AUSTIN, Texas — A second straight Southland Conference tournament championship and repeat berth in the NCAA Tournament, a Southland regular season championship, 26 wins, two Southland All-Conference selections, two Southland All-Defensive Team players, two All-Southland honorable mentions, the Southland Conference Coach of the Year, three Southland Conference players of the Week, and a trip to the Arkansas State Capitol for House and Senate resolutions in their honor.

Pretty good way to settle.

The Sugar Bears accomplished nearly everything they set out to do in the 2016-17 – but came up short of their final goal of winning the program's first Division I NCAA Tournament game as they fell 78-50 at 3rd-seeded Texas in the tournament's opening round on Friday to bring an end to their wildly successful season.

In their second consecutive appearance in the NCAA tournament, the Sugar Bears (26-5) battled nearly evenly with the Longhorns (24-8) over the final 30 minutes, including a one-point advantage in the second and third quarters combined, but were done in by a slow start in a first quarter in which they fell behind 24-4 and were unable to fully bounce back against the larger Longhorns.

Though the Sugar Bears forced the Longhorns into twice as many turnovers as they committed themselves – 21-10 in favor of Central Arkansas – the bigger Longhorns (tied as the nation's tallest team, with eight players listed at 6-foot or taller, including six of at least 6-3) dominated the boards, out rebounding the Sugar Bears 55-23.

The limited second opportunities made making up any ground difficult for the Sugar Bears, who struggled shooting over the Longhorns – hitting just 20 of 63 field goal attempts (31.7 percent), though Maggie Proffitt, Taylor Baudoin and Olivia McWilliams found some success on the offensive end as they combined to go 16 of 37 (43.2 percent). With 20 offensive rebounds, the Longhorns doubled the Sugar Bears in second-chance points 18-9, and held a 40-18 advantage on points in the paint.

In her final game in a Central Arkansas uniform, Proffitt scored a game-high 17 points and recorded 3 steals to tie fellow senior Raquel Logan to lead all players. Baudoin added 14 points – including 12 in a 3rd quarter in which the Sugar Bears outscored the Longhorns 23-14 – and led UCA with 7 rebounds, finishing three short of recording a double-double in the tournament for the second straight season. McWilliams had 6 points and had a team-best 3 assists, while Kierra Jordan had 6 points and 5 rebounds. Brianna Mullins, also in her final game, had 5 points, 2 rebounds and an assist in 23 minutes while battling foul trouble after being whistled for three in the first quarter including two in the first three minutes.
 

Brooke McCarty, the Big 12 Player of the Year, had 15 points in 29 minutes to lead the Longhorns, who had three players reach double figures in scoring, joined by Joyner Holmes' 12 and Kelsey Lang's 9.

The loss ends Central Arkansas' second straight championship season, with the Sugar Bears having gone 54-9 (.857) in that two-year span, including a 28-6 mark (.824) in games away from Conway. In their first seven seasons of postseason eligibility in Division I, they have now been to four tournaments with two NCAA trips, a WNIT appearance and one trip to the WBI in 2011 in their first year eligible after completing the reclassification process from Division II.
 

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Press Conference Quotes

NCAA Women's 1st and 2nd Rounds: Austin

Friday, March 17 2017

Austin, Texas

Sandra Rushing

Taylor Baudoin

Brianna Mullins

Maggie Proffitt

Central Arkansas Sugar Bears

Texas - 78, Central Arkansas - 50

THE MODERATOR: Current time is 3:44. Central Arkansas here with Coach Sandra Rushing, also student-athletes Maggie Proffitt, Brianna Mullins, and Taylor Baudoin. We'll open up with comments from Coach Rushing.

SANDRA RUSHING: Wow. That's not how we wanted to go out and perform today. Texas, they're big, they're fast, stronger. I just want people to know that nobody up here or anybody in the locker room is happy with our performance effort-wise, but that does not define our season. I'm so proud of these young ladies and what they've accomplished. That's what they need to remember, not today's game.

Like I said, Texas, I mean, they're very solid. They're going to go deep into the Tournament. I thought the crowd was great. Maybe we're a little nervous. Maybe I didn't do a good job preparing them. But, again, I am proud of these young ladies.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Maggie, we'll start with you: Yesterday we were talking about the Texas height and 33-point difference on rebounding. Was it more difficult than you expected? Because you expected it would be tough on the rebounding.
MAGGIE PROFFITT: Yeah, I think it was definitely tough. We were sending five to the boards, and they were still able to jump over the top and get the rebound. We knew we had to block out, and we probably could have done a better job than we did. We definitely expected them to outrebound us. Maybe we should have just fought a little harder.

Q. Maggie, you couldn't get anything going in the first quarter.
MAGGIE PROFFITT: Definitely, it was a rough first quarter. We dug ourselves a hole, but Coach Rushing just kept pushing us. We were going to keep fighting until the last buzzer, but we just kind of dug ourselves too deep a hole to climb out of.

Q. Brianna, you got two quick fouls. Did that impact you rest of the first half?
BRIANNA MULLINS: I think picking up those quick fouls at the beginning kind of had to do with how we dug ourselves a hole the first quarter. Coach and me talked about that all season, me not getting in foul trouble. I think there was some bad mistakes that I took upon myself.

