|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2015Tim MilesTerran PettewayShavon ShieldsCHICAGO, ILLINOIS Penn State – 68 COACH MILES: Even though the outcome didn't go our way, I thought our kids really battled hard all night, even when things weren't going our way. I'm proud of them for that, and I'll always be proud of them for that because a lot of teams would maybe send it in, but with the streak we've been on, but these guys have not done that and will not do that, and I'm‑‑ if you would have told me we were going to stop at 13 a month, five, six weeks ago, whatever it was, I would have bet you any amount of money that that wouldn't happen. But unfortunately it has, and so we just regroup, get ready, and we'll respond and be ready and be better for next year. Q. Coming from Nebraska to Chicago, what was it like to play in the United Center? TERRAN PETTEWAY: It was pretty special, came in here with these group of guys, like Coach Miles said, anybody would have probably shut it down after we just went on losing six or seven in a row. We came here with the mindset we were going to be here until Sunday, it just didn't happen that way. SHAVON SHIELDS: Yeah, I agree. Q. Terran, can you talk about the frustration that you're out there competing and clawing and trying to get it done, and team‑wise just nothing drops, goes in the basket? Can you talk about that just not tonight but the last stretch? TERRAN PETTEWAY: Yeah, like you said, it's been happening the last stretch. We've been playing great defense in conference play, even all season long. It's just shots don't go our way. It seems like that's been happening night in and night out. We get shots that roll in and out. Like on a fast break I think Shavon had a floater that rolled almost down and came right back out. It's very frustrating, man. I can't even really explain it. Q. Do you find yourself in the last few games getting to a point in the game, here it goes again? Is it impossible to keep that thought out of your mind? TERRAN PETTEWAY: No, I think we stop feeling sorry for ourselves the week we was preparing for Illinois, so we was just going in there with reckless abandon. They kept coming out and we were still going there. As you seen Shavon I think he got hit a couple times. He kept going in there. We didn't care. We was going to keep going and keep fighting until the very end. Q. How hard has the last few weeks been for you? COACH MILES: You know, as a coach your essence‑‑ when they introduce you at the rotary club they say Tim Miles had this record and that record. They define you on winning‑‑ it's not like they define you. It's a bottom line business for our guys. That's what's really difficult. You can sell a house and take a smaller price and maybe take a small hit, but you either win or lose the game, and when you've lost‑‑ I don't know and the guys don't even know. I know that his number was wrong, like seven or eight in a row, I think‑‑ you know, it wears on your‑‑ like I say, you go to the shopping center with your head down, and you go to the grocery store with your head down and hope you don't run into anybody and regurgitate what you're going through and the whole deal. It's difficult, but at the same time, it's a big‑boy business, and these guys know that. Like I told them, how you regroup and handle yourself, losing doesn't make you a loser, winning doesn't make you a winner. How you handle yourself with dignity and how we respond from this as a team and as a program and these other guys moving on really is what matters most. Q. What is it like to come in here to Chicago, the tournament is not going to be here for another couple of years. What makes playing at the United Center special? COACH MILES: Well, Chicago is a great town, one of my favorites, and United Center obviously with Jordan's statue out front and everything that they've had such a strong franchise for a long time, it's a great event for our league and our kids especially. Q. When you watched the film from today, whatever you might find that you'd like to do better, what is it that you'd like to see a chance‑‑ like the rebound at the end, and what's it like to have it come down to that? COACH MILES: Yeah, well, that hurt because we had one guy with two hands on it and the other guy thought it was an opponent, so he knocks it out of our own guy's hand. Kind of a microcosm of our season. That was difficult because I knew we could get a stop. I knew that‑‑ I really believed we could‑‑ we did the same thing against Maryland right at the end, and we didn't get that stop, but we were all over Dez Wells. I just believe in our guys, and it was really difficult to watch that. We dug our own hole when we got down 16 or whatever it was with those three straight threes. Q. What helped you guys get back and claw back down from that lead early in the second half? COACH MILES: I think we got like 11 straight stops, 16 out of 19 possessions we got stops. Just defense. We pressed them a little bit. They kind of get us running around and not thinking about anything. When you press, you're kind of mindless. And that's good. You take your mind off the big deficit, you take your mind off the shots, they're going in or not going in. You're able to just kind of run around, and see if you can make some plays. And we were able to and get them hurried up a little bit and at least get on the attack. I thought it helped our offense, too. Q. There were several moments where Petteway kind of just took over.  