BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Here is video and a complete transcript from North Carolina’s postgame press conference at Legacy Arena, with Coach Courtney Banghart, Lexi Donarski and Alyssa Ustby, after the Tar Heels’ 47-38 loss to Duke on Friday in the Sweet 16. In addition, there’s a video of intereviews in the dressing room with Maria Gakdeng, Indya Nivar and Reniya Kelly.
COURTNEY BANGHART: Well, obviously sitting up here after a loss is disappointing, especially when you hold your third straight tournament team below 50 points and you don’t win the game. I don’t know how many — I’m not great at statistics. I don’t know how many teams have held that many Power Five NCAA Tournament teams below 50, but it’s not really a game you should lose, if that’s the case.
We really didn’t shoot the ball well enough, we didn’t play through their physicality enough, we didn’t attack outside legs well enough, we didn’t play off two well enough.
So it led to what you’re seeing here, 28% from the field, 27% from 3 and 50% from the free throw and you still lose the game by less than 10. It’s pretty remarkable.
Yeah, I think it’s better to answer questions that y’all need me to answer and use the time wisely that way.
Q. Ladies, I know losses suck but to have gotten to the Sweet 16 what are you feeling right now besides disappointment?
LEXI DONARSKI: Yeah, honestly going to need some time to process, still. We were talking a couple of minutes ago and it never was a thought that our season was going to be over today.
So just the shock of that and knowing that we’re not showing up for practice tomorrow definitely will take some time to process.
ALYSSA USTBY: It’s definitely a special experience, obviously so much work goes into building a basketball team and as long as the season is, I’m proud of how far we were able to come. But, yeah, stings.
Q. Alyssa, you’ve been in Chapel Hill for five years, what has your career meant to you?
ALYSSA USTBY: My career has meant a lot to me. I’ve probably put more identity into it more than I should, but I will be able to sort that out in the next couple of days, weeks, months, so on. I’m grateful for the opportunity to play at North Carolina, play for Coach Banghart for five years, seeing her every single day nearly all year long, I’m just really grateful for the experience and I wish everybody could have such a fulfilling experience that I had.
Q. How did the game shift when Maria went down? Seems like that’s when Duke took control.
ALYSSA USTBY: Hard for me to say. I feel like I would have to watch it back. Obviously we need Maria in and we need her to produce but when Maria goes down, we have our small lineup and we have proven to be productive with that lineup as well. I think the people on the floor needed to take more responsibility, especially myself included on scoring the ball and making sure we continued to get stops.
LEXI DONARSKI: I think the thing about our team is we win in a lot of different ways. We have different people step up every single game. So, yes, we’re more comfortable with Maria on the floor, we love playing with Maria but I still think we have pieces that can score when we have our smaller lineup in, too, and we just didn’t do that. We didn’t step up in ways that we needed to to go ahead tonight.
Q. Alyssa, with this being your last game and Lexi, how do you feel leaving this program in the hands of young players like Lanie and Blanca? How confident do you feel in them?
LEXI DONARSKI: Honestly this group is everything that I could have wanted to finish out my career with, and I’m just so excited to be all of their biggest supporters in years to come.
ALYSSA USTBY: I think for Lexi and I we hope that our impact, whether it’s infusing girls with confidence or having them learn strategic things from us can transfer down and they can pick up the torch and lead the program moving forward. That’s all we could hope for as exiting seniors.
Q. Alyssa, we just watched this from the sideline but what makes them so tough defensively? You guys are also a great defensive team but what makes it so difficult to get your offense going against those guys?
ALYSSA USTBY: I think we have a great defense as well obviously but Duke is pretty disciplined. They are there on their rotations, they know to double. They are pretty sound defensively, so that makes us take tougher shots and alters our looks we are used to getting. But that’s the game of basketball. Just because one thing doesn’t work, doesn’t mean the play is over. We gotta go down to the other end.
