March 21, 2003

North Carolina Head Coach Sylvia Hatchell

ON ALTITUDE: "It has been a really great trip. Practice is good and we're ready to play. I think we've come in here early enough. I told them a few little helpful hints to help them in practice. I think they'll be fine. They were fine in practice."

ON AUSTIN PEAY: "When you win 27 games, you're a pretty good team. They shoot the ball well and they have some good post players who are very athletic. Their post players have good moves inside and they can score down there. They have got some excellent three-point shooters. Their post players are good, they shoot the ball well, that's a trademark of their coach. They look good on tape, real good.

"People ask me about Colorado and BYU, and I could not tell you anything about them. Right now, we're just preparing for Austin Peay."

ON STRATEGY: "We're just going to play like we've been playing. We are pretty balanced in terms of our scoring. I don't think we're going to pick out one thing (to try and exploit), we're just going to play to our strengths."

ON REBOUNDING: "We put a lot of emphasis on rebounding. It is something we work hard at because it is something that makes a difference. I also think it determines the intensity of your play. It is very important that we focus on that."

ON NORTH CAROLINA: "This is a real special group of young ladies, one of my favorite teams ever. I have coached for 27 years and they are one of my top three teams. They are a fun team to coach and have great chemistry. I don't want the season to be over and neither do they. We're just going to try and run this out and see what happens. They are a great group of kids and have good vision, effort and work ethic."

North Carolina Players

F Jennifer Thomas
ON ALTITUDE: "I am getting used to the altitude now. The first day I was pretty shaky, but we're getting used to it. I couldn't catch my breath and my heart was beating so fast. It just felt different, because I know I'm in shape. We adjusted by the end of practice."

ON ARRIVING IN COLORADO SPRINGS: "We went through Colorado Spring so we could get here earlier and we got to practice at the Olympic Training Center. It was really cool to get to play there. It motivated us to go a lot harder in practice."

ON THE SIZE ADVANTAGE AGAINST APSU: "They have good post players and if they get the ball inside, they can definitely move the ball around. We haven't seen them play a lot or know a lot about them, so our plan will be to go back to the fundamentals of basketball. We're going to look inside, we're going to drive the basketball and rebound."

G Coretta Brown
ON ALTITUDE: "I'm definitely getting used to it. It was hard to adjust. I could hardly breath the first day here. I'm glad we got here two days early. Yesterday helped out a lot and today I'm feeling fine."

ON AUSTIN PEAY: "They don't really remind me of any ACC team that we've played. They're just a really good team. They have good three-point shooters and when they get the ball inside they can move around and score. There are going to be a lot of challenges against them. They're very good so we're going to stick to the fundamentals - defense and rebounding."