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MOUNTAIN WEST MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 10, 2016Eric MusselmanTyron CriswellCameron OliverLas Vegas, Nevada Nevada - 64 New Mexico - 62 THE MODERATOR: Coach, if we can start with you, some thoughts on today's game. HEAD COACH ERIC MUSSELMAN: I thought our defensive effort was phenomenal. We've been a great defensive team all season long. And for a team that's a little bit injured and down in numbers, the effort and the energy and the enthusiasm especially at the defensive end tonight, down the stretch of the game we made defensive play after defensive play. And then obviously Cam Oliver came up with a monster game. We knew was a guy we were going to try to force feed tonight going into the game. And Cam came through for us big time. And so did TC with his ability to dribble drive in transition. Q. You said entering to game you guys had to come out aggressive in the first five, ten minutes. What tone did you set individually for the rest of your guys? CAMERON OLIVER: Pretty much exactly what I said, just come out aggressive and with intensity. I've been saying all season we've got a big chip on our shoulder and we've got to stay with the intensity. We believe in Coach Muss, he's a great coach. We have to take what he's saying and bring it out to the court. Q. When it comes to points in the paint, you won 36 to 20, talk about how much of an effort you put into that, being big down low? CAMERON OLIVER: I just feel during practice and the preparation of this game we said we've got to attack the zone. We knew a lot of teams were going to zone us, we're really not that much of a great shooting team, but we're an aggressive team out there. So we bring out toughness to the basket. Q. They have a two-headed monster in their scoring department. Tim Williams was one of seven shooting in the first half. Ended up with 12 points. What did you do with Tim Williams and also with Elijah Brown to make things difficult on him? TYRON CRISWELL: Doing a lot of things. With Elijah Brown we kept trailing him off the screens. We tried to front Tim Williams as much as possible and be on help side. Q. Obviously Elijah did have 26 points. The 7 turnovers from Elijah, how much were you sensing frustration coming from him? TYRON CRISWELL: That's what we wanted to do. Just pressure the ball. Coach is always telling us to pressure the ball, jab at the ball, mess with him and get him off his game a little bit. And the numbers showed we were able to do that tonight. Q. Can you talk about the guts that your team showed on the floor today to pull off the win? TYRON CRISWELL: We showed unbelievable toughness tonight. That goes from everybody that played to players on the bench, just being really into the game. Marqueze Coleman fighting through his injury and really giving us some pace in the game when he was in. It shows how tough we are as a group. And that shows just how tough we are. We were able to pull out the win. Q. Why do you think you guys were able to do a more effective job defensively against them than in the first two matchups? TYRON CRISWELL: We played them three times. When we played two back-to-back, you should know what they're doing. All week we've been preparing and no coaching staff could get us more prepared than ours, I would say. Those guys really work hard for us and we're a prepared team every night. Q. What did you see out of Cam today and is that the best he's played this season? TYRON CRISWELL: Definitely top five. He comes out every night and plays hard. I definitely would compare this game to the 20 and 20 he had at home earlier this season. Cam has been big for us all season, blocks, defense, shutting down their bigs, rebounding. He's been real big for us all season. Q. Cam, can you talk about the defensive play, they swing the ball around. Did you feel like you could get out there and get to the ball? CAMERON OLIVER: Yeah, I seen -- on the other side we had Elijah Brown trapped. I read the swing of the ball, it was in the hands of Logwood, he knocked down some, but I seen it on the corner and I was right there on time. Q. You ran down to the other end and kind of bent over, it seemed like you were emotional. What were you feeling? CAMERON OLIVER: I couldn't believe I did it. It was a crazy moment. We came so far, we worked so hard for this, and Lindsey actually saved the ball for us, and that was a big possession. Q. You said you wanted your team to play with anger and rage. CAMERON OLIVER: That's exactly what I wanted. This game today shows exactly that chip, that rage that we actually have. We can bring it out any day. Q. You said you didn't want this to be your final game in a silver and blue uniform. How good does it feel to go on? TYRON CRISWELL: Definitely feels good. I told the guys in the locker room, I was talking to Marqueze, Don't let this be the last time we wear Nevada on our chests. It definitely feels good we have one more game, and hopefully we can continue to advance. Q. You guys have a tough test coming up, going against San Diego State. And last time you guys played them you guys went to the final shot. Can you talk about the challenge they pose? TYRON CRISWELL: It's both defensive teams. Honestly, I really feel like tomorrow is going to be a very low-scoring