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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 12, 2015Larry KrystkowiakJordan LoveridgeDelon WrightLAS VEGAS, NEVADA Utah – 80 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening comment from Coach. COACH KRYSTKOWIAK: Just it's a long day, I think. Certainly for a coach to sit in a hotel all day and watch, I think we've watched seven games before we got a chance to play. Didn't exactly start off the first half the way we needed to. We've talked a lot about playing hard. And I just mentioned to our team after the game I thought maybe we were going through the motions a little bit with playing hard. We gave up some transition. Got outrebounded by eight or nine in the first half and made it pretty difficult on ourselves and challenged the team in the second half at halftime to come out and play an honest effort‑type defense, and it was a really good second half. I thought it all started with our defense. And when you play as hard as we did defensively, the rim opened up. Offensively we hit a bunch of 3s. Outrebounded them by 20 or something in the second half and shared the basketball. And we had great performances by a bunch of people. But it's good to get that one out of the way and everyone here on the night shift. I know it's been a long day. It's good to have that one behind us. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Can you talk about the rebounding specifically. I know that's a big area of emphasis and it was night and day first half/second half? COACH KRYSTKOWIAK: It certainly was. And I thought even in the first half, we turned it over, gave up some missed layups in transition, and they were getting two and three offensive rebounds. They just played harder. In the second half we got them to miss and they had one chance at it. And then we were able to get out in transition and play. I had no idea that there was that much of a disparity in the rebounding between those two halves. But it's kind of an indication or an example of what happens when you really get after it defensively. And then even offensive boards I thought Jakob and Chris Reyes in the second half when we missed some gave of us extra opportunities and a big lift in there with a more physical nature, and we finished and we actually made some free throws. Q. Delon, what does it mean to you to have that kind of performance? And I know you were looking forward to tournament time and maybe some disappointment with Pac‑12 Player of the Year. What does it mean to have this kind of performance tonight? DELON WRIGHT: It means a lot. The team kind of needed it. We were kind of sluggish a little. So I just tried to hit some shots and rebound and get some assists and try to get things going offensively and defensively. Q. Jordan, was it nice to get the offense going this week as compared to the last couple of weeks where you haven't had that offense flowing a little bit? JORDAN LOVERIDGE: I think the biggest thing that helped our offense was our defense. It's a lot easier when you're getting stops and you're pushing it and you're sharing the ball, and you're just having fun when you get stops. When you get multiple stops and you get to come down on offense and you've got numbers, makes offense a lot easier. Q. Jordan, even though you knew you were down by five at the half, were you encouraged by your performance and did you know you had a second half in you like that, as a team? JORDAN LOVERIDGE: Yeah, we've had our struggles. But we knew if we got multiple stops in a row, we have a chance in any game, especially when we rebound and limit them to one shot. We should have a chance in any game we play. Q. Jordan, you scored eight straight points in the first half when things were slow. Did you feel the need to be more aggressive tonight offensively for your team? JORDAN LOVERIDGE: Not really, I just felt my teammates found me. Especially this guy right here. He always has his head up, he's always making the right plays. It's my teammates made the plays and I made some shots. Q. Coach, Oregon's been one of the hottest teams in the conference the past couple of months. What do you feel like Dana Altman and his staff is doing? What's made him such a tough matchup these past eight weeks or so? COACH KRYSTKOWIAK: I think it's a high energy‑‑ I watched the first half of the Colorado game today. They got down early and put some heat on some people, pressure. Got some turnovers. I think they're playing undersized compared to most teams right now. But as I watch them, it's a high energy offensive team that they move the basketball real well with Dana's motion that he's run for years and it puts people in positions where they can succeed. There's a lot of isolation basketball, one‑on‑one basketball. The ball moves kind of equal opportunity a little bit based on matchups. And then you've got the Player of the Year in our league who is kind of the head of the snake and had 30 something today that I think gives them a little bit of a swagger and makes them feel pretty good about what they're doing. But they're playing with an awful lot of confidence right now, and it's a scrappy bunch. Q. Delon, do you and your teammates look forward to this rematch with Oregon after the first game you played and how things did not go your way? How excited are you to get another shot at the Ducks? DELON WRIGHT: You're always excited to play, rematch against a team that beat you. And we only got to play them one time. So we didn't get that rematch. So this is our rematch. And we'll be really excited for the rematch. Q. How important to your success is it to get Jakob Poeltl involved in the game down in the post? DELON WRIGHT: It's real important. He's a force down there, as he did in the second half, and he stays out of foul trouble. He's hard to guard. He rebounds and he blocks shots for us. We really need him to stay on the floor and be that force for us. COACH KRYSTKOWIAK: I think one of the big things that Jakob did for us was as far as getting from one end of the floor to the other, we got stops. He wasn't necessarily rebounding all the time. We did a great job rebounding collectively, and