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MOUNTAIN WEST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2015Cody DoolinJelan KendrickDave RiceLAS VEGAS, NEVADA San Diego State – 67 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by UNLV. Coach, some thoughts on tonight's game. COACH RICE: First of all, tremendous respect for Coach Fisher and his program.  Congratulations to them. They play extremely hard. We wish them the best moving forward. I'm extremely proud of our two seniors, the rest of our team. I thought we battled from the start of the game to the end of the game. One thing about our group, had a lot of close games this year, we never quit. That was one of our main goals coming into this season. Got a locker room full of guys that are disappointed, that can't wait to get back to practice and compete. They love to play. They're growing.  They're getting better. We've made tremendous progress. We're very disappointed with the outcome. We came into this with a lot of confidence. We just came up a little bit short. Again, all the best to San Diego State. Couldn't be prouder of our group for how hard we played and how we stayed together through a season that we grew up and continue to get better. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Talk about the full court pressure you had to face throughout the entire game. Did you feel like you were a little bit fatigued late in the second half? CODY DOOLIN: Well, you know, I think they do a really good job in their full court pressure, obviously. It's really tough to break. I think we did a really good job for the most part taking care of the ball. Where I think it's a little underrated in its effectiveness is how much time it takes off the shot clock. By the time you set up into your set, there's 20 seconds to go on the shot clock, feels like you're always playing against the shot clock as opposed to other teams. They've done that in all three games. They're really good at it. Q. When you sit here and reflect on the season, all the close losses you've had, is there a sense of frustration that you should have had a much better season than what you had? CODY DOOLIN: I think whenever you lose, there's a sense of frustration. I was really happy for us. We had plenty of chances this season to just fold up and go home, and we didn't. We battled till the end. Obviously the season didn't, you know, quite go as we may have wanted. I was really proud of us for how hard we played. Obviously they're a good team. Give a lot of credit to them. They've won a lot of conference championships for a reason. Q. After they had that big run to start the second half, you had the and‑one play that got you going, a couple drives towards the end. Once they came out and took the lead again, what was the mentality of the team? CODY DOOLIN: Well, I thought we did a good job. We had a chance there. They go on a whatever and 0 run they had. We battled back add tied up the game. Just a few plays got us. A little bit of their experience along with their depth may have hurt us. They shot the ball well tonight. When they shoot the ball they're going to be tough to beat for anybody on any night. A lot of credit to them. They played well offensively. Q. Jelan, you have improved over the course of the season. Last month you seem to have found yourself on this team. Talk about the disappointment for you coming here and finishing up this way. JELAN KENDRICK: No one likes to lose. It's very disappointing. But we're going to keep our heads high and continue to prepare for whatever comes next. I'm excited to see where this young team will continue to go. Glad I can be part of their lives, inspire them, set a way of how to do things, with Cody. We're going to continue to try to finish out this year strong. Q. The second half, that's been a bugaboo the whole season long. Talk about that. CODY DOOLIN: Yeah, you know, I thought lately maybe we've been doing a better job of it. But they're a good team. They're going to make runs on you. Yeah, they came out, we missed some free throws, I air balled a three‑pointer.  They took advantage of that and ran off some points, I think two threes in a row, a couple offensive rebounds and a put‑back. Like I said, you got to give credit to them. They're well‑disciplined on the defensive end. They shot the ball really well tonight. They played well enough to win and we didn't. All the credit to them, like I said. JELAN KENDRICK: No comment. Q. JK, do you want to play in some type of post‑season tournament? JELAN KENDRICK: I definitely want to. It's my last year. I think we got a group of guys who love to play the game. Even if we weren't playing in the post‑season, I feel like we'll be playing pickup come Sunday. That's the type of guys we have. They love the game, love to be around the game, love to play the game. When you're around a group of guys like that who always want to play, you never want to stop playing with them. All props to the coaches who kind of embraced us, especially over time, took this young group and groomed us and helped us mature over the games and stuff. So I'm excited whatever comes next. Q. Coming out of the second half you went 0‑5 shooting. The four missed free throws hurt you. Talk about the uphill battle when it seemed like you couldn't make a shot. CODY DOOLIN: Yeah, I think you said it. It did hurt a little bit. They can really squeeze you defensively sometimes. You can go four, five, six possessions sometimes without scoring on them. They just do a really good job in ball screen defense and guarding the ball and post defense and we call it monster, but doubling the post. They did a great job. That's their bread and butter on the defensive end. They hit some shots in that stretch, but what they really did is squeezed us defensively. It took us five or seven minutes to really get in a rhythm offensively that we had in the first half. Q. For you to be around with all these young guys, how important have you been to them to help them for the future? CODY DOOLIN: I think, you know, me and Jelan both have tried to instill a culture of sharing the basketball and playing on the defensive end and playing tough. Our young players are fantastic. Obviously everyone watched tonight. They can block shots and shoot and run the court. Like Jelan said, I think we are excited to be a part of something that we think's going to be a big deal, a big‑time program down the road. I'm just glad I was able to come here and play with Jelan and have a chance to be a part of something special in the future. We had