game. It's going to come down to who gets more stops and who gets more buckets offensively. Like I said, both defensive teams, so I'm looking forward to a real tough game and just hopefully we can show that toughness as well as we did tonight. Q. Can you talk about facing Skylar Spencer, the two-time defensive player of the year in the Mountain West? CAMERON OLIVER: Yeah, first time we played them, actually my very first time playing against a guy like that. But I watched film with all the guys. What I've got to worry about them, they've got to worry about us, also. Not really worried about it. Q. How much do you relish being able to play in moments like today with just a couple of points in the game and you're able to feel the crowd and step up and make those big shots and plays? CAMERON OLIVER: I said after the interview, I'm just speechless. And all the hard work really does pay off for all of us, not just me. Even the coaches. Coaches, all the hard work pays off. And you really see our work on the court. Q. What did it mean to you guys when you saw Foster foul out. He was very emotional when he went back to the bench and I saw him look to you guys and say, Win this for us. What did that mean and how did it push you? TYRON CRISWELL: It definitely motivated all of us, because Elijah -- I actually never seen Elijah that pumped up. And seeing him that pumped up definitely motivated me. And he said, Let's go, TC, don't get your fifth foul. Play hard and get this win. Let's leave with a W tonight. And that really motivated all of us on the court. Q. Playing a team three times, what would you say the big difference was between the first two, and with that second one just being less than a week ago, how were you able to change things that much in such a short period of time? HEAD COACH ERIC MUSSELMAN: I think we had a really good week of preparation. We tried to be as detailed as possible. We watched every single basket as a team that New Mexico scored in both games. We came up with some specific defensive rules called the Lobos rules. We were forcing one guy to the left, forcing another guy to the right, tilting the floor on our weak side. We did a lot of random traps off guys we felt were limited offensively. And we took a little bit of some risks, probably, in our traps, and gave some guys some open shots. But that's exactly what we wanted to do. We didn't want their main scorers to have dominant, high field goal percentage points. And I think we did a great job. But I think that the defensive pressure in causing turnovers was the only way that we can score sometimes is turning the ball over. So I think that was a big key for us. Q. When you say the Lobos rules you set up for this game, how different is that from what you would do for any scouting report? Is this the only time, where one team gets a specific kind of defensive assignments? HEAD COACH ERIC MUSSELMAN: When you're in the NBA and you have playoff experience and you go through playoffs, what you do is you come up things in preparation during the course of a college season with guys going to class and traveling, all those type of things, it limits being overly specific. But I felt because we had no travel, we were at home, we didn't travel our last game, obviously, as New Mexico beat us in our own building. And I think that extra day of rest and not having to get back on an airplane helped us, as well. I'm sure New Mexico, obviously, this game could have gone either way and I'm sure Coach Neal and those guys did a great job prepping, as well. We're one blocked shot away from sitting here in agony. So I thought both teams played with unbelievable effort. But the rules, a lot of them, I worked for Coach Daly and they had Jordan rules when he was with Detroit, and I continually heard his voice on how he wanted to force guys that are premier scorers to one side of the floor. And so I kept all my notes from when I was fortunate enough to work with him and we pulled some of those out and kind of took out Michael Jordan's name and slid in Elijah's. And just from them turning the basketball over, I thought that was a big turning point for us, again, because we do struggle to score offensively. Q. Can you just talk about the level of guts your team displayed to pull out a win today. HEAD COACH ERIC MUSSELMAN: I mean, I think that our team is -- obviously nobody respected us coming into the season, no matter what anybody says now. Nobody respected us. From the beginning of the summer, where our team finished last year, we had quotes from all over the league, you know, and we weren't talking about any other team except New Mexico. To be honest with you, I didn't even come over early to scout the first game because we had single-mindedness. We didn't talk about anything other than how to try to beat New Mexico. And now as soon as we get back we'll start as a group prepping for SDSU, who we have an unbelievable amount of respect for. But we knew this was a game that we could ill afford to look past anybody or start thinking about anybody other than New Mexico, because they are a difficult matchup for us because they are offensively powerful. Again, I think the guys did a great job of locking in on the game plan. Q. Cam Oliver has had a lot of great games this year. Down the stretch the way he performed as a