he did get from that 90feet from one end of the floor to the other. I thought he really opened up the game for us maybe with the foul trouble in the first half was a little bit fresher, and the reality of it is that Stanford played last night and played some guys some high volume. We spoke of that at halftime. I witnessed it in the Colorado/Oregon game, and I think that's got to be part of the plan. You like to think in the perfect setting that's part of the benefit of finishing in the top 4 of your league and getting a bye. I think that's a little bit of what we saw with some heavy legs, with Stanford. And Jakob was unbelievable. He got out and got early layups and he also put some heat on whoever was back on defense. Oftentimes smalls had to take him in the hole and allowed Delon, as you saw him, push the tempo, and I thought it set up a lot of other guys to continue to put the pedal to the metal a little bit and put some heat on him in transition. But it really started with Jakob, I thought, storming down the court. Q. There were some questions about how you guys finished the regular season. Do you kind of see this game in that second half as maybe closing the door on some of those struggles? JORDAN LOVERIDGE: You know, Coach always talks about there's different seasons. We kind of just wanted a clean slate. This is our postseason and we wanted to come out and play as well as we could. COACH KRYSTKOWIAK: I'd like to just‑‑ it has been a little sluggish. We didn't finish the season as well as we would have liked. But the reality of the situation is that we played four out of our last six on the road. And we lost to a really good Arizona team at home. I mean, it's not rocket science for us. We talked about this in our press conference. But everybody wanted to know how are we going to get‑‑ we lost three out of our last five, we lost, and the reality is that we were in it, two‑possession game at Oregon right down to the wire. And we didn't make the plays that we needed to make. And it's hard to win on the road. And lose a tough game to Arizona. And then we go into Washington at the end of the year and we didn't‑‑ it's still a tight tie ballgame with a couple of minutes to go. It's been a while since we played well. We haven't had a great home environment. This felt great for us. It's been a little bit of a while, get out on a neutral court. And I think our fans travel really well, right there with Arizona, as far as coming and supporting us. And it was a big boost. But it did feel good to kind of get some of that mojo back which we really haven't felt much of, with the exception of the Arizona State game. That's our last six games we played really well against Arizona State and it was a little bit of sluggish the other way around. So it was good. Q. Larry, you play eight, nine, ten guys on a given night in your regular rotation. How big of an advantage is that now in these short turnaround times at this time of year? COACH KRYSTKOWIAK: That's a good point. We've talked about that a lot. We've talked about that exact thing. We had a three‑game tournament at home in Utah over the holidays. And that was a little bit of an example of not much prep time and let's turn this thing around. As you know, this tournament, if you want that automatic bid to come in here and win three in three nights, I think that is a factor. It's dang near impossible to win four. Colorado did it a few years ago when we first came into the league together, I think they strung four wins together, but it's really hard. And when Colorado did that four years ago, they did that with a lot of depth on their roster. And that's been one of the things we've counted on a little bit. Some guys didn't have a great night tonight. We don't have to mention any names, but collectively I think as long as we get three, four decent performances from guys, there's going to be ample opportunity tomorrow for some other guys to step up. And we've kind of built our program, I think, a little bit on that. Q. Coach, what went into the decision to start Brekkott? Should we expect that again tomorrow? And can you talk about Isaiah Wright and stabilizing force he had when Brandon was struggling a little bit? COACH KRYSTKOWIAK: He was a big lift. I thought Isaiah defensively does a nice job physical presence, and he's gaining more and more confidence as a freshman. As we've talked about with a lot of kids, you get to that point kind of the mid season, two‑thirds of the way through the season as a freshman and you can make a decision oftentimes, and you'll see hundreds of them around the country that kind of throw in the towel and say I'm not really part of the rotation, or you do maybe what Brandon Taylor did a few years back and just kind of stick to it. And he's had a nice lift. Gave us a real nice lift. As far as Brekkott starting, a little bit of it had to do with how I anticipated Stanford starting with Rosco Allen at the 4, and I liked the idea with Reid Travis coming in off the bench as a big, being a more physical presence, let's have Chris come in about the time Reid Travis does. And it's been a little bit of a slow start. We floundered a little bit offensively, and I was trying to mix some things up. Brekkott had a good week of practice and maybe it was going to be good for both guys. Whether that's going to continue or not, I'm not certain. Q. Larry, are you surprised with the final four teams; it's the top four seeds that are left? COACH KRYSTKOWIAK: No, I can't say I am. I mean, that's kind of‑‑ you know, that's what you would expect a little. I think it gets in a little bit of what I talked about with the‑‑ you saw it in the Colorado game, the Oregon game where I thought it got pretty hard in that second half. I didn't pay that close of attention to the other games this afternoon. Didn't know how they went. I know they were a little bit a wider margin. But it's scripted. I can't say I'd be‑‑ I'd probably be surprised if it would have gone another way, you know, to get the top four seeds playing. And that's pretty anticipated. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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