What was it like having him out there today? COACH MILES: Well, Terran is that type of player. He can take over a game. He can put up a big number any night. He's really a special player. Q. I don't know how many fans you had here today, but they were certainly loud. What would you say about your fandom when you've struggled here lately? COACH MILES: Our fans have been just terrific. We've oversold our arena capacity the last two home games with a losing streak, sitting there looking at a losing streak, and I don't know how many fan bases would do that. But the Husker faithful have been unbelievable for us. They've really rallied around our basketball programs, men and women alike, and it's a really special place. It's great for the student‑athletes. They go out there against Maryland the other night, we're dead in the water as far as postseason goes unless something crazy happens, and there's 15,800 people at the game, and it's crazy. The guys are really inspired by our fans. There's no doubt, our fans make a huge difference in what we do, and tonight it was having them here, just cheering us on, letting the refs know what's going on. They were right, too, by the way. But it was good. It was great to have them. They're unbelievable. Q. Was there any sign that the team that made the tournament last year was going to have a season like this? COACH MILES: Well, we talked about it as a team even last summer. I talked about it this fall in Big Ten press, media day. Like I'm curious to see if we're a good team or just a team that got hot. Well, it would appear as though we were a team that got hot. We had some guys with career years last year almost, kind of came out of nowhere. Terran was one of them, but he kind of backed it up against. Walter didn't quite put up the numbers that he had, but Walter has been battling a hip flexor the last three games too and it's really affected him. We didn't even take him to Illinois. But he tried to do what he could, but we just couldn't get enough force on the glass. You know, I'm excited about our future. We've got an excellent recruiting class coming in, a couple Chicago kids, Ed Murrow and Glenn Watson. I saw Glenn get 31 last night. I'm going to watch Ed on Friday. Michael Jacobson just lost in the Iowa State tournament today, and then of course Andrew White, III was one of Virginia's best players his senior year of high school and played at Kansas and has been sitting out this year. So I think we're going to add some real talent, and every program has retraction or whatever we call it, restructuring, transfers, so we'll see what happens here at the end of the year with our year‑end meetings, but I'm really excited about what we're building. Q. The excitement of last season and everything you kind of built for the program, how do you summarize the disappointment of this season for you personally? COACH MILES: Equally. As excited as I was last year is as disappointed as I am this year, and I talked a lot of trash on the golf course last year, so I was pretty pumped up. Q. You mentioned the fast start or the fast finish you guys had last year. Oftentimes that brings expectations. COACH MILES: Oh, yeah. Q. Does a program that maybe hasn't seen that, is that something new you have to deal with? Is that a factor in what happened? COACH MILES: Pat Riley wrote the whole book: This is what you're going to go through. Last year was the innocent climb, and this year is your test of will. The one thing I'm proud about is although we didn't handle things well early, we really had some‑‑ just the way our guys behaved. It wasn't bad, on the court, I mean. It really affected our chemistry. I always just watch how tight‑‑ what a coach can't control, like for instance, how tight are their huddles, how much are they communicating, and you can always tell what a team is like or what they're doing or how into each other and the event that they're going through is by those things. I thought our kids were really good tonight, even when things were bad. And they've been that way down the stretch, and that means a lot to me because there were some times when it felt hopeless. This league is a bear, and there's no let‑up. Penn State has got a player like D.J. Newbill that is going to play professionally for a long time somewhere, and they were 12‑1 coming into the league. And I think they lost six or eight in a row or whatever it was, Northwestern lost 10 in a row, we ended the way we did. There's some teams that can do some major damage that can get overwhelmed, too. I'm excited about where we're going. I think we'll be back. I'd say get us while you can. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|