That’s the beauty of it, you have to find other ways to score and I felt like we just weren’t connected in that aspect of it today.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies.
Q. Coach, like you said in your opening statement it’s disappointing to lose, but you guys got here. You managed to get here. Like the girls said, that’s a feat in itself and you made history playing Duke for the first time in March Madness. What are you feeling knowing that this has come and gone?
COURTNEY BANGHART: Yeah. There’s two ways to look at life. You can be afraid of failure or you can be afraid of regret. I’m choosing that — I never want to regret anything. There were things offensively that we you just weren’t as sharp, obviously, when you look at Maria, she is +9, and her going out in this game was a real bummer, and kudos she tried to come back but she couldn’t.
One of the things I’m thinking as I told these guys in the locker room, it wasn’t enough. As a coach you have to navigate that moment with the legacy of what has been since June. And what has been since June is that I don’t think anyone in this room has anybody in their life that speaks about them as highly as this team speaks about their seniors. Over time that will become more important.
It’s not today, right, but every time I meet with the players and show them film and talk to them about stuff, it’s always, I want to do it for our seniors. There is something special that you’ve impacted people’s lives where people want to do something special for you.
So I’m feeling gratitude for time well spent with that senior group, all five of them, but, yeah, I’m also having to navigate the wasn’t quite enough, and that’s the hard thing about sitting in this chair at this time.
Q. Courtney, I wanted to ask about your perspective on Alyssa’s career and everything she has meant to Carolina?
COURTNEY BANGHART: I’m going to try not to get emotional, because remember she wasn’t evenly chosen by ESPN as one of the top-100 players in our country; you’re kidding, right? But I trusted my eyes. You can’t replace — there is not a skill set in the world that can replace a skill set of a relentless pursuit of excellence every day.
So that kid willed herself to learn to play basketball at an elite level. And how she is today, is how she was yesterday and the day before and the day before and the day before. So the fact that she wore Carolina across her chest, the fact that she cared about the right things and the fact that she is proof that relentlessness is a skill. I think we all think we’ll just make everybody play hard. If it was that easy, everyone would do that. Her special super power is she has a relentless quest for excellence. When all the dust settles, she will know she is leaving her footprint at a place that’s had excellence everywhere.
Q. Talk about the adjustments you had to make with Maria out? Obviously you had Alyssa at the 5 a good bit, and it was already going to be a physical battle inside; it just got tougher.
COURTNEY BANGHART: Again, it’s always the minutes, right? A kid that plays you can lean on for 30+ minutes a game, now you can lean on her for 9. I know she played 15, but six of those you guys all saw how she was able to move. So now you have less minutes. Now you’re asking Alyssa to play 40. You can’t even get her any rest; right? Not only that but she is a rim protector, she is an elite rebounder, and she is your late clock; you can get it into her. We didn’t have any of that, and Duke forces you into late clock. That was — I tried to act like it was next man up, but when you lose Maria late in the game, you’re up nine, that’s a big loss.
Q. You talked about Alyssa’s consistency and relentlessness and now going forward it feels like a page turning for your program because she is not going to be around. How do you keep those qualities of her in your program? Do you think the young group will carry those on?
COURTNEY BANGHART: You hope the winning is; right? You can’t go to a national championship from never going to the Final Four, from never going to the Sweet 16. So going to two Sweet 16 in four years, there is a culture now, there is an expectation. It lets you speak louder. It lets you speak more directly, right, to your team.
But in college athletics now everything is a “turn the page.” This particular year has two years worth of seniors. So you’re not going to see it this pretty for a long time. This is pretty remarkable. There will be a wash out for a lot of teams of great talent. Our job as coaches is to put another great product on the floor.
It will look a little bit different for all teams, and ours. But I don’t know if you can — I think what Alyssa is leaving is she has brought her team to two Sweet 16s in four years. That winning now is — that’s a standard, right? I think that more so than I wish — if I could bottle up her relentlessness, we would be undefeated. Hard to do.
