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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2015Stanley JohnsonT.J. McConnellSean MillerLAS VEGAS, NEVADA Arizona – 73 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from Coach Miller. COACH MILLER: Well, I'd like to congratulate Cal on a very good season. Cuonzo Martin and his staff did a great job. It's always hard to take over a program when you have someone as established as Mike Montgomery, but you could sense that Cuonzo and Cal, they played the game hard and very physical and played an excellent game yesterday. And we wish those guys nothing but the best. On our end, I thought we were better in the second half than we were in the first half across the board. And there's always a feeling‑out process in March when you get into these tournaments, because teams are desperate. Individual players are kind of playing with house money or playing with a lot at stake, depending on which team you're on. And to me the familiarity and the intensity sometimes can catch you off guard. I don't know if it caught us off guard in the first half as much as we really regained who we were more in the second half. And I think that's a real credit to these guys and to our team. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Stanley, for a 22‑point win it seemed pretty hard fought? STANLEY JOHNSON: I think it's always hard to play a team three times, of course. And I think we kind of struggled a little bit in the first half guarding their actions. It's not like we knew exactly what they were doing. They just ran a little bit better. They're used to how our coverages is and they kind of ran a little bit better. But I think we have a lot of substance to our team. Once you got comfortable and set in, saying we're going to get stops, we got out in transition, that's when the game opened up and that was in the second half. Q. T.J., did you feel possibly that Cal was coming out somewhat desperate like Coach Miller alluded to just now? T.J. MCCONNELL: Yeah, but they play hard. No matter which team it is, any team in the Pac‑12 Tournament seems to raise their level. And they played well in the first half, and we were kind of stagnant, and we picked it up in the second half. And credit to Cal for playing hard, but we made the plays we needed to down the stretch. Q. T.J., I saw you talking to Gabe during the National Anthem kind of looking around. Did you feel like this was going to be almost like a home game atmosphere, your fans were crazy out there? T.J. MCCONNELL: Yes, in this tournament last year, it was the first time I experienced it as a player, and it was pretty much like McKale, our fans are the best. They travel with us wherever we go. And we appreciate them. Q. Sean, if you could talk about the defensive effort, the numbers that you did on the defensive end against Cal and your team today? COACH MILLER: Well, statistically, we did a great job. We held them to 51 points. They shot 34percent from the floor. And we tried to make sure that we stuck to our half‑court man‑to‑man defense and take away their transition. Obviously we're very familiar with the danger of both Jabari Bird and Mathews. Those guys can really get going. And obviously Tyrone Wallace makes everybody better. The fact that Tyrone Wallace shot 20 times in our game, I think two things. One, it shows you did a really good job as a team. Because I think a lot of the shots he took he had to take at the end. But it's also a credit to him. It's tough to get 20 shots off against our defense. And so we came into the game expecting a hard‑fought game, and we're fortunate to be moving forward and advancing. I think we've been in the semifinals now five years in a row. And it's not easy even to get to the semis in a conference tournament. And a number of these guys have been in the championship. So our focus now is about tomorrow, about being able to play the winner of SC and UCLA and hopefully build on what we learned today and be even better as a team. I think so much of it is our own performance, how are we playing. We have one‑second shot at the half, which for us is alarming. And we ended up with five. But that's one thing that we have to make sure we're ready to do because that's a big part of our team. Q. Coach, can you talk a little bit about the impact that Rondae Hollis‑Jefferson had in the first half? It was diving for loose balls and picking up the energy for your team? COACH MILLER: Rondae does everything for us. He made some big plays defensively like you had mentioned, shot block, and I thought a couple times in transition he really ignited the action. And he's, from a versatility perspective, maybe as versatile as any player that's playing college basketball. I say it all the time, heguards a point guard and a power forward in the same game. And we have great respect for Gonzaga. If you look at their season, they're a very difficult team to defend. Rondae guarded Pangos and Wiltjer in the same game. If you can name another guy that can do that, I'll be more than happy to hear the answer. I think that shows his talent level, and that's what he gives us. And we all feed off his energy. I think Stanley and T.J. would echo my sentiments about Rondae. Q. Coach, there were a number of people speculating about your 40‑time when