March 4, 2010
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 
VANDERBILT QUOTES
THE MODERATOR: We’ve got Vanderbilt head coach Melanie Balcomb. Coach, if you could make an opening comment about tonight’s game.
COACH BALCOMB: I just felt it was a tremendous game on both team’s part. I thought both teams fought very hard on both ends of the floor and made big plays when they needed it. It was a tough game I think for anybody to lose. You hate to see anybody lose a game like that.
But somebody has to move onto the next round. As even a game as I’ve ever been in.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. Coach, there’s been a lot of talk about the parity in the SEC this year. Did the seeding make any difference?
COACH BALCOMB: No. That’s the way it’s been all year. When you look at the scores every night, I can’t believe this score and that score. Everybody has been surprised all year. Nothing is going to surprise us.
We had a really tough time at Arkansas, as well. I knew in a one-and-done situation this might be the most exciting SEC tournament that we’ve experienced.
Q. Can you talk about what your game plan was for the overtime.
COACH BALCOMB: Keep the ball in Jence’s hands as long as I could.
You know, really shutting down their three. They hit huge shots from three. Then they went into the post, and the post was scoring. It was tough to make a defensive game plan. When we doubled, they kicked out three. We were trying to make game-time changes all night on offense and defense.
I think we hit a spurt on offense where we couldn’t make a shot and that hurt us and they got the lead.
I loved our fight back in that situation to get it to go to overtime.
Q. How important is this game to LSU tomorrow?
COACH BALCOMB: I’m always one of those people that thinks about the positive not the negative. Going in, what I like is that we’ve already played on this court, so this is our home court now and they’re just playing their first game. That’s the way I look at it.
We already have our feet wet on a neutral court and are comfortable, and a victory on it. Sometimes I will take that, if you look at it in the scheme of things.
We take one game at a time. You always want rest if you can have it. I like that we’ve won on this court already and feel comfortable on it.
Q. Rebecca, your post play has improved considerably. Can you talk about the change.
Rebecca Silinski: It’s just all about confidence in practice and being prepared for the game-time situations, and then going in knowing that I’m ready to be able to play and to contribute.
Q. I haven’t looked at the box scores yet. Jence, are you high scorer?
Jence Rhoads: Yeah.
Q. High scorer again. What do you have to say about how difficult this game was tonight?
Jence Rhoads: Arkansas battled. It was a battle from tip to end. They are a good team. Even though they were the 12 seed, they came to play. They gave us a good game, and luckily we were able to come out on top.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
ARKANSAS QUOTES
THE MODERATOR: We now have with us Arkansas Head Coach Collen. Coach, would you make an opening comment about tonight’s game.
COACH COLLEN: It was a tough loss for us. I thought we came down and battled hard, got behind by a pretty good margin twice and battled back. Got a stop, goes into overtime.
It’s hard. You get into these kind of games, and it’s all about making plays.
Give Vanderbilt credit. They got good veterans out there to make plays when they needed to. I’m proud of the kids I got, because all our kids were making plays, even Charity Ford over here, our freshmen and sophomores. There was a bunch of them, and that’s really promising for us for the future.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. Could you talk about your play tonight, Charity. You seemed to be a big part of the scrapping.
CHARITY FORD: I just tried to make plays for my team. I just tried to go out there and play hard today. I just feel like the game was on the line. I felt like I had to go out there and just play hard, and the plays would come to me.
I just went out to look hard and play through it, and it just came.
Q. Dominique, you came out and showed your three-point shot tonight. Were you feeling that shot this evening?
DOMINIQUE ROBINSON: I think when we came to the arena, I was just private about the whole game entirely. I was just ready to play, show my team the heart that we have, just try to be vocal, just step up and hit shots that I knew I could make, so… .
Q. Coach, this game typified the SEC this season. Your thoughts?
COACH COLLEN: I told our players before the game, you know, when you’re playing a 12 against a 5, if you get a win you’re probably gonna be on SportsCenter tonight, because they like to talk about the 5-12 upsets.
In the same breath, I basically said that, you know, if you think about it, there’s not a lot of difference between a 5 and a 12. I think we proved that tonight. I think if you look at the last week of the season, the upsets that happened, that scrambled the seeding.
And when you look at, I don’t know whether you call them upsets or not, but two teams won today earlier in the day that were the lower seeded teams. It’s just how good this league is from top to bottom.
I know every other conference in this country claims they’re the best from top to bottom. I just really believe in my heart — I know we finished in the 12 seed, and I know how good we can be on any given night.
You know, I feel like we can play with any top 25 team in the country, except maybe Connecticut. It’s just a great conference to play in. It’s hard on coaches, hard on players, but it’s a great conference to play in.