Q. Coach, two things. Was Maria’s injury — it looked like an ankle?
COURTNEY BANGHART: I think so. I chose to ignore it, but yeah.
Q. This doesn’t seem like a fun game to coach in, and I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way, but it’s just so hard when shots aren’t going down. I’m wondering, not every game is going to be 90-87, but is this a tough game because it feels like a grind from start to finish?
COURTNEY BANGHART: Yeah, especially people are looking at the scoreboard and didn’t watch the game, you’re thinking, oh gosh, as opposed to choosing to recognize these are two of the best defenses that have played over the last five years, and you add familiarity and roster understanding and system familiarity, and then you add the physicality, right? So you’re trying to read how they’re going to allow physicality, how you’re going to allow post play, how you’re going to allow body on the drives, right?
You know, that’s — that was a challenge, of course, as well. They’re all fun, honestly, Michael, they really are. I know that sounds kind of odd. They’re all fun because they require us to stretch ourselves in different ways, right? Having the mental energy of beating West Virginia’s press and staying in the attack, versus having to deal with Oregon State’s size and more of a saggy team. They all challenged me difficultly and our team. They are all fun. I don’t know those that love offense probably isn’t the game that you’re DVRing, or whatever you call it these days, but those that like defense, you should watch it again.
Q. Courtney, this goes a little off Mitchell’s question, the next chapter and building off this year. What do you think specifically about this year worked for you all between the off season or throughout the season and things like that, like what kind of work for you guys to be able to hit the milestones that you hit?
COURTNEY BANGHART: Good returning experienced players, excellent leadership, young people that brought youthful joy and hunger, and a competitive group that cared about outteaming and outtoughing most of the time.
So they didn’t have off Tuesdays, off Sundays; they were always on. The way they spoke about each other, and the way they committed themselves, I mean, culture is a thing. It is a thing, right? You hope to get it right, and coaches don’t change dramatically, their roster changes dramatically. So there is an element of luck at times because we’re all kind of hunting the same thing, but this particular group had the experienced pieces with the youthful talent and energy, and commitment of the younger guys. Then they chose to care about the right things.
Duke press conference
KARA LAWSON: Exactly how we expected the game to go. It’s how these games are. If you’ve watched these games over the last few years, it’s competitive and really gritty and I thought both teams played with great effort.
It wasn’t our best night offensively, that’s for sure, but man, did we dig down deep the second and fourth quarter single digits and in the Sweet 16 that’s hard to do. That’s something that’s been consistently who we are and we consistently play with great effort on that end of the floor. We kept ourselves in it.
I will be honest I was worried down 11-0 if we would score at all in the game but I don’t think there has ever been a shutout in the tournament. So felt pretty good that we could score at some point and the two up here were huge difference makers for us. I thought Vanessa changed the game when she came in. Just her fearlessness attacking, ball screen action, getting to the rim and loosening up their defense to give us confidence and her composure running the team was huge.
Then Oluchi continues to be an exact player on both ends for us. I thought her two threes in the first half were big to give us confidence and obviously she carried the day with the rebounding, 12 boards today and we needed those. We were getting outrebounded at the half and we kept talking at timeouts about turning the tide in our direction.
So really proud of these two. They led the way to get us to the next round.
Q. Oluchi, an 11-0 hold in this type of game can be a pretty big one to dig out of, but you guys were able to do it. What was the refocus or the conversations and what got you guys back into the game and to go up by double digits?
OLUCHI OKANAWA: Great question. I think for one we all understood we’ve been here before, and with our connectivity we are able to climb out of any deficit if we focus on what we need to do: A, rebounding, our defensive abilities, cracking down on the details more. So that was our focus and keep doing us, keep doing what we do and we’re going to chip away.
Q. For both of you, obviously every win is sweet but is this sweeter knowing it’s against your long-time state rival?
VANESSA DE JESUS: Yeah, I think for us I think what makes it even more sweet is moving forward to a game that could potentially get us to the Final Four. And we want to play whoever we have to play and at the end of the day we’re just happy to get the win and keep moving forward.
