Everything Chloe Kitts, Te-Hina Paopao said before South Carolina's NCAA Tournament game versus Indiana
South Carolina women’s basketball players Chloe Kitts and Te-Hina Poapoa held a press conference on Thursday to preview the Gamecocks’ NCAA Tournament game vs Indiana.
Q. Te-Hina, I understand you guys are focused on the next game, but you’re four games away from doing something — you’d be the fifth school in the country to ever go undefeated. How much would that mean to you? How much are you guys aware of that, and how much pressure are you putting on yourselves to complete the season the way you want to?
TE-HINA PAOPAO: Yeah, we’ve had a great season so far. We’re really excited. We have been looking forward to the next four games, but as you said, we’re taking one game at a time.
I think we’ll be very proud of ourselves for our journey so far. Not a lot of teams have done this before, so just being able to be the fifth team to win the whole thing, go undefeated, it’s something that says a lot to our program and to the culture that Coach has built.
There’s really no pressure at all. We just keep being who we are, keep playing with a chip on our shoulder and just play freely. That’s how she coaches us, and we’re going to keep doing that, and we’re just really excited to get it going.
Q. When Coach Staley was just up here, she said after you guys won the SEC tournament that she heard some conversations she’d never heard from you guys just thinking more to the future, and she’s like, it’s just about Presbyterian now. Was there a moment when she spoke to you and was honing it in on just focusing on the next opponent?
CHLOE KITTS: She spokes to us a couple of times because we were talking about the future, talking about the championship game and all this, but she just had to get our minds straight because when you take one game at a time — because at the end of the day, it could be our last game. It’s not going to be, but we can’t look in the future too far.
TE-HINA PAOPAO: Yeah, she did mention that. We were talking about hey, we have six games left, but at the same time, it’s like, hey, we’ve got to take one game at a time because that part of the season is where it’s like you either win or go home, and I know we definitely don’t want to go home. So we’re going to take one game and we are going to play like it’s our last.
Q. For both players, what kind of challenges does Indiana present when they play with that inside-outside combination of Holmes and Scalia?
CHLOE KITTS: They have a really good high-low game so we need to be able to try and take that away and they also have shooters and they move well, so we’ve just got to lock in on defense and Coach will put us in a good situation, and we’ve had a couple good practices and we’re ready for them.
TE-HINA PAOPAO: Yeah, as she said, they have a really good inside-outside game so we as guards are going to have to do a good job at guarding perimeter and trusting our posts that they’ll lock down Holmes and do what they can, and at the end of the day we’ve just got to play team defense and stop Scalia, obviously, and then stop their next leading scorer and just play team defense and lock in.
Q. Chloe, whenever a team like you is running through a season, obviously the neutral fans tend to root for the underdogs. Do you guys kind of relish the role of wearing the black hats when you go into arenas and being the team that everyone wants to shoot down?
TE-HINA PAOPAO: You know, we just come in the gym — we’re going to come in the gym wanting to compete, wanting to win, and if that’s who we’ve got to be, that’s who we’re going to be. They can paint us to whoever they want us to be, but at the end of the day, whoever wins the game is the winner. We’re just going to come into every gym with the mindset that we’re going to win, and it’s either win or go home, and I know we definitely don’t want to go home.
CHLOE KITTS: Yeah, we’re not really worried about outside talk. We’re just kind of all together, and we keep stuff in between our team. We’re a big family, so we don’t really worry about what anybody else says about us.
Q. Chloe, you guys were undefeated at this point last season, as well, and obviously came up just a little short. I’m wondering for the returning players, lessons learned from last season that can help you guys now headed into this run?
CHLOE KITTS: Well, last year was heartbreaking losing that game, and the people who were here last year, we feel that. We still kind of feel that.
We don’t ever want to feel like that again, so we just — we try not to think about that game because we haven’t — the girls, the new girls, they weren’t there, so we kind of threw that under the bus and we’re just worried about the future and they just want to win so bad, and it just makes us want it more.
Q. Te-Hina, talk about the impact Coach Staley has had on you on and off the court.
TE-HINA PAOPAO: Well, she’s had a great impact on my life on and off the court. On the court, she’s a mastermind on the basketball court and she knows what she’s doing, obviously. She’s been in this for quite a while, one of the icons in the game.
She’s just been helping me as a point guard just make the right reads and giving me confidence on the court, and off the court she just teaches discipline, and she’s all about discipline and the standard, and that’s helped me grow as a woman, and I really appreciate her for that.
Obviously the job is not done, and I’m just really grateful to have her in my corner.
CHLOE KITTS: She’s helped me a lot, especially last year coming in halfway. I was young, and it was really hard for me, so just being able to go to her in her office and talk to her every day just helped me so much on the court, just confidence-wise. It’s just been such big difference.
Then off the court she’s been teaching me to mature and grow up because that’s what I need to do. She’s been helping me with that a lot. She’s just someone I look up to, especially when I was younger I always looked up to her. Being around her I just try and ask as much questions as I can and try to get everything I can from her while I’m here.
Q. Te-Hina, this seems to be the year of the guard in college basketball. Why do you think there’s such a crop of amazing talent across the country? Was it something you guys were watching growing up? Is it just the position itself and how it’s grown? Why do you think there’s so much focus on guard play this season?
TE-HINA PAOPAO: I think there’s so much focus on guard play this season because there’s so many guards this year. There’s actually really good guards this year. When I was little, I used to watch a lot of basketball, and there was a lot of big guards, big wings, and nowadays it’s a lot of guards who are really shifty or play with a lot of flair, a lot of spice, and I think that’s what a lot of people have been looking towards the women’s game is how much spice they can bring, how much flavor they can bring to the game.
One of our guards, Lay, she’s a prime example of that and she’s only going to grow from here and she’s one of those guards that play with spice and flavor. She’s Lay with the butta, so obviously there’s going to be a lot of guards like that that play with so much confidence and just go out there and hoop, and it’s a great sight to see, and I’m excited to see what the future holds for guards.
