Last Saturday Middle Tennessee beat Liberty 65-51 in the CUSA women’s tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to this week’s NCAA tournament. The Blue Raiders won 28 games last year and somehow took it up a notch with 29 wins so far this year as they are heading to the NCAA tourney for the 3rd time in the past 4 years. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Middle Tennessee assistant women’s coach Nina Davis about her team’s remarkable run.
In 2013 you were named a Parade All-American: which of your fellow honorees impressed you the most (Diamond DeShields/Makayla Epps/Kelsey Plum/other)? Probably Diamond. She played on my USA team and we spent time together in both South Korea/Colorado. I have respect for all of them but she is the 1 I bonded with the most.
You played for Hall of Fame coach Kim Mulkey at Baylor: what makes her such a great coach, and what on earth will you do if you end up facing LSU in the 2nd round?! The question that everyone wants to know! Her passion and the way she gets her players to believe in her schemes as well as themselves. It was a world I had never known and she pushed me to limits I never knew to get the best out of me. I cannot look ahead too much so we are just taking it 1 game at a time. If we win then it will be excited to try to out-scheme her.
You went 134-15 record during your playing career and made 4 straight Elite 8s: what is the biggest difference between winning games in the regular season vs. winning games in March? In the regular season you have more time for scouting and you know what to expect from your conference opponents after playing them multiple times. The NCAA tourney is a whole other game: you find out who you will play during the Selection Show and then you have to learn as much about them as you can very quickly.
You remain the only player to make the Big 12 All-Tournament team 4-times and you were named Big 12 Championship MVP twice: how were you able to play your best when it mattered the most? There was just something about March. I took every game seriously and prepared the same way but in the postseason I tried to take my game to another level. I scored about 30 PTS in my 1st tourney game. There are so many great players in Big 12 history so to be the only 1 who made it 4 times is surreal.
In 2014 you were named conference ROY, in 2015 you were named conference POY, and you were a 2-time All-American: what did it mean to you to receive all those outstanding honors? A lot. I am blessed and have the faith of my family/friends who believe in me. A lot of people said that I would never play at Baylor and that I should go to a smaller school…but to accomplish all those things after starting out as the 14th person on the roster was tremendous. I was meant to go to Baylor and worked my butt off every single night.
You played for Team USA at the 2015 World University Games: what did it mean to you to represent your country, and what did it mean to you to win a gold medal? When you play basketball you have a lot of different goals. Playing for my country was right up there and it was something that I always wanted to do. Once I got the call and got invited to 3 days of tryouts with 100 other top players: it was tough. They only took 12 out of 100 so when I heard my name called my heart just dropped: I called my mom and said, “I will be wearing the red and blue!” I am still bonded with those 11 teammates: it was hard to breathe up in elevation at Colorado, and in South Korea we went 6-0. It was something that will always mean a lot to me.
You played pro basketball in Austria: what is the biggest difference between basketball in the US vs. basketball overseas? Just how physical it is over there: sometimes the refs will swallow their whistles in terms of foul calls, but I would often use a spin move because they do not call traveling as much. I also had a teammate from Iowa who helped make it feel like home. We have a lot of international players here and sometimes they are overly physical.
You went 28-5 last year and this year you are 29-4 (so far) and have won 19 in a row including the CUSA tourney title over Liberty on Saturday: has it reached a point where you expect to win every single time that your team steps out onto the court? Absolutely! We do not care who we are playing, whether it is Liberty or the LA Lakers. Some people might call it arrogance but we think it is confidence. It is not luck and did not come easy: the team put in so many hours and is the reason we won 29 games.
Your team is top-10 in the nation with 34.9 FG% allowed/54.3 PPG allowed: what is the secret to playing great defense? The want/will/passion for it. Anybody can play defense so we built our team with the philosophy that offense sells tickets but defense wins championships. We may miss some shots but if we stop the other team then it will only be a matter of time because we have several players who can score. There is no magic recipe: just putting your mind into it.
How do you feel about being an 11-seed in Albany, and what do you know about Louisville? We are excited to see where we land and our staff is excited about our draw. We will prepare the same way, take it 1 game at a time, and see what happens.
