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AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 11, 2016Kelvin SampsonLeRon BarnesOrlando, Florida Tulane - 72, Houston - 69 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student-athlete. KELVIN SAMPSON: First of all congratulations to Coach Conroy and his team. They played better than us. I thought they did what they had to do to win, obviously. Very disappointing loss for us. That goes without saying. We had several times there with an opportunity to extend the lead, take it from five to seven or seven to nine. We've had stretches this year where we have been a really, really good free throw shooting team. Then we've had stretches where we have struggled with it. But we missed a one and one, they go down and make two free throws. It was almost -- they're making their free throws, we're missing our free throws, and the game's starting to get a little tighter. And all of a sudden the 2 seed is playing the 10 seed and human nature starts taking over. That happens. These are human beings, our kids were -- they get a little tight. I don't know if it's -- I think Rob went to the line after he had made a great play, to get fouled, and he misses both. They go down and I think it was Osetkowski made both of his. Then all of a sudden, the game goes from seven to five to three. All of a sudden it's tied. I think we had a turnover in there somewhere. But the -- the last month, last six weeks, we have made the plays to win the game, no matter where it was, at Connecticut, Cincinnati, SMU. These kids have had a great year. I hate that it had to end in the tournament this way. Because there's a tendency to focus on this and not the entire body of work. So, this kid over here's meant the world to me and this program. The two years I've been here at University of Houston, I would give almost anything for him to have had some success in this tournament so he could extend his career a little bit. But sometimes life has hard lessons. This is a lesson that they have got to learn. It's a game we felt like we could have won. I don't like saying the word should, but it's a game that we could have won. But you've got to do what it takes to win the game, obviously, and we didn't. THE MODERATOR: Take questions, please. Q. If you can, talk about how hard this is for you, knowing you guys came into this week wanting to make a run here, wanting to go out on the same high you guys had come in with. LERON BARNES: This is very disappointing. I feel like we came in, and we didn't play as hard as we should have. We had big expectations this week in the tournament. It's just hard not winning that game. Q. If you're saying you didn't play as hard as you should have, where does that come from? Is it not preparing right, not being mentally focused? Where does the lack of effort come from? LERON BARNES: I think we weren't mentally focused coming in. I feel like we didn't respect the team. I feel we just didn't give them the respect, and we just didn't come out -- coach has been telling to us play hard, and we didn't listen. I feel like we didn't listen. Q. If you had to diagnose the major problem with the team or your performance tonight, what would you put that on, if there's a single thing it could boil down to? LERON BARNES: Free throw shooting, rebounding. I felt like we could have -- I could have done better free throw shooting. I was 1-6. I'll take the blame for that. But as a team, we didn't rebound as good as we should have, and we didn't play tough. I feel like we didn't play tough at all. THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you. Take questions for coach. Q. This is a team that you beat soundly twice and then something was different here today. LeRon just said you guys didn't come out and play tough. Is that a fair assessment? If you had to diagnose it, what would you say was the problem? KELVIN SAMPSON: Well I'm not going to disagree with that, but Tulane is -- Tulane played well. We didn't -- even though we beat them twice, we kind of struggled with them both times. Osetkowski is a hard matchup for us. But I didn't -- obviously, we can play better. We struggled the entire first half and were up eight. What was our biggest lead? Q. 10. KELVIN SAMPSON: Yeah. We go up 10 and that, in the past month, that lead goes from 10 to 15, maybe 15 to 20. But we had so many empty possessions. We would run our stuff, get whatever we wanted, and then get fouled. You've got to go to the free throw line and make your free throws. You're making your free throws, they're missing their free throws. That's not a fair fight. But when you don't come in to a tournament and -- you know, we've got a lot of guys that have never been in a tournament. I think there's a tendency to treat this game different than other games, when really it's not. One of the toughest things for a coach is keeping kids focused when everybody around them is telling them how great they are. You think about our last two games. We won at Connecticut and we beat Cincinnati. That's pretty heady stuff for this program, considering where we were a year ago. We have come a long way. Now we come here, it's a totally different environment. It's a totally different animal, playing in a conference tournament, especially when so much is on the line. We worked our tail off all year, had a great year to get the number 2 seed. But we don't have the kind of team, because of our lack of inside game, maybe, that we can just take anybody for granted. We're not that kind of team. Especially when we don't compete. There's a difference in playing hard and competing. I thought our kids played hard tonight. LeRon's upset. There's -- what he said is right because he said it. But we played hard, but we didn't compete. And that's been a staple of this program all year long. We have competed. That's how we beat SMU, that's how we beat LSU, that's how we beat Cincinnati, how we won at Connecticut, because we competed. Tonight, from the get-go, it didn't feel right. I don't know why, but it didn't feel right. Maybe when we get back and talk to them individually, we can come up with something better, but when you lose a game like this, the first thing you do as a head coach, you take responsibility. I should have done a better job of getting them ready for this tournament and obviously I didn't. Q. This is awkward, there was a report that came out in the second half started that Conroy wasn't going to be the coach. He was going to be gone after the season. He found out from somebody holding up a phone and telling him during the second half. You guys know this is a business, but does this say something about the profession that a coach can find out like that in the middle of a game? KELVIN SAMPSON: It says something about their administration. If that's accurate. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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