Everything Kellie Harper said after Missouri's loss to South Carolina

Missouri head women’s basketball coach Kellie Harper spoke with the media following No. 3 South Carolina’s 112-71 win over the Tigers at Colonial Life Arena on Thursday night.

Here’s everything she had to say.

Especially in the second half, it really seemed that they got into a game that favored you, basket-for-basket, speed-for-speed. Just how do you think your team was handling that in the second half?

“Well, you know, in that third quarter, we made shots, and I thought we were able to get a few stops and get out in transition, not in terms of speed, but spacing. I thought we did some good things there. Obviously, our players shared the ball well in that quarter and we were able to knock down some shots.”

Midway through the first quarter, when things kind of got away from you guys, what did you see out of your players? Was it what South Carolina was doing? Was it some of what your players weren’t doing? How did you see that?

“Well, you know, in a game like this, you want to try to control as much as you can, and we’re very limited when we go out on the court, being able to control things against that team. We understand that. So, we talked about doing a few things better. I thought we lost some composure there, we were able to kind of collect ourselves and get that back. You know, it’s a great place to play basketball, right. It’s a great environment but you’ve got to be able to handle it. I think that’s important for our team. You have to stay scrappy, and keep trying. You can’t just move out of the way for them, you’ve got to keep trying.”

NEW! Message board for South Carolina Women’s Basketball!

What did you think about Saniah (Tyler’s) foul on (Maddy) McDaniel early, and then how do you think the crowd kind of played a role in your guys’ eventual downturn?

“Well, you know, she lost her composure for that moment, and that’s not who we are. And she is one of the sweetest kids to ever be around. I mean, she is just a wonderful person, and so I hate that she lost it and hate she did that. That’s not what we want to be, you know, we apologize to South Carolina for that. That’s not a good play. It’s not a good look, in particularly for somebody of that character. But listen, I don’t to…this is nothing negative against the crowd. The crowd’s amazing, but we could go scrimmage that team and that’s what the score is going to be. We could go scrimmage that team in a closed door arena, and that’s probably what we’re going to see. They’re good. They didn’t need the help tonight, but they have a lot of support tonight.”

You’ve faced a lot of point guards in your coaching career. Is there anything that sticks out about Raven Johnson, either tonight or just across her career?

“Raven is a winner. You know, it’s, just watching her journey here, she’s been one of our favorite players to just watch, you know And she’s improved, and she’s accepted her role, or at least it looks as though she has accepted her role throughout her career. And she is so confident, and she is so poised, and she leads that team. I’m glad she’s a senior. But, she’s a terrific basketball player. It’s been fun to watch her journey.”

NEW! Message board for South Carolina Women’s Basketball!