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ATLANTIC 10 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 11, 2016Chris MooneyT.J. ClineBrooklyn, New York Dayton - 69, Richmond - 54 CHRIS MOONEY: Well, congratulations to Dayton as they move on. They obviously just outplayed us today for the entire game. It's hard to believe a week or so ago we scored 84 points, but they played a very good game, and we were just behind the whole time. Didn't shoot well at all and never gave ourselves a chance to come out of that hole. I'm disappointed with the game and the result, obviously, and wish Dayton the best. Q. TJ, what made things difficult today offensively, especially early? T.J. CLINE: They were a lot tighter on defense than they were last time. I just thought that they took away some of the passes that were there that would open some of the lanes that we capitalized on last time, and they made adjustments from last game, and it worked for them. Q. It's been a confounding and frustrating season. As you quickly look back over it, what comes to mind as the reasons for the way things have turned out this way? T.J. CLINE: Every game seems like it's -- they do different things every game. You can point to one thing every game. Sometimes it's rebounding, sometimes it's defense. In this game it was offense. Just not being able to string along late stops in games, and I don't know, it's just been different things. It's just the way basketball is, and we'll move forward. Q. There are people who would wonder, given the circumstances last year, your sticking around and playing at Richmond after this season. I assume you are; would you address that? T.J. CLINE: I'm not going anywhere. Q. Chris, same question I asked TJ, a quick look back over the season. What jumps out at you as why things have turned out this way? CHRIS MOONEY: Really our defense, which wasn't terrible today, but our defensive consistency was never there. We just weren't -- traditionally we've just been able to get stops or guard teams or take away certain things, and I just thought this year we weren't able to do that to any kind of positive degree. Because of that, it causes you to be -- not be able to put teams away or not be able to make as quick of a comeback. It just causes all those things. I think our defense for probably a multitude of reasons just wasn't good enough to lead to a better season. Q. Can you name some of the reasons? CHRIS MOONEY: Yeah, I mean, I think that -- scoring is up around the country, which was one thing, and the shot clock and the calls -- officiating being called more tightly I think has affected probably everybody and has helped everyone's offense. For us, I think a lack of ability to contain the ball. In the past, even though we've played this match-up zone or switching man-to-man, the principles of it were solid, so it may have seemed confusing that the principles of it were solid and we were able to keep the ball in front of us for the most part. I would say that's probably the biggest thing is we weren't able to keep the ball in front of us or keep the ball out of the lane. That would be the overriding thing that I would say was our biggest problem. Q. Would you say this is the end of the road for this year's Spiders, or would you hope to participate in some sort of -- CHRIS MOONEY: I just need a little bit more time to think about that. I'm just not sure about that right now. Q. Do you have sort of the positives and negatives in your head? CHRIS MOONEY: Of? Q. Of participating in something or closing it down right now? CHRIS MOONEY: Sure, there are positives because I think you get to keep playing, you get to be around each other. You get to have more experience and minutes for younger guys. The negatives are at this moment, it just feels like -- it doesn't feel like a natural step because we feel we really didn't play well at all today. We'll weigh those as we get a little more clear of a head, I guess. Q. Could you look toward next season at all? Do you have a sense of if you're in the transfer market a lot, if you're not? CHRIS MOONEY: Sure, I think we have open scholarships, so I think that obviously we're actively recruiting high school players, and then we'll also look and see. I think that we didn't take a transfer for our first eight or nine years, but the two transfers have been valuable, so I think everybody is probably in the transfer market now, but we'll just have to kind of see how it shakes out with spring recruiting and then make our decisions as we go forward during the course of the spring and summer. Q. Trey, Terry, Deion, John, they're seniors. You don't go into another tournament, they've played their last game. Can you talk about what they've done for the program? CHRIS MOONEY: Yeah, I think they're really -- I think they've really done a great job in terms of representing the program, in terms of being great kids, competitive players. Trey sticks out the most, I guess, because he was here five years. Just hard-nosed, competitive, tough-minded. I think Terry, Deion, John, very similar. I think all those guys have been -- it's been my fortune to coach, and we'll certainly miss them. Q. The match-up has been pretty good to you over the years. Do you think about changing that as you go into next season? CHRIS MOONEY: Yeah, I think so. It doesn't make sense. We've been good on defense for a long time and that we wouldn't be. But I do think that. I do think that maybe teams have made adjustments to us for some reason this year or have seen something on tape and been able to expose some things. So yeah, I think so. I think we really have to look hard at exactly what we're doing defensively, and if there is a better strategy for us moving forward. Q. We didn't really see Jesse Pistokache the second half of the season. Is there a reason for that? CHRIS MOONEY: No, no reason other than I just think that Khwan emerged and was able to play so many minutes that it kind of shrunk those minutes a little bit. John Moran, who's a great shooter, started to get a minute or two here and there. Nothing to read into it. He works very, very hard. He's a really good player, and I would expect him to have a really good off-season and do well. Q. You've been in this business a while. As seasons go, was this among the most puzzling or frustrating that you've experienced? CHRIS MOONEY: Yeah, probably so. More because I think we've always just counted on being good defensively, and we've had rebounding struggles for a long time. But we've always counted on being good defensively. At times -- not today, but at times we've been great offensively, so the fact that we had such an offensively efficient season but couldn't make more of it is definitely frustrating. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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