Marlene Stollings Sydney Goodson Chrislyn Carr Zuri Sanders

Big 12 Conference Women's Basketball Championship Friday, March 8, 2019 Marlene Stollings Sydney Goodson Chrislyn Carr Zuri Sanders Texas Tech Red Raiders Texas Tech 104, Oklahoma 84 THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by the Texas Tech Coach Marlene Stollings, our players, Sydney Goodson, Chrislyn Carr, Brittany Brewer, and Zuri Sanders. Coach, congratulations on the win and your opening thoughts? COACH STOLLINGS: Thank you. I'm so thrilled for our team, particularly these four young ladies sitting up here with me for doing something really special. Everyone knows we inherited a program that hadn't had the best of times and they have come so far. Two of our young ladies up here have career highs, Brittany with 40, Zuri with 25 points, and to set a Big 12 scoring record with 104 points is phenomenal. This conference is incredible. It's been around for many, many years, and I'm just so happy for our kids. Q. Brittany, it looked like one of the keys to the game was your ability to get the offensive rebound. Talk about that part of the game. Have you ever had game similar to this? BRITTANY BREWER: I don't think I've had a game similar to this, but definitely the goal as a team was to rebound, and then last game that we played them I didn't really do my job and so I knew I had to come out here and give me teammates my all. Q. Brittany, you set a record for field goals in the first round. How does it feel to be able to accomplish a record like that? BRITTANY BREWER: That feels awesome. I definitely wasn't expecting that. I just wanted to come back and have a good game. So it's an honor, yeah. Q. Coach Stollings, obviously with Brittany you had a big advantage with height and stuff but you came up with a good game plan, too, to get her involved and get going. Could you talk about coming into the game how you thought you might get her going? THE MODERATOR: We would prefer we let the student athletes answer. Q. So Brittany was having a really big game in the first half, you guys could tell. Did you guys just start feeding her the ball? What was your mindset? ZURI SANDERS: I would say that we definitely feed off each other, and something we noticed is that Brittany had the hot hand so obviously you want to keep feeding that hand, and she didn't let us down at all. The ball was going through the net for her and I'm so proud of everything she gave for forty minutes straight. Even if a shot didn't fall she didn't let that affect her, and she definitely came through today, and the other two young ladies and the rest of the team. It was a great win. It wasn't just one player doing one thing, it was an all-around team win. SYDNEY GOODSON: Absolutely, Brittany is in the gym all the time and it's cool to see her hard work pay off, but like Zuri said, it was a big team effort. But, yeah, Brit had the hot hand; we were going to get her the ball. We could hear the coach on the side saying "give it to Brittany, give it to Brittany! COACH STOLLINGS: You did hear me? (Laughter.) SYDNEY GOODSON: So of course we want to feed her the ball. She was knocking down shots and she made rebounding a lot easier because they were all going in. (Laughter.) CHRISLYN CARR: Feeding off what Zuri and Syd said, she had the hot hand so obviously the ball is going to go her. Like they said, Coach was screaming really loud give her the ball, so obviously we're going to give her the ball. She was hot, and like they said, it was easy to get the rebounds. Q. Brittany, I know you and Zuri had huge games tonight. Could you talk about how Zuri opened that up for you with her dominant play down low? BRITTANY BREWER: Zuri is dominant down low and I Rev #2 by #515 at 2019-03-09 02:33:00 GMT page 1 of 3

think when we put her down low she just proves herself. She has done it this whole week against Oklahoma, and every time we put her down there she is always saying, I'm not a 5, I'm not a 5, and I'm like, You can play like a 5 if you want to. So good down low. She opened up a lot, especially for double teams and stuff like that. She was awesome. Q. Syd, Coach alluded to these were not the best of times for this program last year. What was the biggest jump? What led you guys to this point? And Zuri, if you want to answer the same question after Syd. SYDNEY GOODSON: I think it was work ethic and culture. I think this year we're all really close. We're a family, bonded together. On and off the court we're always together, and I think that's fun. I don't think we understand what working hard at this level looked like and what it meant, and for us to come together and trusting our coaching and buying in we made a huge jump. ZURI SANDERS: I think a huge emphasis is buy-in. As soon as the new coaching staff came in they said they're not changing and they're going to always push us regardless of what we're giving them. That's something we deeply appreciated, they is that they never let us down, so we're not going to let them down. And you can see that with the outcome of this game be tonight. We worked our butts off this season to get here, and I think it's definitely shown. THE MODERATOR: Ladies, congratulations on your win. We will see you tomorrow. Q. Brittany had such a great game. You had a height advantage with her, but could you talk about your game plan to get her going in the game? COACH STOLLINGS: We started the