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MAUI JIM MAUI INVITATIONALNovember 23, 2016Eric BovairdRohndell GoodwinLahaina, Maui, Hawaii Tennessee - 95, Chaminade - 81 THE MODERATOR: Coach Bovaird is joined by Rohndell Goodwin. COACH BOVAIRD: I thought over the three games our guys played really hard except for a couple of four-minute stretches that cost us some games, in my opinion. But for the most part three games we played really, really hard. I think one of the big differences between Division I and Division II is the depth. This guy and three other guys played a lot of, a lot of minutes over three days. And I'm proud of them and we will get better and learn from this experience and we will be on a mission to get to a national title in Division II. Q. How did playing these tough D-I teams help develop you guys as a team? ROHNDELL GOODWIN: It helped us a lot. I feel the difference between Division I and Division II is the athleticism, I believe. So the reads is going to be easier for Division II because -- Division I they cover a lot of gaps faster. So it's just going to help us mentally, the biggest part is just going to be mentally, because we was in it in a couple of games like Coach said we had a couple of four-minute stretches and I feel that's the difference between Division I to Division II also. We have a couple of mental lapses more than Division Is do. So it's going to help us a lot mentally. Q. Coming into this tournament, given that you guys are a very senior team, a lot of experience among your core group, how much either personal or team expectation was there that you guys would find a win somewhere in this tournament? ROHNDELL GOODWIN: It was there. We believed that we could get a win. No doubt North Carolina, you know, we knew we had to fight hard, but we knew that they had bigs, but we looked at the other matchups with UConn and Oklahoma State, we felt we had a chance and you seen it yesterday when we was in the game with UConn, we just had a mental lapse where they took advantage of where we was making our lapses. Today, with Tennessee, it was the same thing. It was just back to the mental lapses. That's something we have to work on. We have to learn how to keep fighting not to put our head down. We're all men. We've just got to play with our head high and just keep going. Q. How is the ankle? Do you think it will keep you out of future games? ROHNDELL GOODWIN: Not at all. I was in there today. It was a bad tweak. I felt the pain, but other than that I'm ready. I can play tomorrow if we needed to. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach. Q. Kind of the same question I asked Rohndell. Knowing that you had a very experienced group coming in, I think there were a lot of high hopes on your part coming into this tournament, from remember talking to you beforehand. Even after that first game against Carolina, what was your thought process like for scoring a win perhaps? COACH BOVAIRD: I think for us to have a really good chance to win we do have to have some guys with a lot of experience. And that's where we can catch people off guard and close the gap between five star recruits and senior Division II players. So our guys believed and I believed, we both believed that we had a chance to pull off at least one victory. And we knew, like you said, we knew North Carolina would -- we'd have to play our best game, everyone would have to play the best game of their life in order to beat them. But the rest of the teams we felt we can beat them on a given day and if things go well. Even today I look at the stats. We shot 9-for-25 from the 3-point line. That's below our percentage. We make three or four more 3s and we're right there in the game. But I think this experience is going to really, really help us. I think we're going to be a strong team in Division II. Q. As far as looking ahead, the PacWest play, what do you envision for this kind of experience, senior group of guys, and being able to make a run at perhaps a league title? COACH BOVAIRD: Yeah, for sure. I will be very disappointed if we get to the end of regular season and we're not in contention for the championship. That will be our goal and it is our goal and the last couple of years we missed out on the conference tournament and the guys left a bad taste in everybody's mouth. We missed it by two tie breakers two years in a row for the sixth spot. It's not going to happen this year. We're going to be there and we're going to be contending for the championship. Q. You mentioned these four-minute stretches in these games. What did you notice in these moments that you guys need to improve on? Is it just mental like Rohndell was saying? COACH BOVAIRD: Just lapses on defense. Lapses on defense. Trying really hard for those key stretches. We were making a comeback even in this game late. And they ran a curl cut and a down screen and the next thing I know our guy's out there with a wide-open 3, one of their best shooters. Very similar stuff happened against UConn yesterday. They hit two. They had two wide-open 3s off a simple down screen and it shows me it's just a lack of effort getting through the screen, getting to that shooter and being aware. So just that awareness for just a few seconds cause you to -- the other team to have a wide open shot and that's what happened. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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