OLUCHI OKANAWA: Of course being a part of this rivalry is great, they’re such a talented team. Obviously to be able to play a great game on a big stage like this to go to the Elite Eight was awesome.
Q. Oluchi talk about what it takes to play defense under Coach Lawson’s system. Can you give us the inside view of what it’s like to do what you were able to do today defensively?
OLUCHI OKANAWA: For one I think maybe a misconception with defense is that there is some sort of detail, and details are a part of it but most importantly, it’s your want. You either want to play defense or you don’t. And playing under Coach she has done a great job of creating that culture where we want to because it’s such a big part in how we win, and really just shows with our defensive mindset it’s all heart and it’s all playing for one another.
Q. I’ve been following you ladies pretty much most of the season. What can you say about this win over the rest of the wins?
VANESSA DE JESUS: Yeah, I think just for us, again, it shows how much this hard work since the summer over all these days has paid off, and last year we came short in this game. So for us it was about coming back to this moment and being ready and I think we did as a whole team and I’m just really proud of our whole group.
OLUCHI OKANAWA: It’s a little bit of deja vu because obviously last year we came to the Sweet 16, too, and we unfortunately fell short, we all knew we wanted to come back and get further. So it’s a blessing.
Q. Oluchi, another great game, 12 points, 12 rebounds, what were you seeing offensively and on the boards that allowed you to have success?
OLUCHI OKANAWA: I knew we were getting outrebounded, I knew every time a shot that goes up, I need to go in. That’s what my team needed from me to win.
Offensively I just kept running the floor. I just putting up the short that I’m confident in taking and that my team and my coaches are confident in me taking.
Q. Oluchi, you have talked about how energy kind of like is one of the main parts of your play style but today there were a lot of moments when it seemed like you were the first one up and down the court, especially when the starters got into a hole early, it seemed like when the bench got on there, the energy brought was contagious. Can you talk about how you bring energy and Vanessa talk how as the point guard, it’s your job to manage the energy?
VANESSA DE JESUS: I think for myself coming in, in the games I had a lot of ups and downs in that moment. And for me it’s important to bring that composure and me being a vet and playing in these big games I think, I understand what we need to stay together and playing my role, and I just kept our composure.
OLUCHI OKANAWA: For me while I do bring energy, I am someone who feeds off my teammates, and I really fed off her today. She was incredible and seeing what she was doing really revitalized me, and it made me even more aggressive and hungry to get done what I needed to get done.
Q. Both of you, thinking back what was it about Coach Lawson that made each of you want to play for her and to reach the Elite Eight with her, what does that mean to you both?
OLUCHI OKANAWA: My want to play for Coach, it definitely came from knowing that she was going to push me. I’m sure you guys hear that all the time but with Coach and the energy that I sense from her was she meant it. She meant every word that every day in practice she is going to push you to get your best out of you.
She has not fallen short on that commitment to me and I think that’s why I’m here, why we’re all here, because she has done that with each of us individually.
VANESSA DE JESUS: Same as Luch, but as a point guard her wisdom playing at every level, coaching at every level. That experience and wisdom is something I really looked forward to learning from and she is great mentor for all of us and that’s a big part of why we want to play for her.
THE MODERATOR: Any more questions? Ladies, you’re dismissed. Questions for Coach.
Q. Kara, I know I asked the girls but I want to know from your perspective, is it sweeter knowing that you defeated your in-state rival today to get to the Elite Eight or is it just a win is a win?
KARA LAWSON: I think what you’re chasing is more important than who you have to go through. Think about it. What you’re chasing has to take precedence over who you have to go through. We try to focus on that.
We have great respect for them and great respect for every team we’ve played, but I’ve always felt like that focus is it’s best to do your job, not worry about who, but worry about what you need to do to win.
