Florida 69, Auburn 62
THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Coach Williams-Flournoy. We'll start with questions.
Q. I don't think you think the season went as well as people had hoped. I think going into next season, what are you telling your players? What are you telling the fans? What do you think will improve and how will you do it this off-season?
TERRI WILLIAMS-FLOURNOY: Yeah, that's a great question. If you remember, we had 10 newcomers coming in with not many returning. And COVID really hurt us because when you have 10 newcomers coming in, you need to be able to get into the gym, you need to be able to get everything, your offense in. They're learning a whole new system, whether they're junior college players, sophomores rising up. You had Jala and Honesty coming in, who were out last year. We really needed to get into the gym.
Missing practices. You look at Alaina Rice, our starting point guard. She was in contact tracing three times. That's 24 days of practice she's missing. That's tough for a starting point guard in the SEC.
But the future's bright. The future's very bright. With Unique Thompson as our only senior, you saw a lot of bright spots with Honesty, Alaina, Alycia Reese, Annie. We have so many people coming back that it's going to be just amazing.
Get rid of COVID. We need COVID to go away. We need to be able to get in the gym. We need to work in post-season, summer. We need all of that. We've got to have time to develop.
You see it. You see we're right there. It's just sometimes it's young mistakes. We're very young. Nothing takes the place of being young rather than getting on the court and getting in the gym and learning.
I like it. This team is great. They continue to fight. They did not give up. That's impressive, very much impressive.
Q. You mentioned Unique. I don't know what her eligibility would be for next year. If this is the end, what is the impact Unique has had on your program over the past few years?
TERRI WILLIAMS-FLOURNOY: She's been amazing. She's been an amazing player for four years. You've seen her development from freshman year to senior year. She's going in the record books, a record that's going to be a very long time before it's broke. You saw how long it took here to break the all-time rebounding record.
She's going to go down as one of the best players to have played in an Auburn jersey. She gives it all. Just to have watched her maturity and growth over the four years has been great.
She's got great parents. They've been great. She's been a joy to coach.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports