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MOUNTAIN WEST MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 9, 2016Dave PilipovichJacob VanZach KocurLas Vegas, Nevada UNLV - 108 Air Force - 102 (3 OT) THE MODERATOR: Coach, if we can start with you and get some thoughts on today's game. HEAD COACH DAVE PILIPOVICH: All right. How many people in this room thought when they came to the 1:30 game you would see 55 minutes of basketball? Huh? That was a pretty exciting game. That was a pretty exciting game. Two teams that just fought tremendously to the end. We had five players that fouled out. At the end of the game when I'm going across the court to shake their hands, I shake Steve Zimmerman's hand, I forget he was in the game, because he fouled out so early, and we kept playing. What a great game by two teams. When you get to this point in the season and it's a one-and-done situation, I'm proud of these two men and the rest of our team. Congratulate UNLV for what they've gone through this season, and how they finished today and now have a chance to move on. Q. Start with the free throws at the second overtime. Down 3 with three seconds left with three shots. What was the mentality? Have you ever faced anything like that as an athlete? JACOB VAN: I've never been in that situation. I just try to think back when I was in the gym myself, getting shots up, shooting free throws, I just tried to take my mind away from the situation and take it one free throw at a time and not put pressure on myself. Q. What's the emotion after this game? What's going through your head after you go through three overtimes and don't finish? ZACH KOCUR: I thought we fought really hard. But by no means are we satisfied with just fighting hard. I think coming into the game we had a little extra fight in us because everyone was counting us out from the start. No one thought that we'd be even close to that. So we had a little bit extra, I guess, something to play for. But we just didn't get it done at the end. They just made more plays than us. It was a hard fought battle, but just came up a little short. Q. The fact you beat UNLV at your place, was that important coming into today knowing you beat them already? ZACH KOCUR: I thought it was a little bit similar to last year. We got New Mexico at our place before the tournament, came in here and got New Mexico the first round. It was a little bit similar to that. I think it gave us a little bit more confidence. But we should have confidence, I guess, going into any game. We're not going to count ourselves out by any means. It definitely helped, though. Q. What's it do to the legs when you're at that 55-minute point, and obviously you guys needed some shots to get back into it? What did you feel like, especially in that third overtime? JACOB VAN: For me personally I could tell all my shots were short. I couldn't necessarily tell my legs were tired, just having at a lot of adrenaline in the game. Definitely feel it now. I realized if my shots are short, I need to attack the basket and that's going to give us the best chance to get points and get back in the game. Q. Most seasons end with a loss, for everybody, mostly. What does this do to spring you forward? You don't have a senior on the floor, and to have that kind of game and effort? ZACH KOCUR: It shows we can have this moment going into next year, we have a lot of experience out of this season from the younger guys. That's going to spring us forward to next year. We weren't thinking like we're all going to be back next year, because Zach Moer, our only senior, you never know how many games you're going to have left. We tried to make the most of this season and we just came up short. It's definitely going to give us some confidence and some momentum going into next season and the off season. Q. What was the explanation to you, looked like a foul called on Broekhuis at the end of the first overtime that didn't result in free throws? HEAD COACH DAVE PILIPOVICH: I don't know if I got an explanation. Q. I guess you probably didn't need to ask for it? HEAD COACH DAVE PILIPOVICH: Yeah. I don't know if I got really an explanation on that one, yeah. Q. I realize you had a whole extra overtime after Siples fouled out. Did you feel like that was kind of a deciding moment? HEAD COACH DAVE PILIPOVICH: No, when you lose, our thing has always been next man up. And we obviously had players late in the game who maybe haven't had the minutes with some of the really young freshmen who haven't played earlier during the season. But the guys really -- they gave everything. And I don't know if any team lost or won it. For us, I think we just ran out of a little more time. If there was a little more time on the clock, as you said, maybe we didn't finish the game. Did we not finish? I think we didn't have enough time to catch back up again. That's the way I look at it with our guys. We had a great effort. C.J., the foul, he had a drive and they called a push-off foul. I couldn't see it, I was away from the bench. I'll obviously look at that. But that's what happened. And we moved on from there. Jacob Van, Zach Kocur, Hayden Graham, Kocur, everybody. The minutes that we got, and we fought and they fought. They lost guys. Guys were fouling out on their team. We had three starters out from the beginning of the season. They had three or four players who have been out for them. It was the survival at the end, who is going to survive it and make the last play. So what an epic game for us to be involved in. As we move forward with our program, we talked to our players about this, and we'll talk to them about this here after we take some time. We've done some good things and we've won some games here at home. Now for us to move forward we've got to win some games on the road. And that's maturity and that's growing as a team. And I wasn't saying this was an away game, because this was a neutral game today. But we've got to grow and show that development. We lose the Fresno game in the last second out there. And then we lose this one today. So as we mature and grow, that's going to be a big key for us, continue to do what we've done at home and protect our home court. I think we went 12 or 13 games at home but we've got to get better on the road. Q. What's the difference? HEAD COACH DAVE PILIPOVICH: The difference is we're not coming from our dorm. The difference is the environment. We've got a great home court when our cadets are there, as you know, and you've been in that arena. And when we've traveled through the venues of the Mountain West, to the Pit, and San Diego, and here, and the home crowds support their teams. Now the maturity of our team has to be able to come into these venues and win games. Q. It seemed like every overtime they would get a quick four or five. Was that a big factor? HEAD COACH DAVE PILIPOVICH: Yeah, you know, we gained some possessions early and we -- on the two to three overtimes I can remember, we didn't attack to the glass, we stepped back, took a jump or a perimeter shot. We wanted to attack to the rim. Everybody was in the foul trouble and we wanted to put the whistle in the officials' hands and make that call. But they came back and made the score. We were coming back. That's a long overtime. There was a lot of minutes to be played, lead changes here and there. It was a hell of a game, excuse me. It was a great game. It will take me a long time to watch it again, I'm not going to watch it right away because it hurt. But that was a great game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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