That’s kind of been our mindset every game. I think that keeps you locked in the way you need to be locked in in this tournament.
So we’re pleased to get the win. I’m sure our fans are happy, because, you know, it’s obviously very heated. So I guess back home there’s some backyard bragging rights maybe for our Duke fans in Durham, but I can’t say I felt more elation going to shake hands because of who we played, it was because of what we just did, which is reach the Elite 8.
Q. Coach, I’ve asked you this throughout the season. After this win what are you going to tell your ladies going into the Elite Eight after this sweet victory?
KARA LAWSON: To stay process oriented with what we need to do next. We don’t know who our opponent will be. There is a great game about to start. Once we find that out, we will go to work tonight and start to watch film or start to put film in front of them, obviously, and come up with a game plan and then work on getting that down as best we can in the short turnaround here to play on Sunday.
It’s what we did last weekend and what we did at the ACC Tournament, so it’s pretty formulaic for them at this point. They have an understand of what needs to be done to be mentally and physically prepared for the next game.
Q. Your girls were really big off the bench tonight outscored UNC 26 to 6. Talk about the importance of the depth of the bench, especially being down 11-0 early.
KARA LAWSON: If you’ve followed us all year, the bench has been pivotal. I don’t know where we rank in bench points, but I know we consistently have the game changed by players off the bench and it’s different ones. Most people around the country probably didn’t have de Jesus on the Bingo today, but we did. And we know she can change the game for us. I have such belief in all ten players in my rotation and I know they can change games.
Our bench has won us a ton of games this year ask they continue to give us good minutes. I thought Koabel’s minutes in the first half, she comes in and makes two big defensive winning plays, those were big plays.
Wood came in and got to the free-throw line and rebounded and hit the high post jumper on the flash against their sagging D, there are all these moments that I always go back and think about and I’ve seen them do that, make those plays against teams all year.
So that helps us, it helps us to have depth, whether we have foul trouble or whether we have a player who is not playing well. It’s a luxury to have depth and they root hard for one another, too. So that’s a nice part of it.
Q. Coach, can you reflect back on summer of 2020 taking over a program in the midst of the pandemic, you guys were forced to have to cancel most of next season and here you are now in the first Elite Eight in 12 years. Just that journey for you and for your program.
KARA LAWSON: When we got to Duke there was a lot that we needed to rebuild. It started, you know, just with how we were going to play and try to build an environment that is competitive was my first charge, create a competitive environment each day.
Then, I mean, you obviously have to recruit talent, so we started talking to players. My first conversation with Fournier was the summer of 2020. My first conversation with Donovan was the summer of 2020, Ashlon. We targeted young, high school players that we felt fit who we wanted to be. Who do we want to be? We always tried to look at it through that lens. We knew we weren’t very good right then but who did we want to be? So we tried to sell some of the top talent in the country that we would be good at some point.
I have a lot of love and respect for those players because we weren’t good then and we were competing and recruiting against the top programs that were good, that were going to Final Fours, that were winning national championships, and those kids made a choice, a conscious decision to say, hey, I think Duke could be something. I think they can compete at the highest level, I know it won’t help right away but I feel like Coach and her staff can help us get there. They all made the choice, the players that are sophomores and juniors made the choice for Duke when we weren’t in the tournament and we weren’t going to Sweet 16s, and I will be forever grateful to them for that.
We just worked hard in recruiting and tried to get as many players that fit how we wanted to play and we’re lucky that we were able to get so many to come.
Q. How do you keep your morale up looking back to maybe even this morning getting dressed. Was there a certain song on your playlist that kept your energy afloat? As a coach you are constantly pouring into your players but how are you pouring into yourself?
KARA LAWSON: I took a morning walk with my sister this morning, I like to walk on mornings just to relax. You’re going to find out how boring I really am in this answer so here we go. Buckle up. I walked. I don’t listen to music that much, it’s not something that gets me going like that.
