Texas in the NCAA WBB tournament
Texas in the NCAA WBB tournament
On Saturday night, Texs women’s basketball and William & Mary will cross paths at the Moody Center during the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
But before facing each other, Texas and William & Mary had to face the media Friday. Here is everything that William & Mary had to say about Texas during their conferences for senior guard Bella Nascimento, freshman forward Natalie Fox and sophomore guard Monet Dance and head coach Erin Dickerson Davis.
About the Texas defense
Nascimento: “Yeah, Texas is a really good team, number one, obviously. The main thing is that they’re really big and we’re not as big and so we just have to play physical, play tough and match their intensity. Even though we lack height, being aggressive and trying to punch first I think will stump them a little bit.”
Fox: “Yeah, I’m pretty sure we’re going to focus on what’s gotten us here thus far, playing hard, playing intense, going for all the 50/50 balls. Focusing on what we do and just matching their intensity and playing our game.”
Dance: “I think height, it does play a big role in this game. Our posts are going to be boxing owl their posts so it’s going to be a big emphasis for your guards to come in and get the rebounds but I think the main focus is not getting too high or too low because this game is definitely going to be loud and we just need to focus on what we came here to do and execute that.”
About facing a team with the Longhorns’ size
Fox: “I’m just excited to be able to embrace this opportunity. I always love to be able to play a little bit more physical, getting inside and, like, see what I can do against these tougher, bigger, older teams so I’m kind of just excited to be able to — it’s like a test for myself, see what I can do against Texas.”
On what William & Mary is facing on Saturday
Dickerson Davis: “Goliath. Texas — I think I said this yesterday. I didn’t watch Texas film coming into this because we were focused on one game at a time but I’ve literally watched them the entire season. We were transitioning offense and I knew that Vic Schaefer ran dribble-drive offense and so all summer and offseason I actually studied Texas women’s basketball and their dribble-drive offense. So I feel like I’ve been watching this team for a very long time. They are so good.
“You know, it starts at the top. Coach Schaefer is one of the best in the business. He’s going to go down in history as one of the best to ever do it. He has a very well-coached team. They’re disciplined, they’re talented, they’re humongous. We watched it on film this morning with the team. It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s very funny because I know Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton very well from growing up and earlier in the year she said you should come down and play us and I’m like never! And then all of a sudden we’re here. So it’s very excited. Our players are just happy for the opportunity to go out there and compete and play our game and be on a stage with players and coaches of that level.”
On Dickerson Davis’ relationship with UT assistant coach Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton
“We’re both from Illinois. We’re maybe one year apart in age, so we played against each other a lot. We played with each other some, so we’ve literally known each other since I was like 14.”
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