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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 11, 2015Jordan CornishDave RiceChristian WoodLAS VEGAS, NEVADA UNLV – 67 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by UNLV. Coach, some comments on today's game. COACH RICE: First thing I want to say is how much respect that I have, that our team has, for the Wolf Pack and in particular for David Carter. David Carter is a fantastic coach. He's a better person. He's one of the best guys in our business. I wanted to start with that because he's such a good guy. His teams are always prepared. He's a fantastic guy. I don't think the final score was indicative of how competitive that game was today. We had certainly a lot of concern going into the game. I guess well‑founded with the way they offensive rebounded the ball. But was our biggest concern was their ability to offensive rebound the ball. A.J. West got 20 offensive rebounds against us in the first two games, and he had 12 more tonight. He's a very hard matchup for us. I thought our defense kept us in the game in the first half. I thought our energy level was fantastic. We shared the ball. We were together. There was no doubt the last two days of practice we were focused. I had no doubt in my mind at shoot‑around this morning that we were ready to play. I just knew we had a lot of guys on our roster this was their first Mountain West Conference experience. I knew it was going to be a little bit of a slow start for us, but our veteran leadership came through for us. Certainly Cody and JK were fantastic. And Chris, his sophomore leadership, was good as well. I thought the second half was a key. As you know, we've led halftime a lot of games. We came out pressing the second half, wanted to do some things to get us going. Proud of our effort, proud of our togetherness. That stretch in the second half when we got a couple defensive stops, got an open three for Jelan Kendrick, got an open three for Jordan Cornish, a couple baskets for Chris Wood, I think all those things showed how together we are, how hard we can play. Like I said, I don't think the final score was indicative of how competitive a game it was. I was very proud of our guys. We're excited to still be playing. We understand the challenge of playing against the Aztecs, we just played them last week, came up a play short. We have a lot of respect for them as well. A quick turnaround. We'll get some rest, get a shoot‑around tomorrow. I'm proud of these two guys. Chris keeps getting better. His low post play in the second half key. Jordan kept us in the first half with his three‑point shooting. It's always tough to play a first‑round tournament game, especially tough when you play against an in‑state school. When you look at that it makes it doubly tough because of all the things involved with that. But again, great respect for David Carter and job he does at Reno. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Chris, did you feel like you had to bring it today, stand up to the A.J. West challenge? CHRISTIAN WOOD: Most definitely. Going up against A.J. West, he's a big guy. I'm going to have to show up every game. Every game matters, every game counts. I'm going to have to come out and bring 100%. Q. Your thoughts about the Aztecs and how tough an assignment that will be? CHRISTIAN WOOD: It's going to be a dogfight, just like every game is, just like today was. I think we're going to be ready. We'll watch film, be prepared. We're going to play a good game. JORDAN CORNISH: I mean, like he said, a tough team. We just got to come in and execute our plays and just do what we have to do to get the W. Q. Jordan, they cut the double‑digit lead to one or two possessions. Before you go on the stretch, what was the mentality of the team? Did you feel like you had been doing the things you needed to win and just had to keep pushing or was there a change there before you went on a run? JORDAN CORNISH: I felt like we were doing the little things the whole game. We kind of got flat in the middle of the game. Chris came back in, hit a couple shots. We just went on a roll. Q. Jordan, talk about the confidence you have in your shot. JORDAN CORNISH: I mean, I just go out there. Whenever I have an open shot, have a good look, coach always tell me shoot the ball. I just let it go. No conscience, just let it go. Q. The last two times you played SanDiego State, they played 10 guys, they press, try to take the legs out of you. You just played tonight. How are your legs? Are you tired or should SanDiego State be worried? CHRISTIAN WOOD: SanDiego State should be very worried. We're going to be ready. Our legs are going to be fine. We'll be well‑rested and we're just going to play. JORDAN CORNISH: Like he said, they should be worried. In a tournament time you can't be tired. COACH RICE: Obviously we're equally worried because they're a fantastic team. You know the deal. SanDiego State is fantastic, we know that, they've beaten us twice this year. Obviously Coach Fisher is worried. I'm worried. We're all worried because it's the time of year if you get beaten you go home in terms of the conference tournament. We have great respect for SanDiego State and what they do. I speak for our guys when I say that. Q. It's a quick turnaround preparation‑wise. How much do you think it helps having played them a week ago in the same building as far as scouting report? Is that still fresh in your mind? JORDAN CORNISH: I think it helps a lot. Like you say, we just played them last week. Just come in, same scouting report. We've seen them twice this year, just execute. CHRISTIAN WOOD: SanDiego State is a really good team. We're going to watch film. Film is still fresh. Like you said, we played them last week. We're going to be known to the offense. We're going to know what they're running. They're going to know what we're running. It's going to be a dogfight, just like every game is. Q. Chris, scored 21 of your 28 in the second half. Free‑throw line a lot. Talk about your play in the second half. CHRISTIAN WOOD: Thing was, we have unselfish guys on the team. Coach kept calling the play for me. I just kept executing it. We just got things going. Guys got open looks. Jordan knocked down a few threes. J.K. had a huge three that got us a good lead. When we play together, it's hard to beat us. Q. Chris, you got revenge up in Reno. How much sweeter is it to advance against your rival? CHRISTIAN WOOD: Reno is a good team. It's always good. They're an in‑state team with us. It's always good, you know, to beat them. It was a good game. It was a dogfight. They played good. I'm just glad we got the win as a team. Q. What are the things you didn't do in the first two games that you'd like to correct? JORDAN CORNISH: Less turnovers. We got to out‑rebound them, just take care of the