I like to spend time alone in thought to prepare for what — kind of — not necessarily visualize but sequencing, go through the game and what could happen and being ready as a coach of what move I want to make, this move happens, that move happens and so you’re forecasting what are the potential things that could happen in the game and making sure that you’re prepared.
Then I will usually draw some plays, I have the board and I will do that for a while. Make sure I’m efficient and my letters are legible. You don’t want to be in a moment, it might be a 30-second timeout late in the game. You need to make sure that you’re writing legibly. So that they can see it and they can understand where they need to go so I will practice my penmanship on the board, and eat and come to the game. Pretty much what I do.
Q. You mentioned process earlier. In the process of building this program and understanding that it’s still ongoing what have you learned about yourself as a head coach and what’s necessary to sustain a winning program?
KARA LAWSON: I guess I’ve learned that — I don’t know what I’ve learned. Okay, here is what I know. I know I’m built for this, so I haven’t learned that. I knew that when I took the job. I know I’m built to do this job at a high level. So I haven’t learned that about myself, but I’ve learned how to be more efficient through that process of building a team through the course of a season.
And then all the decisions that you have to make, I think I have become clearer and more efficient at making them, because there’s a lot of decisions in this seat that you have to make, on and off the court. When you haven’t been a head coach before you’re making them for the first time, but then the second year you make ’em you’re better at it, and the third year you make them and you’re better at it, and you start to see the nuances of them instead of just that, and the decisions don’t overwhelm you as much; they’re expected now.
That’s important in this seat because there are just a lot of things — decisions to be made and you can’t allow all the decisions to overwhelm you. So staying clear. I think I’ve gotten more clear in what I want and how I want to do it. Then once I fixate on that, I’m pretty good at just doing that. I get focused on it. Hopefully that answered it.
Q. Kara, you’re coaching in an era where it’s obviously normal when players don’t see something go the way they want, they get out and leave. You have a deep team and a lot of these players talk about the confidence you instill in them. I’m curious where that comes from you, is it something you learned from Pat and how that developed as you grew as a coach?
KARA LAWSON: That definitely comes out of Coach Summitt. I would say the most important thing I took from her — I took hundreds of things from her, how could you not, one of the greatest coaches in any sport in our country’s history. I took a lot of things, but the thing that I felt was one of her super powers was her ability to connect with her players and her ability to really get in there with them, get in the struggle with them. Stay in the struggle with them and work to help them get out of it.
You know, not just tell them what to do but be in there with them, instructing them. So that’s something that I think I’ve grown in. I don’t think I was bad at it, at first but the more you’re around players — because they have different personalities, so you can’t cookie cutter your approach. How I get in there with V is different than Oluchi because they’re different personalities. How I get in there with Reigan is different than Ashlon.
So I spend a lot of time thinking about them and thinking about what’s the best way to get them to play their best. When you spend time — so to me relationships are time over time. You spend time over time with someone and that’s how you build trust. A position doesn’t give you trust. Just because I’m a head coach that doesn’t mean they’re going to trust me.
So if you think that positions give you trust or give you respect, then you’re going to be a poor leader. Time, over time, spend as much time with them as you can in groups and individually and learn about them. When you do that, they give you everything. You know? Because you have to be the first one to give everything as a coach.
So when they wake up every day I want them to feel not just know I want them to feel that they have a coach that’s going to give them everything. And wants them to succeed.
So that’s what we do for each other and that’s our connection. We’re so connected that way and that doesn’t mean it’s great all the time. We have hard conversations. We have tears, we have disagreements. That’s actually normal in a relationship, isn’t it? It’s normal to have disagreements, it’s normal to be frustrated with each other, it’s normal — that’s a part of it, conflict is a part of it.
So we work through it together, and we’re willing to sit in there and work through it together and that creates the bond. Then if you can create that bond, then this becomes so much more enjoyable, to see them get themselves to an Elite Eight is really cool to watch.
Transcript courtesy of ASAP Sports
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