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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEDecember 5, 2014Bill SelfFLORIDA – 65 COACH SELF: It's past curfew, so let's make it quick. Q. Sometimes in the basketball games you'll see teams not really aggressive in the first half and kind of not great energy, and then the coach goes yells at them at halftime and they come out a lot more aggressive. Did you ever yell at a team before the game maybe? COACH SELF: Well, it was a terrible start and our best players were not very good at all in the first half and our bench didn't give us anything with when they came in, for the most part. Who would have thought Frank cutting the lead at 15 right before halftime would be a big play. But the one thing about this place, if you can just hang around and you don't have to‑‑ there's no six or eight point plays, just try to win each four minutes. If you're able to do that, which we were, the crowd will get into it; and once the crowd got into it, we played with so much more energy. But it was a bad team to play in the first half and a terrific Florida team and then the roles reversed the second half. We played very, very well and they missed some shots, but we also defended them so much better. Q. (No microphone.) COACH SELF: I thought we guarded them better, kept them out of the paint. Our plan was going to go under ball screens in the first half on those two little guards, but we really didn't do it. Our ball screen defense was horrendous. Then we tried switching everything and that didn't work great. Then they just out hustled us. Even if we would have just played tougher and harder the first half, the game, they would have been ahead, but it would have been eight instead of 15. Or something like that. In the second half, we controlled the glass and our first shot defense was excellent and for the most part we put pressure on them by getting to the free‑throw line. Q. How much do you think a game like Wayne played tonight can help him going forward? COACH SELF: It should give him confidence. He needed to see the ball go in. And it doesn't seem like much, but he made a layup to start the game and then he made a three right after that. So, even though he didn't score a lot in the first half, I don't know what he had the first half, he may have had close to eight or 10, but he made real points in the second half. Those are real college baskets. When you don't run good offense and you just jump up and make a shot. So, they weren't easy points. So, that should give him a lot of confidence. Q. You said at some point last year you thought that he could be playing, could be a leader, one of the better leaders you ever had. What's he do that kind of has helped this team? COACH SELF: I think, first of all, if you're going to be a leader you got to have a presence. And he's got a presence. But even more importantly than just having a presence, he's got a physical presence. So, I think that kind of gives him a leg up on some guys that maybe don't have that physical presence. But he's an alpha male and he just hasn't had anything go right for him, for the most part, the first four or five games of the season and it was nice to see that lid come off. Q. Did you talk to him about that at all? COACH SELF: There haven't been a lot of talks, because I think the more you talk about things, sometimes you magnify the situation. What I tried to convince him to do was worry about making basketball plays as opposed to scoring. If you're a shooter and you think you're going to come out if you miss and then you're going to miss. But if you're a shooter and all you care about is jumping ball screens and hitting a man on rotation, rebounding, and things like that, then you don't put so much pressure on your shot. I thought that was probably the case with him. Q. (No microphone.) COACH SELF: I don't know. Most people would say ‑‑ I don't know what context Billy said it, but most people would say don't let them shoot threes and don't let them shoot layups, make them shoot mid range shots. But that would be everybody's defensive strategy. So, we haven't shot the ball very well behind the arc and it's amazing to me how Florida put so much pressure on us by driving to pass. In the second half, I don't know if we drove to pass as much, but we drove it hard. And of course nobody drives it better than Wayne when he puts his head down, because he's so strong. Q. (No microphone.) COACH SELF: Those things are so overblown. We changed how we guarded ball screens a little bit, but not a lot. But if the truth be told, halftime was, I don't know if I'm going to play him again tonight and I don't know if I'm going to play him again tonight. You know that was more my thinking. And then I said okay, let's just go back to being who we are and try to win the first four minutes and then the second four minutes. And what we did in the second half, we were polar opposites of the first half. We out rebounded them 24‑9 in the second half and they out rebounded us 18‑11 in the first half. They didn't get stuff in transition in the second half and we got some stuff. It was just like Jekyll and Hyde almost the second half compared to the first. Q. (No microphone.) COACH SELF: Everybody shot them great. Of course nobody shot them better than Cliff, but everybody shot their free throws great. Of course, we needed them tonight. Q. What did you learn about the mental makeup of your team, not only after that Kentucky game, but especially in the second half tonight? COACH SELF: Well, that they're totally different. Everybody keeps referring back to that game, but I didn't learn much that night at all, other than the fact that we weren't ready for that stage. Tonight, we learned that ‑‑ because we'll draw from this again‑‑ we learned that, hey, no matter what the situation is, it's a long game. And the guys did play it like it was a long game. They played a pretty smart second half. So, I'll never give them credit for being as tough as they need to be, but we're probably a little tougher than what I thought we were going into the game, because the first half I thought we were an extremely soft team and not a real competitive team. But they definitely changed it in the second half. Q. Is Frank okay? Looked like he didn't have any intention of not being on the floor there. COACH SELF: I think he turned it pretty good. He was hobbling pretty good. But I don't know exactly where he is and I won't have any idea. But he's a tough kid. He'll play. Unless there's something really, really wrong where it takes a few days. But he may miss a practice or two, but he'll be out there. Q. Coach Donovan said that the first half was, their height advantage maybe got to you guys. How did you adjust to that in the second half? COACH SELF: I think we tried to ‑‑ we Norm did a great job with the scout, but the whole deal is, with the scout ‑‑ and Billy's right, we blocked off some and then they were able to back tap the ball or go over us, because we were soft. In the second half I thought we did a much better job of going after the ball. But they played harder than us the first half. Their whole team did. There was several plays that kind of showed everybody that that was the case, that they had more balance and more energy. And then we kind of felt sorry for ourself and let one bad play become two or two become four and next thing you know we're not in the game. But the second half, it was just totally different. I thought that we played much tougher the second half. We were 24‑9 against that team, that's dominating the glass, I mean that was pretty good the second half. Q. (No microphone.) COACH SELF: Not great. But I know David. And really happy for him and happy for Clint. I hope it's going to be great marriage for KU and for the staff, but obviously exciting hire and I spoke with him yesterday, last night, late, and he was excited. I thought I was excited when I took the job here, he blew me away with how fired up he was. I'm going to come see his press conference on Monday, just so I can maybe some that have juice will rub off on me. Because that is an excited guy and he's fired up about the staff possibilities and everything else going on. So, congratulations to our department and our administration for hiring him, but, more importantly, I think it will be a good fit. I really do. We need to have some guys with some juice and energy and I think he'll hire a staff that's got that. I think it's really good for us. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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