ball. THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss our student‑athletes at this time. We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. Did you see something in the first few games, your guards dug well, creating turnovers? Did you make a concerted effort to tell them that maybe you saw something they could get these turnovers? COACH RICE: We thought the biggest key to the game was trying to pressure them and force turnovers. As much as we emphasized defensive rebounding all week long, we aren't a great defensive rebounding team, haven't been all season long. The way for us to try to somehow neutralize that was to try to force some turnovers and get some points off turnovers. I thought Cody did a good job of it. We picked up. The pressure we started in the second half got us going as well. Q. When they got to four, you took two or three quick threes, three straight possessions to Wood. It was obviously a mismatch at some point in there. COACH RICE: Yeah, that's always a key for us. That's been one of the things all season long is trying to go to Chris, trying to get the ball inside when we have a couple flat possessions. We want to give our guys freedom, as you know, to shoot the ball. Jordan shot the ball extremely well. And Pat hadn't shot the ball well all season long. But again, it's all about defensive stops for us, trying to get some easy baskets. It will be the same tomorrow night. It will be very difficult because of how good SanDiego State is in defensive transition. They're a great defensive transition team. Trying to get a few easy baskets will be key tomorrow night just like it was today. Q. Game plan was obviously to pound the ball into Chris. We saw how he responded on the floor. How did he respond when you laid out the game plan for him? COACH RICE: I think anyone would like to see they're going to get the ball a lot. I just think Chris continues to make progress. When he's engaged like he was today, we're a good basketball team. I think that the ability of our guys to get him the ball. We're screening much better. Getting Pat back was huge because it gives us another scorer out on the floor. It's difficult when Pat is not on the floor, because teams can really sag on Chris. That lineup we had out there with multiple scorers on the floor was a big deal for us, giving Chris some space inside. Goodluck has become better offensive rebounding the ball, and Morgan's energy has been good, as well. Q. You talked about having a lot of guys who haven't played in a Mountain West Conference tournament game. Does that balance out with the fatigue factor of having to play a game and San Diego State coming in fresh? COACH RICE: I think there's no doubt they're deeper than we are. You know the respect that I have for Coach Fisher and their staff and the job they do. I think they're one of the best defensive teams in the country. They're tough. J.J. O'Brien is probably my favorite player that's not on my team. Obviously one of my big disappointments when we tried to recruit J.J. and we didn't get him because I think the world of him as a player and a person. Does a fantastic job. They're so well‑rounded. Three all‑conference players, co‑defensive Player of the Year. They do so many things. To answer your question, it's tournament time. Leave it all out there. Certainly there's always an advantage to getting a bye, but there's also an advantage to having just played a game. So probably those two things neutralize each other. What it's really going to come down to is the fact that SanDiego State is very good. We've been very competitive with them. We'll be ready. It should be a heck of a game, like all these games have been for 16 years. Q. Your thoughts on how tough an assignment SanDiego State is and how big of an advantage is it to be playing on the home floor? COACH RICE: Well, obviously it's a huge advantage for SanDiego State to not have played today. Having said that, it was the first time this year we've played on this court and these baskets. Like I've said many times, I said it when I was at UNLV as an assistant coach, I said it at BYU as the associate head coach, and I say it at UNLV now, is that the tournament needs to be in Las Vegas. I think it's been proven. Now, where exactly it is, what venue it's in, that's the presidents and ADs that decide that. It needs to be in Las Vegas. I think the excitement of fans proves that's the case. So we're excited to be playing here. We'd be excited to continue to play if it was in SanDiego, Albuquerque or wherever. We're excited with our group to continue to play and we know the challenge of playing SanDiego State tomorrow night. Q. Seemed like every time Reno cut the lead to a couple points, Cornish made a couple big threes. How important was it for him to get his shot going? COACH RICE: I thought other than the one stretch in the second half where we took a couple quick shots, I thought one of the keys to the game was our offensive patience. We scored a number of times in the basketball game late in the shot clock. Again, we're not trying to hold it till the end. I just thought it was about patience and making sure we take good shots. If we can get something in transition, that will be really hard tomorrow night, we want to take it. If not, we want to move the ball and make them play. When you play SanDiego State, they're disciplined at the low‑position game. Probably going to be a low scoring game. We'd like it not to be. You have to be patient because the bottom line is they get run‑outs and easy baskets because they're a good defensive rebounding team. We have to make sure we're patient. Q. Having come from a really high tempo offense, can you tell which you'd rather have, the slow grind it out or if you want to get it up and down? Is this a better matchup that you know it's not going to be 89‑80, or is this hard because of your legs? COACH RICE: I think it's a hard matchup just because SanDiego State is so good, because they're so physical, they have so many different weapons. You watched the game last Wednesday night. In the first half J.J. O'Brien got 16 points because we guarded him one‑on‑one because we were concerned Shrigley, concerned about Quinn. In the second half we doubled down on J.J. because I didn't want to come in afterwards to the group and say we let J.J. get 30 points. Polee made a huge three, Winston made a pull‑up jump shot, Quinn made an open three. They're an experienced team. There's a reason why they've been in the NCAA tournament five straight years, six this year. They're well‑coached and balanced. No one you play in this tournament's an easy matchup. Everyone came here with the hopes of winning the tournament. It will be a tough matchup for us. Having said that, we'll be ready to play tomorrow night. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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