you made it out to the court when things got salty there at the end. But I was just wondering, because things have been getting chippy as conference play goes on and things get really intense, but how much do you rely on the players on the court to kind of deescalate when things get a little too far, and how much is it you having to get in your players' face and deal with it? COACH MILLER: You're right. I mean, it brings out a lot of emotion at the end of the year. We're the team that's 29 and 3. We're going to take some punches. I've talked to these guys a lot about that. And when I say punches, I don't mean a punch, I mean effort. And Cal played us really hard and physical. I thought the last weekend at McKale going against Stanford and Cal they were two really physical games. That's to their credit. And we have to be ready to kind of match that physicality. But our guys are pretty good. I don't think I've ever seen one of our players throw a punch. And they know that's not what this is about. Sportsmanship, play hard, play physical, but there's a line that we don't want any of them to cross. Sometimes the emotion of it as a coach, you have to make sure that we're in place. But I didn't think as maybe scary as that three to five seconds was, I thought both guys held serve and we moved on. Q. Stanley, as a first game out, was this a pleasing performance for your team or is there something, anything disconcerting that it was maybe perhaps a little closer than we thought it might be? STANLEY JOHNSON: I think it's always good to have games like this. We can always learn from every game we play. I think we played good in spurts and bad in spurts. Having five offense rebounds for our team is not acceptable. That's obviously a thing we'll have to clean up for the next game. But I think for us it's always a learning experience. Especially for me. This is my first game in the Pac‑12 Tournament, March Madness, win or go home. So for me I didn't know what to expect. It's a conference game so obviously to a different level because of the circumstances now, but I think it was just a good game for us. We always try to make the game as normal as possible. Just because it's March doesn't mean we do anything different. We do the same thing we do in January and February. I think that's what we did today. Q. Coach, Cal was just in here talking about how the second half they can really get the ball into the post. I was thinking at halftime did you make any adjustments or was it execution by the players in the second half that made the difference? COACH MILLER: It was execution. We emphasized that. We respect Kravish a lot. Especially after last night's game. 25 points. We wanted to make his post catches hard. Thought a couple times when he trapped him, it really worked to our advantage. Sometimes when you trap a good low post player, you make everybody tentative, those that throw it to him and obviously the recipient of the ball. So I thought our team did a good job executing that.  But again Brandon and Kaleb are experienced. Rondae is experienced. Kaleb, in particular, he doesn't get nearly the credit that he deserves as a defensive player. If you just watch him closely, he's in the right place and he anchors a lot of the good things we do. Just like these other guys, T.J. out front, Stanley, Rondae. It's a team effort. Q. Stanley, because you've had so much success in basketball, you're used to the scrutiny, even in high school. In college, at the bigger stage, I wonder how you handle it. Because as much success you've had, people say Stanley needs to do this, the success in the tournament, wonder how you feel about it and does it bother you at all? STANLEY JOHNSON: One thing I learned really fast, at the end of the day it's all about what he thinks about what I'm playing like. COACH MILLER: That's a great answer. (Laughter). COACH MILLER: That's the best I've ever heard. STANLEY JOHNSON: So when you start worrying about things you can't control, things on the outside world, that's when you start getting into things that you're not used to, you're not comfortable with. It's not a time to do things you're not comfortable with. So I'm just staying consistent with what we do, like obviously I talk to T.J. as well and other players on the team that have been here before. I'm just trying to keep doing the things I was doing in January and February and hopefully we'll get some wins here. Q. T.J., I know as we sit right now we don't know if it's going to be UCLA or USC, but we probably won't have a chance to talk with you when that happens. So if it does happen to be UCLA, what does it mean to get another shot after them after they knocked you out of this tournament the last couple of years? T.J. MCCONNELL: You know, we obviously remember that game last year. They played really well and they obviously beat us. But you can't look at it as we're going to use it as extra motivation. We've got to take it like we've taken every game this year. And what we say is just play hard and if we play hard against anyone, you know, they're going to have to play really well to beat us. So whether it be UCLA or USC, as long as we play hard, I think it's going to be a great game. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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