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NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: ANAHEIM

March 26, 2016

Anaheim, California

Oklahoma - 80, Oregon - 68

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Head Coach Dana Altman, Elgin Cook and Chris Boucher.

DANA ALTMAN: Just a very disappointing first half. They just killed us on the boards. They were much quicker to the ball, much more active. I'm not sure if it was the energy that was produced by them hitting threes, but they just did a tremendous job on the boards. In fact, they had 15 second-chance points, I believe, at halftime. The second half they must have only gotten one. But the first half I thought them getting those second opportunities for 15 points really put us in a hole that we could never recover from.

Q. Elgin, how hard was it to stick with Buddy Hield throughout this game?
ELGIN COOK: He's a great player, and he was active. He was moving around a lot. He made it tough on us. We tried to crowd him. Tried our best to corral him and keep him out of open areas, but he made a lot of tough shots.

Q. Elgin and Chris, how much does this loss hurt?
ELGIN COOK: Hurts a lot. My season is over. We're done. No one expected it. We were confident. We believed in each other, but this hurts a lot.

CHRIS BOUCHER: I mean, it hurts for sure. I'll never be able to play with those guys. Elgin, Dwayne, that was their last season. Just to see that we didn't give our maximum, it just hurts, you know, that's all it is.

Q. Elgin, you touched on it a minute ago about the tough shots that Buddy was making. That first one that he made over in the left corner, it looked like you had a hand right in his face over there. Was that kind of indicative that he wasn't going to be stopped? The first three that Buddy made. He was over in the left wing over there and you looked like you had him D'd up pretty well and had a hand right in his face and he just went right over you?
ELGIN COOK: Yeah, I was trying to contest the shot. I was trying to make him put it on the floor. I should have been a little bit closer to him and made him drive it, I guess, but he's a great player.

Q. After watching film coming into this game on Buddy, what did you feel like you had to do to slow him down, and how hard was it to actually execute that plan in the game?
ELGIN COOK: We knew we had to make him put it on the floor. He shot 8-for-13 for threes, and we didn't do our job as players. So it cost us the game.

Q. Elgin you guys have been very fluid all season long. You had about a six-and-a-half-minute period where you didn't make a field goal and a few turnovers. It was early in the first half, and that seemed to be the big period where they stretched it out on you. What were you guys thinking during that period?
ELGIN COOK: We were driving the ball a lot and just taking it one-on-one. Their players were collapsing, they were attacking the ball and they were aggressive. They sped us up a little bit, and we didn't share the ball that well this game.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Altman.

Q. What kind of game plan did you try to come in to contain Buddy Hield today?
DANA ALTMAN: Well, we thought Elgin could stay after him a little bit, and he hit some tough ones. He hit some deep ones. You know, it was one of those games that I miscalculated some things. I thought Elgin would be able to handle him a little bit better. But I don't fault Elgin's effort or anything. I think he just hit some shots.

We accomplished part of what we wanted to do. We got him to turn it over six times by pressuring him. We weren't able to take advantage of those turnovers. But he just backed up and hit a few, that last one before the half, and the first one he hit. I mean, he hit three or four that I thought we guarded pretty good and he just hit them.

Q. You guys had dominated the boards a lot in most of your games this season. For them coming out and getting 11 offensive boards in the first half, so atypical. What did you guys talk about at halftime regarding that?
DANA ALTMAN: That was the real disappointing thing for our coaches and for our players. They had 15, as I mentioned, second-chance points in the first half. We had four. That 11-point difference was the difference in the game. We were down 18, but you take -- if you just even that number up a little bit, and usually that's a number we're up on. But points off turnovers and points off second-chance points have been what we've kind of lived on; we didn't get either in that stretch. We were down points off turnovers and we were down second-chance points.

Q. This was a historical season for your program. How do you balance the disappointment you're feeling now, but knowing that you had a tremendous season when it's all said and done?
DANA ALTMAN: Well, it's going to hurt for a while. Our guys are really hurting right now. Their goal was to get to Houston and try to make something happen, and we didn't accomplish that, so right now they're not feeling very good. But I think once they get some time to get over that hurt of this ballgame, they'll look back.

