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AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 9, 2017Coach Michael PerryElijah HughesKentrell BarkleyHartford, Connecticut East Carolina - 80, Temple - 69 THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for the student athletes, after questions from the student athletes we'll excuse the student athletes from the locker room and take questions for the coach. Tour outs on the game? COACH MICHAEL PERRY: Obviously, it's a big win, not only for the team but for our program. In so many cases we're playing in the league with very rich tradition and not just good basketball teams, but really good basketball programs. And historic programs, obviously, Temple one of the winningest programs in college basketball history. For us, it isn't just a win simply for our basketball team, our current basketball team but a win for our program, because you're going against outstanding coach, outstanding team, and, you know, great, great tradition, in one of the best programs in the country and that's the way it is most nights we line up in the league. So our guys are very determined to throw themselves into the fire, into the mix with the teams particularly with the programs that are the elite in our conference. THE MODERATOR: Again we'll take questions for the student athletes. Raise your hand if you have questions for student athletes, please. Q. Kentrell, obviously you had a big game today. Is there anything special that was working well for you. How did you play this well? KENTRELL BARKLEY: Just kind of keeping -- the main thing, the main thing, come out and do the things that we know we do well. And for me, I was just trying to stay involved, do my stuff which is rebounding, and stay in attack mode. THE MODERATOR: Other questions for the student athletes? COACH MICHAEL PERRY: I would like to add really quickly, with Kentrell, particularly. When the team goes out early and they come back on the floor, come back into the locker room, probably about the 12-minute mark, he came in limping and very obvious limp. I went to the trainers and said what's going on. I haven't seen him. He went to see him and one of the other assistant coaches said he was limping coming off the floor. There was a minute we weren't sure he was going to be able to play. The trainer got a hold of him are the starting doing a few things, put him on the bike right before the game started. We weren't sure we were going to have him on the floor. For him to dial up a performance like this is outstanding. Literally, he was dragging. He looked like The Mummy walking into the locker room. At the 12-minute mark, when he was able to turn it around, with a heck of an effort, after clearly being in some pain. Q. Inaudible question COACH MICHAEL PERRY: Good question. KENTRELL BARKLEY: My right knee, is my jumping knee, so a lot of jumping off is -- like, I think I have tendonitis in it and when I jump too much, it's like a sharp pain. So when I press down on my knee, I can like barely feel it, so, I just did a little treatment and got some stuff on it, helped me out. THE MODERATOR: Other questions for the student athletes? Elijah, if I can give one you to, if you can talk about the upcoming matchup with SMU, obviously a team that had a pretty good year and had a pretty good performance against your guys last time out. What do you expect to do tomorrow to get the win against the Mustangs? ELIJAH HUGHES: We just got to lock them defensively. Once we do that, we get the rebound, we get our transition, I feel like we're as good as anyone in this league. And we just got to -- we lock in offensively and defensively, attack, get to the paint, and create plays. Q. Kentrell, you were obviously feeling it today. Did you take it upon yourself to really take it at them, knowing that, seems like they couldn't stop what you were doing? KENTRELL BARKLEY: Well, I had a huge pep talk with one of the assistant coaches. The talk was about trying to build a legacy here, trying to do something that's never been done here, just dialing in and focusing on the next play. Just give it our all. Don't give up. Give 150 percent all you can every game. That was the focus coming into this game. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for the student athletes? Okay. We'll excuse the student athletes to the locker room and Coach Perry will take questions from the media. Student athletes, if you would please exit to your left through this door here. We'll take questions for Coach Perry. Please. Q. Coach, you shot a lot better from beyond the arc than you have in the season. That and your ability to defend them beyond the arc. Did you think those were two of the keys today? COACH MICHAEL PERRY: Obviously, when we can make threes, that's a tremendous plus for our team. It's been frustrating. In some cases the three-point shooting, because we have guys that can shoot the ball well and they've struggled during the course of the year being able to shoot it. We had some nights which the guys shoot it well, some nights they don't. We just haven't had the consistency that we have that we would expect with the type of shooters that we have. Because we have some guys that can really shoot the ball. And the numbers are consistent and all that you're working on in practice, but being to do it in games consistently has been a bit of struggle for us, and that's probably reflected in our three-point shooting percentage. But we're a lot better shooting team than what our numbers indicate. Defensively, I said it a few times, we've grown from a team that was known for the offensive execution, three-point shooting, and to a team that's known for stellar defense, one of the tops in the country in terms of defensive field gold percentage. We're anchored by Andre Washington. But even when Andre is not on the floor, he's able to impact our team and make them value defense more. We were able to play a small lineup tonight when Temple went small, and our guys were very tenacious, very aggressive, scrambling on the floor. A big part of it has been, with Dre back there, he's giving them a lot more confidence being able to be aggressive defensively. THE MODERATOR: Other questions for Coach Perry, please? Q. Coach, your thought's on tomorrow's match-up, please? COACH MICHAEL PERRY: Wow, I was hoping I wouldn't hear that. I am trying to enjoy this a little bit more. It's like one of those comedy skits. The good news is we won. The bad news, you've got SMU. They were a really good team. We were joking about it, they beat a lot of teams in the league like somebody owed them money. They are really, really good. I think Coach Lebo said their top five guys this early in the year, could very easily be First Team All Conference, and they were pretty close to it this year between the first and second team. Almost all of their guys are represented in the All Conference team. They are good at every level, every facet of the game defensively, offensive execution. They have guys that can score in multiple ways, multiple position guys. Outside of praying, we've got to figure out some other things that we've got to do to show them some different looks. But one thing we're going to do, we're going to be competitive. We're going to show up to fight and be ready to play. And we're going out with the intention of winning a basketball game. Because when we go lace it up, and we wear the EC uniform, that's what we're going to do, try to win. We have a formidable opponent, almost an impossible opponent to face. We're ready for that challenge. THE MODERATOR: Final question for Coach Perry? Coach, thank you. Good luck tomorrow. COACH MICHAEL PERRY: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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