future looks bright. But when you wake up tomorrow and you realize you had a heck of a year, in your third Sweet Sixteen, you've got four freshmen who got valuable playing time, you've got a point guard who is a sophomore who will be back, you've got a recruiting class that's thought of pretty good. You reload, regroup, whatever the words are, and that's what we'll have to do. We lose a tremendous senior class that's just been wonderful for our program, but like all senior classes, you've got to keep on moving on when they graduate.

Baylor Players
Senior Sophia Young
Senior Chameka Scott
Senior Jordan Davis

Q: Sophia, when the game started it was tight out there. What was it like at the beginning of the game when the tone of the game was established?

YOUNG: The tone of the game was established when Maryland came out and took it right at us, and we didn't respond until the 13 or 11 mark. It was a pretty intense game, I couldn't get my shots to fall and I think that we weren't rebounding very well. But like coach said, Maryland was the better team tonight.

SCOTT: I agree with Sophia, like she said, they came out and attacked us right off the bat. They established their dominance and they were going to show us they weren't afraid. They took it right at us, got the tempo going, and it took us a while to kind of adjust to that.

Q: Sophia, can you comment on the post combination of (Laura) Harper and (Crystal) Langhorne?

YOUNG: I think Maryland has two very good post players, they compliment each other. I think they did an extremely great job tonight getting the ball down low and just giving us multiple moves. With regard to getting the ball down low, compliment them.

Q: Do you think you guys exerted so much energy in the first half, was it kind of hard to get going in the second half?

SCOTT: Not necessarily, I think we dug ourselves a hole in the first half and we just knew we had to make a run. After we came out of halftime we had the same mindset that we wanted to kind of get out there the first five minutes, but they just kept coming, they had shooters on the outside and people on the inside. They just had an all-around good night tonight.

Q: What is it about Langhorne that makes her so tough to guard?

YOUNG: She's a good post player and she has good post moves. I think the fact that she has multiple moves, that makes her difficult to guard tonight. She used most of her up-and-unders and I think we fell for that, we fell for her fakes a lot tonight. She's left handed, and she uses her left hand very well.

Q: Could you also address what they did to you when you had the ball, what was the defense doing? Was it what they were doing, or did you just feel that you didn't have the shot going?

YOUNG: I don't think they were doing anything to me and my shot, or to keep my shots from falling. I think maybe I was fading away too much on my shot and not really getting straight up. Mentally that's probably what I was doing to myself.

Q: You guys have said all year long that you were going to leave the last game out on the court, do you feel like you did that tonight?

SCOTT: No, personally I don't. I felt that there were a lot of things personally that I could have done to help contribute more tonight. And that's what makes tonight really tough. I think as a team we fought very hard, and we knew we weren't going to give up at any point, no matter what the score was, and so that was a positive. On a personal note I felt I could have done a lot more.

YOUNG: Just looking back on the season I think we had a great season. And personally, no, I'm not satisfied how I played tonight. I guess you couldn't be satisfied unless you had a win. But I think overall we had a great season.

Q: Can you both talk about how tough it is to see your season end here tonight, such a long year, and your whole career?

SCOTT: It's kind of weird right now. It's funny, kind of ironic, like last year we won. It didn't hit you until later, and I think that's what I'm going through right now. I'm upset about the loss in itself, but I don't think it's hit me yet that my career's over.

YOUNG: No, it hasn't hit me yet either. We had a good run here, a good four years. The team this year, they came out and just fought and gave it everything they possibly could. We had four freshmen that we just had to bring into the system and I think they did a good job. And the three other seniors being good leaders for the other underclassmen and it's sad that our season's over and our career is actually over, but we've got to move on.

Q: Chameka, can you talk about the run they had at the end of the half, after you had tied it, especially the last play? Did that take the momentum away from you all?

SCOTT: Definitely, you don't want to ever give up plays like that, ever, especially going into the locker room at the end of the half, giving them the momentum back after we fought so hard. I think even though that happened, we kind of put the whole first half behind us. We wanted to come out the second half and start over. Not necessarily start over, but just not dwell on what happened in the first half. We wanted to come out the first five minutes and try to take over. So it was a factor but it wasn't something we were beating ourselves up over.

Q: Talk about Maryland and how the bounces didn't go your way tonight?

DAVIS: Maryland's a great team, I think you can attribute a lot of the things offensively, especially in the first half, they had quite a few shots that looked like they weren't going to go in that got the roll. It kind of felt like it was going to be their night. They jumped on us quick, we tied it up, but then we let them go on a run at the end of the first half and I think that really hurt us. I'm proud of the girls, they fought hard. They kept battling until the end.