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AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 13, 2015Larry BrownRyan ManuelHARTFORD, CONNECTICUT SMU - 74 MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, we're joined by the SMU Mustangs head coach, Larry Brown, and Ryan Manuel. Before we get started, I just want to let you know that the Mustangs have advanced to the semi-finals, that would be tomorrow at 3:00 on ESPN2, and after Coach's opening statement, we're going to take some questions for Ryan only, and then let him go and talk to Coach. Some remarks on this win, Coach? COACH BROWN: Feel kind of fortunate we're up here talking about playing tomorrow. Jeff had his team really well prepared. We pride ourselves in guarding and I think for the most part we tried to guard as hard as we could, but they executed and made shots. They got off to such a good start, I think last year we probably would have packed it in, but we've matured a little bit, and I think have handled adversity much better, and I truly believe that's why we're moving on. On a team, I think they were 15-31 at one time. When a team shoots outside as well as they did, you've got to be pretty fortunate you're going to move on. MODERATOR: Questions for Ryan? Q. Can you talk about the perimeter defense? They were hitting all those 3s but I think they missed their last six. What did you guys changes, if anything, and how did you close this game out? RYAN MANUEL: I think at the end of the game we had to get stops, like Coach Brown said, and I think we got those at the end of the game. They were 15-35 from the 3-point line, but as Coach Brown said, we faced adversity and we got through it. Q. Ryan, can you just talk about the slow start you guys had and how you battled back from that? RYAN MANUEL: They came out making shots. Like coach Brown said, they had nothing to lose and I think we just stuck with it and after the game we came out with the win. We were fortunate to get it, but we live to fight another day. MODERATOR: All right, Ryan, thank you. Good luck. Questions for Coach? Q.  Coach, having coached Jeff Lebo in San Antonio, was there a moment when you realized, hey, this guy might have a coaching career ahead of him? And how does this team reflect his attitude as a player? COACH BROWN: Well, I got the San Antonio Spur job and they made me president, coach, GM, whatever, and I felt I couldn't do all three, so they fired the GM. I told the owner you've got to hire him back. So they drafted a kid in the second round and gave him some money and Jeff tried out and I thought he was much better, and the GM, who I thought I saved his job, he said, tell me one thing Jeff does better than him, and I said he listens to me, but he should have made the team and he probably would have played for a number of years. Obviously you know what Jeff's been through the last three weeks, so, you know, Jeff -- myself, so many of us are doing this because of Coach. So I look down at him and I get a sense of pride. His dad's a coach, he's a terrific young man and I think a great coach. I look at our conference, it's filled with young players and terrific young coaches, and I think this conference is really moving up. It's not only going to be about Cincinnati, Memphis, Connecticut and Temple; it's going to be about a well-rounded conference because there's really terrific young talent and great young coaches and I hold him up with any of them. Q. Coach, Markus Kennedy got hurt and he came back and seemed to play even better after that. Can you talk about how well he played down the stretch? COACH BROWN: Remember last year he got hurt? It took him about 28 seconds to get down the other end. He played great. He won 6th Man of the Year, but everybody on our side understands what a terrific player he is. I think for the most part all our guys played pretty well. I just think they played great. We had a huge advantage inside. So much of it is because we lost Keith, we lost Justin, so many people pack it in. But with Nic, they extend, and I think they extended the zone to stop him and we had holes inside and we needed our bigs to play well and they did. And Markus was terrific. Q. Could you just give a comment on the teams you might play in the second round, either Temple or Memphis, just what you think of both of those teams? COACH BROWN: Well, I hadn't even thought about Temple or Memphis, to be honest with you, but I saw Austin Nichols with a boot on and I felt terrible because obviously he made all-league first team and he's an unbelievable young man and a big part of their team. It's really, really difficult to overcome injuries like that, but I think Josh has done a great job in keeping that group together. They've gone with some smaller wings and they seem to be doing a terrific job. You know, when you have Shaq, you have an inside presence as well. Temple, I heard Fran's comment about winning Coach of the Year and being so humble about it. When you take a team that I think won nine games last year and beat Kansas by whatever they beat them and played at such a high level, especially since he's gotten those transfers, just tells you a little bit about what kind of coach he is and what kind of team they have. They're deep, they've got size, they've got a phenomenal point guard, so I think we're just fortunate enough to play against a good basketball team, and I'm hopeful we'll be ready to play. Q. Coach, you guys go down like 19-9 early on and Nic scores like 11 points in a four minute span, how important is he as kind of a spark plug there when you guys are struggling early? COACH BROWN: He was Player of the Year, that's what they're supposed to do. When I look at Player of the Year, you know, I look around, I saw Boatright last night, I saw Hamilton last night, you see Cummings, you see Shaq, you see Austin. This league's full of really quality, quality players. And this is the time of year they've got to step up. We got some of our baskets because we got stops, which we weren't doing earlier. It's really hard, especially for him, to score against a set defense that's really geared to stop him. But he gave us a lift, he made a couple really unbelievable hustle plays. I think that was really significant. I'm proud because last year, obviously last year at this time it wasn't very exciting. This is the first time, I found out, we won a conference game in nine years. How about that? Q. Coach, they were hurting you at the beginning of the game. Screen-to-screen action. What was the best way to take them out of that offense? COACH BROWN: We got hurt on dribble penetration and kick-outs, and that's something we pride ourselves keeping people in front of us. And then we got hurt on a couple transitions where we gambled in the backcourt and didn't get back and they found open shooters. But I think more was made of the fact that their senior point guard really controlled the pace of the game and he got the right guy, shot. I think he was 6 for 20 on the year shooting 3s, and he made two or three in the first half. Seemed like everybody -- sometimes missing fouls gets contagious, sometimes making shots gets contagious. And I told our team, they weren't expected to win. We haven't been in this position where we're expected to win much and it puts a little bit of burden on you in a different way. You're afraid to lose instead of just playing. I was trying hard to get that point across. But again, I think they would have beaten a lot of teams today, there's no doubt in my mind the way they played, the way they were coached. Q. Coach, you had 27 points off of turnovers. Just how pleased were you with your team's defensive efforts today? COACH BROWN: We've had a trouble guarding the 3 in Hartford. We came here, I guess, a week ago and guys that hadn't made a three in a month looked like the rims were bathtubs. We didn't guard the three very well, we didn't guard it tonight as well as I think we need to, but turnovers got us easy baskets because their zone, when you realize a lot of our guards are reluctant to shoot the ball from outside and I've got to do a better job, Ben Emelogu never looked at the goals, Sterling never looked to take a shot outside, Ryan never did, but turnovers got us easy points and the biggest play of the game was Ben Moore. You never know what's going to happen to a four point game that late, them fouling, Ben Moore gets a big steal so turnovers got us going and gave us a chance to win. Q.  (MODERATOR): Thanks, Coach. Good luck. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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