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MAUI JIM MAUI INVITATIONALNovember 23, 2015Dave RicePatrick McCawStephen ZimmermanLahaina, Maui, Hawaii UCLA - 77 UNLV - 75 THE MODERATOR: We welcome UNLV to the media room. Coach Rice, Steve Zimmerman, and Patrick McCaw. Coach, an opening statement? COACH RICE: First of all, congratulations to UCLA. It was a great college basketball game. We've got a team that's very disappointed with the outcome. We played hard for the entire game. We just went through some stretches where we didn't execute as well as we needed to execute against their zone. Got off to a great start in the first half. Game changed when they went zone. We've got to continue to play inside out and continue to plan attack. We forced 19 turnovers. Their guards, they had three point guards and their guards had 13 turnovers in the game. We just had to continue to convert. We talk about it all the time as a group. We've got to bounce back. What is our response going to be to this kind of adversity. We've got a game in 14 hours, we've got to be ready to play. It's one play here, one play there in a two-point game, an offensive rebound we give up, a free throw we don't make, extra pass we don't make, a turnover. Whatever it may be, that is the difference in going home extremely happy, like UCLA is, or going home disappointed. We've got a resilient group. We're going to bounce back and come back tomorrow. Very important game tomorrow in terms of our response. Continue to get better. We knew it was going to be a tremendous challenge, three games in three days, and the next challenge is bouncing back from a very difficult loss. Q. Zim, just how sick are you, and how much of an impact do you think it had on your play tonight? STEPHEN ZIMMERMAN: Oh, that's a hard one. I'm not super sick. I'm good enough to try to create for my team and produce. I don't think it affected me that much. I just needed a couple breathers here and there, and Coach Rice made sure to get me out and put me right back in. Q. Pat, Dave kind of mentioned when they go zone and the ball just doesn't get inside, is it frustrating to have kind of that same thing kind of keep being an issue for you guys? PATRICK McCAW: Yes, it's tough sometimes when we can't get the ball in the middle, and we're just sitting in hold on the perimeter, and we don't let our big guys execute where we can get in the middle. It's tough. Then we are forced to take the last second shots. But we had some opportunities where we were going to go out in the middle. But I think we played well and we executed, we just came up short tonight. Q. Patrick, you guys took the lead late and you had the momentum in that game. Can you kind of assess how you feel about this team coming out of this game and the way you guys played tonight? Because you had your opportunities to win? PATRICK McCAW: Well, I feel very confident about this team. We're very deep. We've got a lot of confident guys and great coaching staff. We executed. We showed that we're a great team. We're just going to get ready and prepare for tomorrow's game. Q. Patrick, can you talk about the pace a little bit? It seemed like an up and down basketball game? PATRICK McCAW: The pace, that's how we want to play. Get out and run. Coach Rice sells the press defense, and I think that we caused turnovers tonight. That helps us, when we get out and run, we're very special. Guys can run, and that's how we want to play. Yeah, it was a very up and down game. That's what we wanted. We wanted to instill in our defense that we can trap and force turnovers. Q. Stephen, how much did that crowd kind of affect you guys there? It seemed like in the second half, when you made the run and took the lead, you guys were really trying to use them to your advantage. STEPHEN ZIMMERMAN: Yeah, it was great to have a crowd like that, especially not at home. We definitely tried to feed off the energy, like Pat was saying. We tried to run up and down. And we have an athletic team so that helps out and we definitely feed into the crowd. THE MODERATOR: Questions for coach. Q. 29 free throws, I don't know if you'd be happy with that. A lot of them seemed rushed. COACH RICE: Three point shots? Q. Yes, 29 threes. It seemed in the last ten minutes, they were just rushed or just ill advised. Is that where you think it got away? Even though they did make 23, 24 free throws. COACH RICE: Yeah, we have to continue to attack inside out whether we're playing against man to man or we're playing against zone. Having said that, the reason they went zone was they couldn't guard us on the interior, and they couldn't guard our dribble penetration so they went zone. We can't settle, though. We've to continue to attack the same way. Part of the reason we went zone was to force the shooting from the outside. So we can't settle. We have to make the extra pass. But no doubt playing inside out is the key, and we got an opportunity. And we'll probably see a lot of zones tomorrow against Chaminade. Q. Between the start to the game and then kind of that stretch, I don't know, 16 to 8, is that because it's the best you've seen of this team or sort of what it's supposed to look like when it's going? COACH RICE: Well, I'm proud of our group. Like you said, we forced a very good ball handling team. UCLA started with 19 turnovers, and we've scored 23 points off of their turnovers. We have flashes of what we're going to be, and we knew it was going to be a challenge. For large portions of that game, we played terrific basketball. We've got to convert free throws. We go to the free throw line 22 times. To get momentum, we've got to get to the free-throw line and make free throws. Because that helps to sets our press when there is a dead ball and a free throw make. We'll quick bounce back, play in about 14 hours. And told the team from day one, how we want to be judged, what is our response to success, or what is our response, in this case, to adversity and it's certainly an adverse situation. We have a disappointed team that was right there, and just did not quite get the game finished up the right way. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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