a lot of close games this year. A lot of freshmen were thrown in the fire. They gained a lot of experience, invaluable experience, that a lot of players won't necessarily get for two or three years down the road. I think next year, it's really going to show. I think guys like Pat and Jordan and Chris and Goodluck and Dwayne, they're really going to play well next year. They don't play like young players now and they certainly won't next year, I think. THE MODERATOR: We'll dismiss the student‑athletes at this time. Thank you. We'll continue with questions for Coach Rice. Q. Every game is different, but it's now in your Mountain West games, first five minutes of second half a minus 50. Have you seen any kind of trend where teams do something different? At one point you were 18‑2 in the lane paint. Did they go away from something? What happens after halftime? COACH RICE: Those are probably two questions. It's certainly something that we have struggled with, starting second halves. That's why yesterday afternoon we started pressing. I didn't think pressing San Diego State was the answer to start the second half. It's a situation where to start the second half we were able to pound it inside, got the free throw a couple times and were not fortunate enough to make those free throws, and San Diego State was able to get out and make some easy baskets. Something that's frustrating for our guys because we have led at the half a number of times. We just didn't come out and get a shot to go in. I thought they got some baskets because of our inability to make a shot or a free throw to start the second half. Q. You led at halftime the last 16 games of the year, led at Kansas, Arizona State. Does this feel like a season that got away? COACH RICE: I don't look at it that way. I look at it as a group that made tremendous progress as the season went on, as a group that grew into something that was much better at the end of the season than it was at the start of the season. At the same time, sure, we're disappointed with a lot of those outcomes, no doubt about it. It will be something we'll continue to look at, evaluate and try to figure out. Q. What are your thoughts on playing some type of post‑season tournament? COACH RICE: I told the guys afterwards it's a group that we want to keep coaching. We got guys in our program that love to play. I think every year is unique. I think when you have a number of new players to the program, there's a value in getting them post‑season experience. We're going to actually meet tomorrow at noon as a group and all of our guys as of now are committed to wanting to continue to play. You heard what JK said. Some years when you have all seniors, it might be a situation where maybe it's not the best thing. When you have as many young guys as we have, it's not an excuse for losing games, when you have guys that have an opportunity to get post‑season experience, I think there's value in more practices and more games. We'll figure that out. Our guys love to play and they all seem very excited to continue to play. I think they like each other. This is a group that has great team chemistry. They want to keep practicing and playing. Q. When you look at how many close games you lost this year, where you are right now, how would you sum up the season in a paragraph if you had to? COACH RICE: It's really soon to try to make that kind of a judgment. I feel really good about the progress our guys made. Obviously we're disappointed we didn't get it done tonight. I think as we look back, we'll see individually guys made great strides. As a team we got better. I think it's something we can absolutely build on moving forward and going into the off‑season. I think every single guy in our program that comes back next year will be able to use the experiences this year as motivation in the summer, in the weight room, the track, the gym, to help us be much better next year. I'm appreciative of Cody and JK for what they provided to our young guys. I've said many times they helped lay a solid foundation for our group. Q. Did you have any concern tonight these three games dating to last year? Talent‑wise you're ahead of them, that it was above the shoulders playing these guys? Were you concerned it came down to confidence and when it got tight late? COACH RICE: I think the bottom line is we're disappointed that we came up on the short end in the three games against San Diego State because we were in all those games and they made a few more plays, to their credit. Again, it's frustrating because we wanted to win this one very badly and we came up a play short. We've got to evaluate that and certainly figure that out. Q. Three second halves this year against San Diego State, minus 27 against them. Was that more so San Diego State adjusting or is it just missed shots? COACH RICE: I think going back, thinking about your question, I don't want to minimize San Diego State's talent level either. Certainly they're tough and talented, so I want to give them credit for that, as well. Obviously we didn't play as well in the second halves against San Diego State as we would have liked to. We didn't execute as well as we would have liked to. I think we made tremendous progress as the season went on and we have something to absolutely build on. Q. At the end of the year last year in the off‑season you had some discussions with Khem Birch and Roscoe Smith. Do you expect that this year with a couple players? What do you expect in that process? COACH RICE: We'll have conversations with all of our guys and get all the information that we can get from the NBA, help those guys make the best decision for them. We'll be doing that over the course of the next several weeks. I think the deadline is April the 26th, if I'm not incorrect. It's not something we've spent of time talking about right now. Obviously every program has opportunities for guys to make decisions, and we're excited about the guys that will be coming back. Right now it's too early to say who those guys will be. I just think we have a great foundation for the future. I made the decision last spring to put this group together. We had a lot of guys who were able to play significant minutes during the course of the season. I'm proud of the progress they made. I think the future's extremely bright. I think everyone that is objective about that sees that. But it's too early. They've still got quite a bit of time before they have to make that decision. THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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