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ATLANTIC 10 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 11, 2016Derek KelloggTrey DavisRashaan HollowayBrooklyn, New York UMass - 85, VCU - 70 DEREK KELLOGG: First of all, I want to thank my seniors for what they've been able to accomplish at UMass both on and off the floor. Those guys have been great to have as ambassadors at our UMass school, and I'm appreciative for those guys coming to UMass and helping us do some great things on the floor and off the floor. Getting to the basketball game, VCU played a great game today. They obviously won the game on the backboards with -- 20 offensive rebounds that turned into many points. I thought that was the difference in the game. I thought our guys competed, fought, battled. We just didn't do a good enough job of keeping them off the glass, which was something obviously we spoke about, didn't really work on but we spoke about it, tried to simulate some things that they might try to do, and they were the better team today. Q. Trey, did it feel a little in the first half with what they were doing offensively you guys were hanging on with defense, hoping the offense would kind of get going? TREY DAVIS: No, I think some of the players earlier in the beginning, like to the space, I think those, we've got to put those balls in early. We got off to a slow start, and I think that it carried over the next minutes. They got a little cushion and a lead, and we weren't able to get over that hump. Q. Did their steals and blocked shots disrupt you guys a little bit early on? How much did that affect you guys? TREY DAVIS: Yeah, because they didn't convert into points, and they ended up converting it into points for them. Our points turned into their points, so that kind of slowed us down. Q. Rashaan, you obviously lose a lot of good seniors, but what's your feeling about the program moving forward? RASHAAN HOLLOWAY: The program moving forward, I feel like we're going to be all right. We've got a lot of young guys coming in to replace some serious vets that we had, like Trey, Jabarie. We're going to miss them, but we're going to have to try to find ways to create offense without them now. It's going to be tough. As a sophomore next year I'm going to have to figure it out. We're going to have to figure it out. We're going to have to figure out where to produce offense at. Q. Trey, you've played in a lot of games, a lot of minutes. Was there any anxiousness in that second half when they went on that run to know you guys were going to have to really press to pick things up if you wanted to extend it one more game? TREY DAVIS: Yeah, of course I wanted to extend it, but I'm never anxious when I play basketball. I'm not really -- I don't like to be anxious. I mean, they got the full-court points in the second half, and that really -- that hurt when we went from down 9 to 13, and that put a dent in what we were trying to do. But we kept fighting hard, man. That's all I can ask for. Q. You guys went through a tough stretch and played better at the end of the season. Will that be something you'll take with you knowing that you played better down the stretch? TREY DAVIS: Yeah, most definitely. I think we had a good last half of the season. I mean, I'm happy for the guys that's still here, man, especially Rashaan. I'm glad he got to go through what he got to go through this year. He understands now. That's the one thing I just wanted to get through to him, man, you've got to work hard and you can't just be lackadaisical, nothing like that. You want to turn this into your job, and I think he finally understands that. That was my job, man. I just wanted to get him right, and I think next year he'll understand. He knows what's coming. Q. Rashaan, what made it so difficult keeping them off the offensive glass? RASHAAN HOLLOWAY: It was just they all rebound. There's multiple rebounds. They have an advantage because a lot of their plays, they focus on rebounding. They have players that usually just -- all they want to do is rebound. We had obviously had trouble with keeping them off the glass today. It was just tough for us, tough with the offensive rebounding. Q. Rashaan, how does the last couple of weeks motivate you for the off-season and how you want to spend and get better? RASHAAN HOLLOWAY: It just makes me -- it just is a push into next year. Off-season I'm just going to work on my body, work on my skills, try to get in as best shape as I can for next year, and hopefully we'll be back here, probably advance further. We want to do what we've got to do. It all starts with how I get my body together and how good of a shape I can get myself into. Q. Did this give you a taste of what you can be? RASHAAN HOLLOWAY: It did. I realize with the trust in my teammates that they gave you and what they were teaching me, like with what Trey was teaching me, I can't be lackadaisical. Nothing is going to just come to me. It taught me to work hard, just be patient. My time will come. And just do what I've got to do just to win games. The last couple weeks is what my mindset I have was just to be dominant when I'm in the game. Just as simple as that. I've just got to be dominant and be a low-post presence. Q. Trey, how would you describe this season for you and for the seniors? Was it bittersweet or what would you say about it? TREY DAVIS: Man, I love this group of guys, man. Through the ups and downs, I love them. I don't know, man. You have to be on the team to understand what I'm saying. Even though the season is over, I'm going to love these guys to death and I'm going to always be there for them, and it don't stop here. It's more than basketball. These are my brothers for life, so they're going to be hearing from me, and I know I'm going to be hearing from them. We're going to be good. Q. I realize the season just ended, but I guess is Holloway's progress a source of hope for the future and what are some of your thoughts on the future moving forward? DEREK KELLOGG: You know, I think Rashaan showed what he's capable of doing in short bursts. He probably summed it up the best is he continues to get in great shape. I think he has a chance to be a dominant big man in our league. I'm excited to obviously work with the guys that we have here as always, watch them kind of grow and progress and kind of incorporate a slew of new guys and see what we can get accomplished with this group of players. Even though I'm always looking at the future of our program because I think you have to have a three- or four-year window and see where you're at, and I like where we're at, but I like even better where we could potentially could be heading. A lot of things have to work out in your favor, but we've got a good group of people and we've got the right kids that are all going to graduate, and I think that's what college athletics is all about. Q. At what point in the game did it feel like it was getting away? Could you talk about that run at the beginning of the second half? DEREK KELLOGG: You know, the first four points of the second half bothered me some because I felt like we needed to come out and make a little bit of a push, and they scored the first four, so I called a quick time-out. They had a nice little burst there where we hurt ourselves some with our offense at times. They're a good team. They were committed to playing their style, and I thought they did a great job on the boards. It was a combination of some different things. Q. How do you feel about your season and how would you characterize it? DEREK KELLOGG: Well, pretty close to just losing our last game, so I haven't had time really to reflect, but I would say I'm proud of our team for the way they handled themselves through some adversity. I think we've got the right kids that fit the UMass student-athletes. No matter how the season ends, any coach would like to continue to advance and have more wins and play better, so that's always the goal for the future. But these guys set some good groundwork for the younger guys, and we're going to continue to push forward and get ready. Q. Will had said they prepared this week a little extra for you guys. Did it feel like they were locked in, that they were -- DEREK KELLOGG: He said that, huh? Q. He did. Did it feel like they were really locked into their game plan, what they wanted to do against you guys? DEREK KELLOGG: Yeah, I thought they did a good job. They did a good job on our perimeter guys, and I think they thought if they could get into us a little bit, we had a couple guys play 40 minutes last night, two or three of them pretty close to that, but they did a good job of making it hard on our guards to score the basketball, and then I thought they took advantage of the boards. I thought the key thing for them, not only the offensive rebounds, we got a lot of shots blocked at the rim, and that's been an Achilles heel for us at times. Throughout the season, if we get the shots blocked at the rim, it's two points, but it's two points gone, so those are four-point swings and I thought we had four or five of those tonight that gave them some easy baskets. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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