game with her on the perimeter. She's a very solid 3-point shooter for us, and as the game evolved Zuri hit quite a few shots at the basket. As the game evolved we wanted to shift that, so we moved Zuri out and allowed her to become more of a screener and put Brittany at the basket. We always felt Brittany could score against them, but Oklahoma packs the paint. They're good in help defense, and we didn't want to start the game with two or three defenders on Brittany. Her hitting those shots early really helped with that. It loosened things up with Brittany scoring and Zuri scoring from the outside, and so then we were able to reverse them. She went to work down there. She is a capable very scorer when she had the one-on-one matchups, and even one-ontwo at times. The secondary defender ended up being a guard a lot, and with her size and height she was able to shoot over them. Q. Coach, I know this is your first Big 12 tournament win as head coach of the Raiders, how does it feel? COACH STOLLINGS: It's great. We're here to win. You go to the tournaments to win. It's called March Madness for a reason. I told our team in the pre-game talk there is nothing more exciting than this time of year and nothing better than being on this stage in the Big 12 and performing and to have fun and enjoy the moment. Don't look at it as pressure, look at it as opportunity. I thought they did a good job of not putting extra pressure on themselves. Again, I'm just so happy for them. I've been coaching a long time and wins will come and go, but and I'm so happy for this group in particular, because they had to go through a lot of change to get here today. To be sitting here with a Big 12 record is just tremendous. I'm so happy for them. Q. Coach, did you have to change the culture when you got here? A year ago at this time I never remembered a program being as down as they were when you walked off the stage last year. COACH STOLLINGS: Yeah, culture was huge. It was in every aspect of their lives, so to speak, for our returners. For our new kids, they don't know any different, but for our returners, it had been pretty rocky. It was very important that we set the standard. As Zuri alluded to a few minutes ago, we weren't going to change. We were going to keep that standard. They were going to have to rise up to our standard. We were not going to drop down to anything that had happened previously. Within that we put in a lot of accountability. It even shows in our academics. We have above a 3.0, academically and when I arrived we were one of the lowest academic female sports on campus. Our ultimate goal was how they approach life and, that's why I coach, is for when they leave us. The ultimate goal was to help them become better women for when they leave us, and that's not just on the basketball court. Q. So speaking on what you just said what, are the things you implemented to change the culture? You said the grades changed, attitudes changed; Syd said it's like a family. What are some of the things that changed that? COACH STOLLINGS: Well, you know, initially there was a lot of discipline, hard work, the strength and conditioning workouts changed drastically, accountability academically. Lots of things fall under that. I could probably write a book. I won't keep Rev #2 by #515 at 2019-03-09 02:33:00 GMT page 2 of 3

anybody in here for all of that. Those are the highlights. And just our approach to practice. We're big on treating the practice like a game. Scoring in the hundreds is and we want to be able to do big picture as our program evolves. We want to be able to do that a lot. Very uptempo, very fast paced, and very hard to guard. We got to see a glimpse of that tonight. A little bit unexpected, but we'll take it. There are lots of things that go along with it. Q. Coach, the point differential between the first two games was Texas plus 1. Today you were able to beat OU by 20. What was the difference in today's game compared to the rest of the season? COACH STOLLINGS: Today's game, I think, is the ability to keep the pace. We thought if we could get into the fourth quarter with the pace the way we wanted it would wear on them a little bit. They're in great shape, too, and they like to run as well, and I will certainly give them credit for that. But we thought we could sustain it better. One of the biggest things we take pride in is our strength and conditioning, and it's one of the things in the fourth quarter we like to see separation in. Tonight we were able to see that separation, and a lot of those points ended up happening in transition later in the game. Q. Coach, got a quick turnaround for the game tomorrow. Talk a little bit about facing Baylor, the number one team in the nation. COACH STOLLINGS: I was hoping I would get out of here without that question! (Chuckles.) For a couple of hours before I get to a Baylor question! But Baylor is just loaded. They're deep, they're tall, and they can score at multiple positions. They're impressive, and it will be a tall task for us, no question about it. We have great respect for their team and what they've done this season and what they've done for our conference. I want to be very clear on that. They've brought a lot of notoriety to the Big 12 with their performance, so we will let the kids get some food and the coaches will get to work right away and we will put the best game together that we can, David versus Goliath. THE MODERATOR: Okay, Coach, we will see you tomorrow afternoon. Rev #2 by #515 at 2019-03-09 02:33:00 GMT page 3 of 3

Big 12 Conference Women's Basketball Championship Friday, March 8, 2019 Sherri Coale Madi Williams Ana Llanusa Oklahoma Sooners Texas Tech 104, Oklahoma 84 THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by the Oklahoma Sooners Coach Sherri Coale and her two student athletes, Ana Llanusa, and our other studentathlete is Madi Williams. Coach, your thoughts about tonight's game? COACH COALE: First I want to congratulate Texas Tech. I thought they played incredibly well. Brittany Brewer had an amazing night. She missed, what, six shots, seven shots? Averaged making three or four threes a game, and they hit nine tonight. They hit on all cylinders. They were just really, really good. I want to congratulate them. Zuri and Brittany played like juniors and seniors who are hungry and nearing the end of their career and don't want it to be cover. I thought they played and led their team, and obviously that's where the majority of their points came from. We had a hard time rebounding against that size. Otherwise we cleaned up our turnovers from Tuesday night. Did a better job there. Had a number of assists, but I thought we felt our inability to stop them, we felt it on the offensive end. I felt like the pressure of being unable to get a stop bled into our offense and we missed easy locks, layups, open threes that we usually make, and that's just youth. You cannot rush the farm. Kids grow when it's time for them to grow and they mature as they get older. And no matter how badly we would like for it to happen sooner rather than later, it happens when it happens. I appreciate our team's diligence. These young guys have fought and they've never given up and they have continued to learn. I thought they hit a little bit of a mental wall in terms of adhering to the game plan tonight, just the moment was a little too large for them. But they're young and they've gotten some valuable, valuable experience this year. They're going to use that as fuel, because I can promise you no one in our locker room ever wants to feel like this again. Q. Ana, late in the third quarter you cut the lead to 4, I think, and have a chance to come back and cut it to 2 there after I think your steal. What happened after that that the game sort of started to get away from you? ANA LLANUSA: I think that would be us not getting rebounds. They got their boards and went back up and got second shots. So it would be that, and then we did get a little sped up on offense. Like she said, missed a number of different layups, just easy layups that we needed to finish, and I think that was the turning point. Q. Ana, I know she is tall, but what separated Brittany from being what she was able to do tonight? Why was she that difficult? ANA LLANUSA: I think she just had a really good game. She shot the ball really well. I don't think we were -- we knew she could shoot but she hit a lot of threes, a lot of open shots. Just props to her for making those shots, knocking 'em down. Q. Madi, what was it like trying to guard Brewer and some of the size that they had inside? It had to be frustrating at times for you, especially when they would drop out and she is shooting threes out there. MADI WILLIAMS: The whole game plan was whenever she did get the ball inside was to dig it out. If anybody got the ball inside we were to go dig it out. I think we relied too much on our help side and we were just like, okay, let 'em catch and our help side would be there. And when it wasn't because we had to -- because they were hitting shots from the outside, then just kind of went downhill from there. Q. Ana and Madi both, can you put into words what the season was like? I know it wasn't like what anyone wanted, and Sherri said no one wants to feel like that again, but speak to the challenges and how difficult it was at times. ANA LLANUSA: I think it was challenging trying to find out exactly who we are. We went up, we went down, we played close games. We've gotten beat by a lot, Rev #2 by #515 at 2019-03-09 02:53:00 GMT page 1 of 3

but just the learning experience we got this year is really important, and I think it's going to accelerate us for next year. MADI WILLIAMS: I think that this year was a great way for us to see our potential, and before we leave we're going to win a National Championship. I think we're all looking forward to that. Q. With that, what's the biggest learning takeaways that you guys have going forward? ANA LLANUSA: I would say just knowing that we can all score is really important. To have that confidence. Every single one of us on the floor can score, but we have to just really dial into defending somebody and fall in love with defending. We all know we can score, but can we all guard? And that's something for sure we are going to be working on, as soon as possible. MADI WILLIAMS: We can't wait until the off-season to put in work. We all know we have some work to do so we can come back next year and have a better outcome. THE MODERATOR: Ladies, congratulations on finishing the season and best of luck to you. Q. Coach, I know you spoke to the youth of your squad. What are some take-aways from today's game and this season that you want to bring into next season? COACH COALE: Well, the list is so long I'm not sure you have time for me to talk about it all. What