Joni Taylor focusing on the 'small victories' with shorthanded squad

With only seven available, Texas A&M women's basketball has struggled in conference play, sitting at 0-4 in the SEC. Head coach Joni Taylor joined TexAgs Radio to detail the team's focuses and how they have responded to the adversity they have faced.

Key notes from Joni Taylor interview

• I’m actually really proud and excited. Our game results don’t show that. We knew we were in a year of rebuilding which is why our motto was becoming. We are really young and don’t have any experience at all, and then you have five players in street clothes on the bench and seven playing. How do you find success when it does not come in a win? You look at the LSU game, and that score was lopsided. In the first quarter, it was 6-8, and that’s the lowest score in the first quarter LSU has had all year. That’s a win for us. At halftime, they had 34. That’s the lowest halftime score for them all year. That’s a win for us. We go into the game, knowing those small victories are what we are looking to celebrate. It’s getting the opponent to execute plan B.
   
• A lot of times, people talk about the journey. It’s not about once you arrive. It's the journey of going through it. That’s when you get better. At some point, you look up, and you are there. We are so process oriented. We are not miserable even though we have lost four in a row. We are fighting, and they are in great spirits. Those small victories are measuring our progress. Do we want to win? Yes. Please don’t misunderstand me, but we knew going into this and prepared our team for that. 
   
• This team is getting better. We have addressed the toughness and mindset. There is no better way to test that than being thrown into the fire. Those were areas we were weak in to start the season. 
   
• We had seven, then eight, and now we are back down to seven. We’ve backed off quite a bit. There are things we need to work on, but we’ve scraped that because of seven players. It would be crazy of us as a staff to do that, knowing that they have to play the bulk of the minutes. We have had to adjust how we practice, how long we practice or if we practice at all.
   
• We played our hearts out at LSU. We played with pretty much six because we had foul trouble. We get on a plane and come home. It’s 1:30 before we go to bed. That Friday before a Sunday game turnaround is tough. We did not practice at all on Friday. Do we need to practice? Yes. We watched film, walked through the tweaks, shot free throws and sent them home. If we have done more, they would have been more tired. This offseason is preparing them to play for 30-45 minutes, not the whole game.
   
• I’m extremely proud and pleased with the defense. Even now, we are not pressuring as much because we are trying to save our seven because they have to last through conference play. We don’t know when some players will be back. 
   
• Tennessee has played a tough non-conference schedule. They have three players who average double digits. We are going to have our hands full.