“We’ve been a really balanced offensive team all year. I think Butler really played good defense — their zone really messed us up — and UConn’s the best defensive team in the conference. I thought we got off to a good start, we had good spacing, and to their credit, they were really physical with us. Their physicality kind of bothered us around the rim, and I thought that was the difference in the game.”
On his message to the seniors:
“We put ourselves in a great position. At the beginning of this year, I knew it was going to be a challenge to get to where we want to get to. I think these kids have played their hearts out, I think they’ve played phenomenally. I think the last two or three games, we’ve played with a lot of pressure of trying to make the NCAA Tournament, I think that’s affected us, but we still have (at) the Johnnies and the Big East tournament to kind of make our case, so my message to them was very simple: ‘Let’s keep on staying the course, we’ve gotta refocus, re-energize. We’ve got to stay a bit more level-headed on the court, we’ll get back to where we want to get to.’”
On any encouraging signs to build confidence:
“I thought our defense in the first half was really good. I thought we were really connected, I thought we played really well defensively, and I thought even in the second half — we just got off to a really sloppy start on offense in the second half — I thought defensively, we were pretty good. (Adama) Sanogo really kicked our butt, he played great. But for the most part, I’m confident in how we played defense. I thought we played really well defensively at Butler, too, so I like where we’re at defensively. We’ve just got to make sure we’re letting our offense dictate a little bit how we’re reacting to the game. If we could just get back to being a bit more level-headed on the offensive end, I think there’s a lot of positive things.”
On playing in front of fans and senior night:
“Senior night’s become very emotional in this program, just because we have so many guys come through the program, get better, such great kids we’ve had the last 11 years. I’ve been very blessed to have the young men that played for me, so senior night’s a little bit tough — and we haven’t played well on senior night because of that — we got emotional, we didn’t play well last year on senior night, but I’m blessed to have those four guys in our program and what they’ve done. It was great having fans, I’m not gonna lie, Jerry. It was great having fans. I know we didn’t give them much to cheer about, but I appreciate everybody coming out and sacrificing, sitting all over the place and coming out to the game. It was great to see, and I think it really meant a lot to those four seniors.”
On Bryce Aiken:
“It was good to get Bryce back out there. He definitely looked rusty, but I thought he moved really well, I thought defensively, he did pretty good, I thought he was a little timid on offense in the first half, which is expected missing seven games or somewhere in that range. But the fact that he was able to play 16 minutes, I thought he looked pretty good and I thought his effort was great. He’s going to be a little rusty, and that was expected.”
On the Big East Tournament:
“I think we have a big one Saturday at St. John’s. But we really enjoy playing in the Garden, we love it, it’s been good to us. Playing in the Big East tournament, I think is one of those special moments for college basketball players, I think we’re very lucky in this conference to have the kind of tournament that we have. I think once you get to that Big East Tournament, it re-energizes you, gives you a chance to get back up.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.