Q. Taylor, third quarter you guys outplayed and out-hustled them. Talk about what it was after halftime that things kind of fell your way for a while.
TAYLOR BAUDOIN: We went in at halftime, and Coach was talking about how we weren't playing with a whole lot of effort and not attacking the way we should. I felt like the third quarter we came out and just started going at them, and things started to fall a little bit.

Q. Maggie, what do you take away from when you watch Texas? When you see them on film and then you play against them, what would you say your major impressions are of them?
MAGGIE PROFFITT: They're a very good team. We knew that coming in. Like we said, they're bigger, faster, and stronger, and maybe they were a little more of all those than we kind of expected. But they're a really great team. We knew we were going to have a battle today.

Q. Were you surprised they played so many people? They kind of emptied their bench and played a lot of people. Did you see much difference between their starters and their reserves?
MAGGIE PROFFITT: You know, we kind of knew they were going to play a lot of people. We feel like they kind of overlooked us. They've got a big game coming up Sunday. We knew they were going to play a lot of people. When they subbed and their bench players came in, they kept the tempo just as well as their starters.

Q. Taylor, if you don't mind talking about the season as a whole and what you guys accomplished.
TAYLOR BAUDOIN: I know this season we've been through a lot, and we just continued to push through and get to where we were. I wanted to send the four seniors out on top of the South, and we did it in the regular season and into the Tournament. I just feel like we could have done a little bit better to capitalize on our season today, but overall, I just wanted to send those seniors out on top.

Q. Bri, losing against Texas on its home floor is nothing to be shameful about at all. What do you guys take away from this team. There must be some positives. You played them tough for a while.
BRIANNA MULLINS: I feel like my team, we all came together, like I said, in the third quarter, and came out and played like we've been playing all season, and just pulling together and playing for each other is something I can take from this game.

THE MODERATOR: At this time, we'll excuse Maggie, Taylor, and Brianna. Thank you very much. We'll move to questions for Coach Rushing.

Q. Coach, you said yesterday you had hoped your team wouldn't be nervous or intimidated. Is that what happened early? Did they just come out? Were they overwhelmed?
SANDRA RUSHING: I think we were a little nervous, but also Bri Mullins being on the bench hurt us. Her and Maggie have such good chemistry together, and they look for each other. That's what you want out of your senior guards.

I'm not blaming anything on Bri. That's not what I'm saying. We had other people that needed to step up, and we didn't. You could tell we were out of sync. Texas did a great job of denying Maggie and trying to keep the ball out of Bri's hands. We could never set a screen -- we never set good screens.

I just think the game was so fast early that we didn't really adjust.

Q. Coach, I think it was Taylor that said something about you challenged them at halftime. Anything in particular you said? Because they played awfully well in the third quarter.
SANDRA RUSHING: I just thought we were timid, not attacking the basket. I had my freshman, Taylor Sells, who's really going to be a tremendous player for us, but you could tell she was a little timid, and I thought she had some gaps she could have penetrated. I thought T.B. could have penetrated, and we had to settle down.

But you could also -- you saw who was started in the third quarter, Bri Mullins was back in the ballgame, and it's our little comfort zone there.

Q. Sandra, you said you think they'll go far in the Tournament. What level do you think they're at trying to get through the Tournament?
SANDRA RUSHING: After getting beat 40, you're asking me that? (Laughing), A long way then. I don't know. You don't want to have a bad game in the Tournament. They have all the tools. They're big. They're fast. I wouldn't mind sitting in the stands watching them. It wasn't very pleasant on the other side over there on the bench watching them.

But I think Karen does a great job. I thought their fans were great. But I do want to say this and not putting anyone else down, we have the best fans in the country at UCA in Conway. They were wonderful. I appreciate them coming out today and supporting us. I thought it was great. I'm just sorry the end result is like this.

Q. Was there any weakness you thought you might be able to attack at Texas that you weren't successful today?
SANDRA RUSHING: Well, no. We missed a couple of assignments on doubling the post. We knew we were going to have to double the post. We knew -- I mean, at home you're going to shoot well, and we were giving them that 15-footer. We knew who was going to shoot outside, and you could see them exchanging when we were backing off. We didn't do a very good job of trailing 11. We got caught up on that, and she got a couple threes.

But we felt like -- we wanted to give up the jump shot and not give up all the offensive boards we gave up. We can't help it if we're in front of them and they're bigger and they get the basketball, but we need to be in front of them, and we needed to win the 50-50 balls, and I felt like they had a pep in their step there.

Q. You all won the turnover battle. What were you able to do to force the turnovers?
SANDRA RUSHING: I wouldn't mind if it was reversed and we had 21 and we had that score, so that's a good question. We tried to double, like you said, the post. We wanted any time that someone got in the lane, we wanted to close it down. Just make them pass it out. They're great at penetrating. We wanted to stop that. Especially, I think it's fourth quarter, they got a couple drives on us. Whether it's fatigue or what's happening looking up there at the scoreboard, I don't know. We really wanted to keep them out of the lane, try to contain their drive.

We know they can shoot it, but you have to pick -- we have to pick our poison, as I like to say. We were going to give up those 15-footers, but they got several rebounds and put it back in. So it really didn't do us any good.