our guys got was exposure. Exposure to talented teams, exposure to size, exposure to athleticism, exposure to the pace of Big 12 basketball, Division I basketball. They got exposed because there was nowhere to hide. We didn't have a guy to go to. Every team we play against has a guy to go to and we didn't have that. They were so young that our preconference schedule was probably way too tough for them and where they are in their career, but you can't -- that happens way ahead of time. It knocked our confidence a little. Not having Ana early and we didn't have her the entire first semester affected us a little because she probably would have become the guy and has developed so much as a leader. I could talk for a long time about how Ana Llanusa has grown. She is obviously a talented offensive basketball player, but she has grown in terms of her ability to lead the people around her. There are a number of things that we have to get better at, but we're not as far away as it might appear. There are things that come unraveled because there's just one slip here or there or just an understanding but an inability to apply an understanding yet. It's a whole bunch of yet. It turns out and it looks ugly when you look at that score and when their two post guys combine to miss seven or eight shots on the night it looks ugly, but we're not that far away. We have some young guys doing some impressive things. We have to get tougher and find some size and fall in love with defending. The laundry list is long in terms of things we have to do. I'm proud of their fight, and they're going to look back on this year and realize what a pivotal -- we all are. We're going to look back on this year and realize what a pivotal year it was for our program and their growth. They're not going to soon forget how hard this was, and that's what will propel them to make it different. Q. Sherri, you mentioned in your opening statement that you thought maybe they got overwhelmed a little bit with the game plan. Is one of the reference points maybe when you pulled within two or one in the third, you make a rally, looks like you're getting into this game, and then all of the sudden you don't make a bucket or two and you're down five or six and it gets away from you? COACH COALE: We panicked. We talked at the timeout about our momentum we had momentum. You have to continue to hang on to that and make this next play. This play coming out of the timeout is an important one, but I could sense it even in that timeout a little trepidation. They wanted so badly to win and advance here and to play beyond the first day here, and. When we missed a couple of easy shots I felt it really -- you could just cut it with a knife. Again, I think the inability to stop them sort of bleeds into that, and it did turn into a snowball and they took advantage of it. Q. Sherri, same question to you. You spoke on it, but the difficulties and challenges for you this year, personally or professionally, what was it like for you? It's been a long time since this program has been -- you know, 8 wins for a year. What was this like? COACH COALE: It was hard, very hard. At the same time, there were lots of rewards in the growth of these young guys. My job is to teach, not to be frustrated or talk about how difficult it is for me. My job is to teach and coach and lead, and I've tried really hard to do that. We as a staff have tried really hard to model realistic optimism. Here are our weaknesses. Here is where we need to get better and this is what we can do, and hopefully we can do that and we have cemented that mindset that you have to believe and you have to be Rev #2 by #515 at 2019-03-09 02:53:00 GMT page 2 of 3

realistic about what your shortcomings are and how you can shore those up. I'm proud of them. Nobody likes to lose. I put myself at the top of that list. There is nothing fun about it. But at the same time, our job is to grow kids, and that's what we're trying to do. Q. Sherri, along those lines, how confident are you -- you talked about how close you believe this team is. How confident are you that this can get turned around relatively quickly, whether it's the players that you've got now, the ones you've got coming in, and the job your staff has to do? COACH COALE: Well, I'm very confident about the future, you know? Again, this is a team that had two seniors that played sparingly, no juniors, and everybody else is freshmen and sophomores. I don't know of another team in the country that's in that situation. This is -- yeah, it's been tough. Yeah, we feel like we hit rock bottom. But from there you spring forward. There are lots of guys who are close. When you add that up and they continue to get better, things can happen really quickly, you know? It's a lot of work ethic in the off-season where guys have to figure out how to work on their weaknesses and how to compete and how to get tougher. It's also going to look entirely different after these guys have an off-season together and can come back next year. There is no doubt we need to add some size. There is no doubt about that. We return all of our scoring, all of our rebounding. We return everything, all of our assists, and we have three guys joining us. I'm excited about that. I'm excited about the potential of them. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much for your comments. Rev #2 by #515 at 2019-03-09 02:53:00 GMT page 3 of 3