And for us, crashing the boards offensively, we're a problem for a lot of teams with our board play. I thought we gave up too many offensive boards tonight, but down the stretch, we got the defensive boards when we needed them. It's always been a big deal at this program. 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. I think when you have that complete buy in and confidence, it pulls you together and gets you through a tight game." Even the players that didn't play have roles that were really important tonight. They know they can depend on each other, and I think that they know everybody has a role. I think it's a statement inside that locker room, and I think they know how we can win. To me, this is more about what we can do and really talk about our program and our team. I don't even know that our team's worried about what the rankings are.
"I don't know that we're in there worried about statements and such. 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 able to stay in the game give us long minutes. Toughness is making the right play mentally. We talk about toughness it's not always physicality. "Right now, Tamari is playing with a toughness that's just different. On Tamari's impact through the first four games…
#You vs the guy she says not to worry about free#
Our players can make free throws, they just have to step up and do it." They stepped up there with a little more confidence, and you know we talked about it this week, that's what it takes. "Well I think we were, going down the stretch into overtime, we were pretty focused, and I thought our kids locked in. Our defense got tight down the stretch, and we're able to come out of here with a good one." We had people step up and make some big plays when we had to make them. We're going to fight to the buzzer no matter what. 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. Can't say that it was pretty, but you can definitely say it's gutsy. 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. Tennessee Head Coach Kellie Harper Opening statement.