South Carolina women's basketball: Everything Texas A&M coach Joni Taylor said to preview Gamecocks-Aggies

Texas A&M women’s basketball coach Joni Taylor spoke with the media on Tuesday to preview Thursday’s game versus South Carolina.

Question: Two great second halves in a row. So, how do you make that the first half?

Taylor: We’re going to tell the team to start the game as this third quarter, see if that makes a difference. I think it’s just continuing to show it to them on film. Like, we’re extremely fortunate in the fact that we have some fight to us and that we’re very resilient. However, we can’t rely on that to save the day for us. We’ve already learned in the Tennessee game that it doesn’t work, and our schedule doesn’t get any easier in the league that we play in.

So, it’s just showing them the difference between the first and second quarter and the third and fourth. We look like two completely different teams, and we just can’t do that. So, it’s just continuing to show it to them, stopping them in practice when there is slippage, when it doesn’t look the way it’s supposed to look, and making sure that they understand what it needs to be all the time.

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Question: Do you approach the team that’s basically won like 90 or 95 percent of games in the last decade, do you approach that game with your players differently or is it literally just the next game up?

Taylor: It’s the next game up. We approach every game the same, two-day prep work. Now, with that being said, I think I said this on Sunday, what Dawn has done at South Carolina is just tremendous. I remember, as a player in this league at Alabama, going to South Carolina and there being 15 people in the stands. And so, to walk into Colonial Life Arena and see the fans, the fam, and 15,000 people there for women’s basketball, it’s exciting.

She’s a huge part of – South Carolina is a huge part of – why our game has grown the way it has over the last decade. So, there’s things that you talk about, for sure. But in terms of our prep and our approach, we approach it the same way in terms of the two-day out, one-day out, what we do, what our strategy is. But there’s some things that you definitely address with the team a little differently, just as it relates to the atmosphere, their dynasty, their mindset. You know, they have what we are trying to build.

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Question: Four straight, or four top-25 opponents straight, can you just speak to just the difficulty in this league, just in straight weeks, it seems like?

Taylor: Yeah, I love it. It’s exciting. I mean, when you’re preparing for it, sometimes you’re scratching your head. But it’s why you come to the SEC: to practice with and play against the best every Sunday, Thursday, and Monday. It’s been that way since I was a player. It’s a gauntlet. It requires a level of mental toughness. It requires a level of physical responsibility in terms of taking care of your body, because you know what’s coming, and it doesn’t, it just never ends. And so it’s another great opportunity for us to get better.

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Question: Are you pleased with the trajectory of where your defense is headed and kind of just how they’ve been able to progress?

Taylor: I am. I really am. Obviously, it’s something that I want to do at a very high level, and I think that we’ve been able to show really good spurts defensively of just how we can impact the game to hold Ole Miss or any team, for that matter, without a field goal in the fourth quarter is really impressive, and I think it just shows, again, what we are capable of.

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Question: Kind of bouncing off the first question, just how much are you stressing not getting down by 16 points, especially against a team like South Carolina?

Taylor: You’ll be down 30. We have a saying around here that says, “before you know it.” Like, if you keep doing the right thing, keep putting your head down, keep grinding, you look up, and before you know it, you’ll be where you’re supposed to be. Likewise, if you don’t come out ready, if you are pouting, if you are feeling sorry for yourself, before you know it, you won’t be where you’re supposed to be. And so that’s one of those things at South Carolina. They’re a really good team. They play really well at home. We will be, flashback of last year here, we’ll be down 15 to zero before we can bat an eye if we don’t come out ready to go.

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Question: What do you need to do well, or what does your team need to do well, especially in a road environment like that?

Taylor: I think we need to all be on the same page in terms of what it is we’re doing, so we’ll start film session here in a minute, so these next two days of practice is really important. We’ve got to make sure we have all eyes on the bench, and we’re echo-yelling and, you know, relaying information and communication because it’s very loud in there. And then we’ve got to take care of the basketball and try to make them play in the half-court and not score in transition.

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Question: Health is always a big question. Were you in better shape, you feel, with the Ole Miss game than you were in better shape in Tennessee at the end of the game? Do you feel, you know, your team was in better shape for the whole game than maybe it was for Ole Miss?

Taylor: You know, I thought that we looked really sluggish the first two quarters against Ole Miss, and then I thought in the third and fourth quarter, we kind of got our legs back under us, so I don’t know if that’s residual from Thursday’s game or not.

Whereas in the Tennessee game, I thought we looked, our pace was pretty good with theirs. I think we are definitely in better condition than we have been as we were getting people back on the practice floor and actually able to practice them and get some continuity. It’s something that we’re constantly managing and navigating.

Question: Is there some concern? You really haven’t had a true road game in a while. I mean, obviously, you’ve been two weeks off, even between your last game. It seems like you hadn’t been on the road for a long time.

Taylor: Yeah, it’s been since we went to Atlantis, and so that was right before Thanksgiving. So, we had three games there, and then we were at West Virginia, so we’ve been in those environments. It has been a while, so we just did it backwards. Normally, you’re at home, and then you’re on the road, and we were on the road first and then finished out our non-conference at home.

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