Yesterday the Baylor women’s team beat West Virginia by 26 PTS in the Big 12 tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to this week’s NCAA tournament. The Bears only lost 2 games all year by a combined 9 PTS en route to claiming the school’s 18th NCAA tourney bid in a row. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with DiJonai Carrington about playing for a pair of Hall of Famers and making the NCAA tourney yet again.
In 2016 you were named a McDonald’s All-American: which of your fellow honorees impressed you the most (Lauren Cox/Sabrina Ionescu/other)? I definitely have to go with Sabrina. We are friends and she really thrived during the NCAA tourney and will do so in the WNBA once he gets healthy.
You played 35 games as a freshman and scored 2 PTS vs. South Carolina in the Final 4: how were you able to come in and contribute right from the start, and how close did you come to beating the eventual champ? I knew that I had to be ready every game to play my role and do whatever the team needed from me that day. It was such a tough loss for us: we had the lead for the 1st 20 minutes and had opportunities to win that game but ultimately came up short.
You graduated from Stanford last year with a pair of degrees in African and African American Studies and Psychology: why did you pick those subjects, and what is the career plan once you are done with basketball? I was always interested in psychology growing up while watching shows like “Lie To Me” about a behavioral psychologist. Once I got to college I took an African-American Women’s Lives class and was just intrigued by all of the information I had not been taught during high school. I wanted to know my history, both who I am and where I came from.
You only played in 5 games last year due to a knee injury but were awarded a medical hardship and later decided to transfer to Baylor: how is your health doing at the moment? I am great and have not felt this healthy in years. I am excited but still doing preventative rehab.
You have played for a pair of Hall of Fame coaches in Tara VanDerveer/Kim Mulkey: are they very similar or very different kinds of coaches, and what is the most important thing that you have learned from either of them? There is nothing similar about the 2 in their coaching styles/personalities. I have learned so many different things from each of them and am blessed to have played under both of them. Tara’s motto was that scoring could make up for a multiple of sins…and Kim’s is that playing defense will keep you on the court!
What is it like to be a college basketball player during a pandemic? It is definitely tough. I live by myself and am alone a lot when I am not at practice. College is a time where you want to be around your friends/teammates who you are used to spending every moment with, so to try to keep safe/healthy while not having your community around you is not easy. We are blessed that we did not have our season cut short but we feel bad for last year’s seniors who did not have that opportunity.
Last Sunday in the Big 12 tourney title game you scored 14 PTS in a 26-PT win over West Virginia: what did it mean to you to win a title, and what was the feeling like in your locker room afterward? It is very exciting: that is the expectation here but we never take it for granted. We knew that we would have to come out every game and play hard for 40 minutes, and that is what we did. Now our focus is on the NCAA tourney so we did not have too much time to celebrate.
You only lost 2 games all year by a combined 9 PTS: how close did you come to going undefeated? We had opportunities to win both of those games but we learned a lot from them: you cannot win games when you put your opponent on the line 40 times. I could not play in the Iowa State loss due to COVID protocol but the Cyclones made tough shots/big plays so you have to hand it to them.
Your sister Diarra played college basketball, your brother Darren played college football, your mother Vickie ran track, and your father Daren spent 8 years in the NFL: who is the best athlete in the family? That is a tough question. In their primes I would say my mom: track bodies are so different and she was also a bodybuilder so she had the physique. Then again, it is not easy to be an NFL safety for 8 years! I am blessed to have those genetics.
What kind of seed do you think you deserve, and what kind of seed do you think you will get? We are not worried about it because we feel that we can beat whoever we face if we play together for 40 minutes. I am expecting a 2-seed: there are about 8 teams who can make an argument for a 1-seed and we are 1 of them. We will come out and show everyone what we are made of.