We're a much better basketball team when she stays on the floor, obviously. She's just so well-rounded at both ends of the floor. I think she's one of the top players in the conference. It's exciting to see her numbers reflect that.

For us to be right behind them, I think is a testimony to the heart and character of our basketball team.

I think it's just the growth of the program. Last year, we finished in the top four and took Virginia on in the first round and fell in overtime and we were really good in overtime games last season. I think it's just going in relaxed, having the mentality that if we do what we do, we're going to win basketball games. We're not going in with the pressure of having to win to get an NCAA Tournament bid. We just need to go in and play our best.

Our team played really well at Miami. I keep talking about how much better we're getting and I think a lot of that is just developing confidence and the consistency we have on the defensive end of the floor. We're beginning now to not only defend like we can, but also rebound the basketball extremely well and because of those two things, we're coming up with some easy transition buckets on the other end.

Rebounding was our emphasis the whole game, especially in the second half when we came out and held them off of the offensive boards. We limited them to four offensive boards in the second half and quite frankly, I thought that was the difference in the basketball game.

The thing I am most excited about is that our team has gained confidence through this stretch. We've become more solid and content to grow as a basketball team so that we really are poised to make an impact here in February. It could have gone the other way. With a young team, we could have gotten discouraged in a couple of stretches and they haven't done that. They've stayed strong and I'm excited about what that means for this team.

Defensively, we are playing our best basketball and when we use our defense to generate our offense, that's when we're exciting. Tournament-time, no matter who we play, the way we match up if going to come down to how we defend and how we rebound.

The important thing for us, we are not playing the program, but a basketball team. We will work on the types of things we need to do to match up with a very good team.

The Georgia Tech game was physical but I think the rest of our conference schedule is going to be the same way. NC State comes in a very physical basketball team. We're going to have to really work to get to the point of screens even and make our cuts like we want to be able to do. Obviously the ACC is a conference that really does prepare you for March.