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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: COLUMBUSMarch 20, 2015Buddy HieldLon KrugerTaShawn ThomasCOLUMBUS, OHIO OKLAHOMA - 69 COACH KRUGER: Really hard-fought game obviously. I thought Albany did a terrific job. I thought Coach Brown had his guys really sharp and they did the things they needed to do, controlled the pace, especially early. Spread us out. And yet I thought our guys remained fairly patient and took opportunities when we had them. But good win. It's hard to win tournament games. Especially against a good ball club that's well coached like that. But I thought TaShawn, Buddy, D.J. Bennett comes in, Khadeem Lattin comes in, plays good minutes. Frank gets down, and Booker gets a couple 3s down. I thought our bench was really important to us. But a lot of it started with TaShawn down in the inside and he made some big plays. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. Q. Can you talk about this getting the first win not only in this tournament but the last couple of years, you've now gotten over the hump? TASHAWN THOMAS: This is my first time being in the tournament. And it just feels so good right now actually to get the first win and just play good with your teammates and just being able to extend your season a little bit longer. I feel ecstatic right now. BUDDY HIELD: Been here for three years, my third year here now, and I fall short twice. It feels good to come and get a win. Hats off to TaShawn. He played a great game. And Coach Kruger did a good job exploiting the mismatch. And he helped lead us to our first win, and I'm happy for that. Q. TaShawn, did you come into the game planning on seeing the ball a lot inside, or was that something you kind of adapted as the game went through since you had a lot of success? TASHAWN THOMAS: I think that the game plan was to get the ball down inside because we knew we had an advantage, couple inches. And I was just trying -- at first I was just trying to find other players, but Coach was telling me to look to score first, then try to find other people. I think that's when we started scoring more easily. Q. TaShawn, you guys never really pulled big away from them. But did you feel like you all were in control out there all night? What was the sense of it on the court? TASHAWN THOMAS: I honestly feel like it was just hectic out there, because they kept making runs and we just kept answering back. It was just going back and forth. I think we just held our composure the most part of the game and whenever we didn't, that's when Coach called timeout and that gave us a chance to get our composure back. Q. Buddy, Hooley had 10 points in the first half. Looked like you were on him a little tighter in the second half. Any point of emphasis there in the second half? Anything you did different? BUDDY HIELD: Coach get on us. You know we had a lot of good looks. And I missed a couple of defensive plays, let them get a back door on me and missed a switch-off and he got open. And I drove -- stopped him. And I feel like we stopped him. We keyed them on the game and we did a good job on him in the second half. Q. Buddy, it seemed like every time Albany hit a big shot throughout the game you all were able to answer right back. I think you had a couple, Isaiah and Frank. How important was that, and specifically Isaiah's one with about three minutes left that stretched it back to 9? BUDDY HIELD: It was very important. We needed guys to step up, make big shots. We always felt at that moment when you are up by 8 or 9, you watch those games and teams come back in less than 30 seconds. And Isaiah stepped up and made some big shots. Frank stepped up, made some big shots. All those guys, tired of losing in the first round. Hats off to Isaiah, he made a great shot. He struggled tonight. And we were just happy guys stepped up to make shots. We really needed that. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach Kruger. Q. Did you start kind of building up TaShawn from Monday on that he could have a big game in the post tonight? COACH KRUGER: TaShawn's done that for us frequently on the year. And we expected to be able to get the ball in there, didn't know if they would double it right away. I thought they started the ballgame doubling it. TaShawn made a couple of nice plays out of there. Then they didn't double it for a while. I thought Albany did a really good job mixing things up, changing things. I thought our guys did a good job reading it and playing off of it. Still everything started with TaShawn in the low post tonight. Q. Especially after what we saw yesterday, how pleased were you with the way your guys handled the pressure and the tension of a tight game with three, three and a half minutes left? COACH KRUGER: I thought our guys did a good job. Credit Albany, they continued to make shots to keep it in that six- to nine-point area. And anytime we'd get a miss, we could have widened it out perhaps. And they didn't let us do that. Yet, like Ryan said, we kept answering to widen it back out to nine or 10, whether that be jumpers or at the free-throw line. But I thought our guys did a pretty good job playing it out, not panicking, and getting to the free-throw line when we needed to and then making shots. Q. After the early knockouts the last couple of years, how important was it that you get a win, first of all? Second of all, was that a point of interest? Did you bring it up to them at all this year about what you had to do? COACH KRUGER: Guys certainly were aware that we had lost in the first round the last two years. Games are hard to win in a tournament. So, yeah, it was huge. Guys all wanted to get a tournament win under their belt. I thought TaShawn probably had a little different edge to his practice all week, given that he hadn't played in the tournament at all. And he's going to tell the other guys, this is pretty special. And I think that was a good influence on the other guys in preparation. Q. It was probably good, or how was it with Ryan Spangler getting early points coming off the Big 12 Tournament, you probably couldn't have drawn it up better? COACH KRUGER: It was great to see Ryan get off to a good start. No one felt worse than he did after the Iowa State ballgame. The teammates picked him up and he practiced well and hit down a couple of shots early probably helped him as much as anything. I thought he almost had a double-double. 11 boards and nine points, and pretty good response. Q. In the first half, Ryan Spangler got some foul trouble. You were able to put D.J. Bennett in there, gave you some quality minutes on both ends of the floor. And Frank hitting a couple of big 3s as well. How important was that bench production tonight? COACH KRUGER: Very important. You know, we haven't had a lot of point production off the bench. I thought D.J. getting a couple of buckets down, Frank getting a couple of 3s and I thought Khadeem played his minutes really well, with his activity. Yeah, the bench was huge. I thought guys stepped in there and I thought D.J. in the first half, especially when Ryan was in foul trouble, getting down a couple buckets, picked everyone up and, like you say, blocked the shot, changed a shot on the other end and had a real nice impact on the ballgame. Q. I apologize if you said this when you first got in. Isaiah's 3, when the shot clock is running down, they cut it to 6, hit a couple of shots in a row, things are getting tense. How big was it to not just get a 3, but after working the shot clock down and running so much time off? COACH KRUGER: It was really big. If we don't get a bucket there, they go down and score and all of a sudden it's a three- or four-point ballgame. That's different from a nine-point ballgame for sure. But Isaiah can make shots without a lot of rhythm. He's done that all year. He doesn't mind the moment. He steps up there and shoots those. I thought he shot two or three others really well that didn't go down. So he's feeling good right now about what he's doing. THE MODERATOR: Congratulations, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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