We won 31 ballgames, we won the league. We won the conference title. This is the Elite Eight, so we did some good things. But we did not have a good first half, and we got ourselves in trouble. That's a credit to Coach Kruger and his staff. I mean, those guys are ready to play. I'm just sorry I let my team down. We weren't as sharp as we should have been out of the box.

Q. Coach, in the second half there was one chance it looked like where you might cut it to 10 with the three and then Buddy hits the long three. Did you feel that was the one big moment you could have maybe pressed them?
DANA ALTMAN: Well, we had some opportunities. Tyler had a good look on the play that you're talking about. He's our best three-point shooter, wide open right in front of our bench. He had a good look. He missed it, and they come down and Buddy hit one. So we had a number of cases like that where we had opportunities to maybe put some baskets in a row, and we either missed an opportunity, a three or we turned it over. We turned the ball over 12 times and OU scored 18 points off those turnovers.

So, again, the two areas we really -- points off turnovers and second-chance points, we got beat in both those areas and that was the difference in the game.

Q. Coach, the free-throw game against Duke you went 8-for-17, today you won 22-for-30. Was that part of your game plan to try to get the ball inside to get to the line?
DANA ALTMAN: Well, we felt like we could drive the ball, and we drove it at them aggressively and we did get to the line, so we accomplished that. We'd have to hit all our free throws to really stay in the ballgame. But we missed a couple critical ones there where we were trying to make a run and just couldn't get back-to-back free throws to get that number under 10.

So, yeah, our game plan offensively was to swing the ball from side to side and drive it a little bit, and I think we accomplished some of that. But we didn't hit any threes, 4-for-21. We took a couple quick ones, but we had some good looks that we had to hit and to stay in the game, but we just didn't do it.

Q. This morning Coach Krzyzewski released a statement, said that he called you to apologize. Explain what happened this morning and how you feel about the situation.
DANA ALTMAN: Well, he called and apologized, and I told him he didn't need to. Someone that has accomplished what he has accomplished and makes a comment to one of my players is perfectly fine with me, and it didn't bother me at all. It bothered a lot of people. It didn't bother me. It didn't bother Dillon, and Dillon's response proved that.

So it was a nice gesture. It was very professional, and I agreed with him when the question was asked it was something about "showboat", which he never said. So it was a dead issue long before that, and it was something that was nice. And I told Dillon that he called, but he definitely didn't need to because there was no offense taken by our coaching staff, by me or Dillon, none at all.

So it's a dead issue.

Q. Oklahoma's a pretty special team. Was there anything about them today that stood out that was far above what you guys saw in the Pac-12 this year?
DANA ALTMAN: Buddy (laughing). The guy gets 37 on you, that's something. No, I thought he had a phenomenal game. And every time I felt like we were getting ready to do something, he would jump up and make a shot.

So other than the turnovers, which we probably should have jammed him even more than we did, but other than that he's a tough guard, and the guy gets 37 on you, you know, you've got to come up with something different. I didn't help our team much there at all.

Q. So I know it was a disappointing loss, but congratulations on such a good season. For a team that wasn't even ranked in the beginning of the season, what does it say about your team's character to make it all the way to the Elite Eight?
DANA ALTMAN: Well, they worked awfully hard. I got a great feeling about this team because they did work so hard. Where we came from and how hard they worked throughout the year, I've been fortunate enough to do this for a long time and it's a special group. November, December, there wasn't anybody who thought this team would accomplish what they have accomplished.

So as a coach, as someone who works with young people, any time that they get better and come together as a group, it's always really special. So I'll always have a special feel for this team just because how hard they work and how much they put up with me yapping at them all the time to try to get better and pushing them along.

They gave themselves a chance. We didn't play our best game today, and a lot of that has to do with Oklahoma and their outstanding coaching staff, and Coach Kruger in particular. But we had our chance and we just didn't take full advantage of it.

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