freshman, did that impress you? HEAD COACH ERIC MUSSELMAN: Cam has been unbelievable. He's a special freshman. As the season's progressed we've kind of gone to him a little bit more offensively. And sometimes when you're dealing with people and players this age it's a constant learning experience. And I just told Cam, Man, you wasted about 12 games this year. We kept telling him that you have an unbelievable amount of talent. To Cam's credit he just keeps getting better and better and figuring this thing out. And I think he knows he's got a really, really bright future. He ran the floor tonight much harder than he had all season long, both offensively and defensively. Q. This team has made history. Getting their first Mountain West tournament win in their history, what does that mean for you and the team to get that? HEAD COACH ERIC MUSSELMAN: It means a lot. I'm not so sure that when we left Reno how many people thought we were going to be able to win this game. And I brought enough suits for more than just one game. My wife packed for more than today. Had a great talk with Rory today. He said he wasn't packing any bags, he was leaving all of his stuff in his room unpacked. The biggest thing is it doesn't matter who believes if you can win or not, it's a matter if your locker room believes. Right now we're not very pretty doing things. Coop goes 0 for 8 and then hits a huge 3. But we understand that we're offensively limited from three. But the effort and heart and all those little things are the only way we can survive. Q. What made you want to force feed Cam, as you said, and run the offense through him and get him involved early. And why was he ready for this in a game this big? HEAD COACH ERIC MUSSELMAN: Because we were tired of watching our 3 balls clank off the rim. In game 2 the other night against New Mexico, I think we took 23 or 25 3's. Tonight we were much more selective. Only taking 14. If you take ten less 3's, it opens up something else for somebody else. So we felt like we had to attack them interior. Aget, No. 11, has had two unbelievable games. And Tim Williams and Aget had zero fouls in Reno. And we felt like we completely left those two off the hook, didn't make them defend. And our whole goal coming in, we've got those guys to at least pick up some early fouls, and we needed Cam to be that guy. Elijah Foster is not a guy that we go to defensively, although he did a great job on the back boards. Q. Marqueze didn't play a lot of minutes, but what do you think it meant that he went out and had a shot? HEAD COACH ERIC MUSSELMAN: I think a lot of people thought we were playing possum about was he going to be healthy and a hundred percent. Anything that watched the game understands he's not a hundred percent. But we needed for him to buy minutes for other people. That's what you do when you're unselfish. He is unselfish, he's done an unbelievable job of doing rehab constantly over the last two weeks. And I know he's really disappointed to play up to his potential, which is an all-league player. Having said that, his minutes tonight, especially with guys fouling out, we didn't have many other people to turn to. Q. What's the thing that you're most proud of with your team in this game? HEAD COACH ERIC MUSSELMAN: It's really just the whole season because, again, nobody thought that we were going to be able to finish in the top four or five in the league, nobody. And nobody thought that we could win a Mountain West game. And having said that, we've won one game and now we've got to go face the best team in the league, a team that we respect more than anybody in the league, coaching staff is unbelievable for the Aztecs. And we're facing a pretty big mountain tomorrow. But I have no doubt our guys will play hard. Q. You played New Mexico, you just played them, this is the third time you played them and it was a quick turnaround. San Diego State, you only played them once and it was a couple of months ago. What do you see as keys in facing San Diego State two months after the first time? HEAD COACH ERIC MUSSELMAN: Well, I think every game takes on its own identity and has its own theme. And obviously Coach Fisher does an unbelievable job. I'm from San Diego, my mom drove over today from La Jolla. My son goes to USD. So I watched San Diego State for many years, not just now. And everything that they've done there, I told our staff before the game when I walked out with about two minutes to go in the Utah State game, I said, You guys have no idea what San Diego State was like 15 years ago. And what they've done is unbelievable. When they get off the team bus they look like an NBA team with their length and their athleticism and they play hard and they're well coached. So they're going to present a lot of problems for us. Q. After what you saw today, what do you need to improve on to take on SDSU and win tomorrow? HEAD COACH ERIC MUSSELMAN: Well, I don't think we have enough time to get about 5,000 3-point shots attempts up between now and tomorrow night at 6:00. I'm going to go back. I'm going to pray. And we're all going to take a little bit of Phil Jackson, and just lay down on the floor and meditate and think that a couple of three balls will go in. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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