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AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 9, 2017Coach Fran DunphShizz Alston, Jr.Obi EnechionyiaHartford, Connecticut East Carolina - 80, Temple - 69 THE MODERATOR: We will excuse the athletes from the locker room. Coach, if you would, your thoughts on the game and tour thoughts? COACH FRAN DUNPHY: Well, I certainly want to give credit to East Carolina. They obviously did what they needed to do to win the game. Barkley was a handful. He made a couple of great, great plays in the first half which I thought set the tone. Two second-chance opportunities that hurt us, then we got ourselves back together, we had the ball a couple of times in the second half, maybe. I think it was 53-52. They had a chance to take the lead and it meant a lot to us emotionally. And conference-wise, it didn't happen for us. They made the right shots at the right time and they didn't play as well as we needed to down the stretch. THE MODERATOR: Take questions for the student athletes. We have issues with the microphone. So take questions and raise your hand and we'll go you to. Mark? Q. Obi, your reaction on today's game? It just seemed like you dug yourself into a deep hole that was too tough to come back. Just your thoughts on today's game. OBI ENECHIONYIA: We didn't do what we needed to do on the defensive end. That said something for us, what it is. They shot 50% from the field, and our goal is to hold them at 40, so, I think that's the biggest thing, today is the defense. Q. Shizz? SHIZZ ALSTON: Same thing, our defense, we usually hit those shots, we didn't hit them. We were down one and a chance to go up and we missed the chance to go up. We just didn't hear the shots. Q. Shizz, you know, your defense -- the defense has not been great this season, some which I saw today which I didn't see too often, go-byes, whether Sheppard getting by the guards, Hughes -- what is it that you were giving up penetration that you might usually see. SHIZZ ALSTON: Them guys are crafty with the ball. We just lost focus a couple times. Because we got go-byes -- sometimes we're up too far on them, they just got by us, but nothing to focus. Q. Would it be fair to say Barkley was playing harder than everybody else out there to some degree? OBI ENECHIONYIA: We got 16 rebounds. A lot of times we didn't, a lot of times we didn't. So, just a lot of different plays like that, that we should have made and we didn't. He had a good game. Q. Obi, would a game like this, the way the season went, tough losses, you guys should have played better, et cetera? OBI ENECHIONYIA: Yeah. There were a lot of games this season, we didn't play as well. Potentially we should have played well, and we didn't. This is just another one of those. This is a team we should have beat. THE MODERATOR: One more for the student athletes? Q. Shizz, what was the conversation afterwards with Dan. He must have been frustrated at the end and it was just the postgame with Dan and Mark? SHIZZ ALSTON: These guys, I love them. They did a pretty good job. Every game wasn't perfect, but they gave us what they had. I love and appreciate the leadership. THE MODERATOR: We'll excuse the student athletes to the locker room. Just exit to your right and cross, go through the door to this side on my left. We'll open to questions for Coach Dunphy. We have our audio issues fixed and we do have a microphone. Q. Fran, you know, it was a one possession game for a long stretch, for maybe a one or two position game. You had the stretch where you put Dan and Obi on the bench together. That's where you see you made the run. Did you look like -- you changed it up, but the next time out, did you look like you feel like you could have managed those substitutions a little different? COACH FRAN DUNPHY: Well, I thought they were very tired. That's what our -- the advice was, to just give them a quick blow, and that -- we have been doing that during the course of the season at times, but actually, asked him that in the game in the first half. I would have liked to stay with them a little longer, but I thought they were tired and hoped the other guys coming in would stem the tide. I am not sure how many minutes we played without them and exactly what the time frame was. . We had two chances to take the lead. We didn't come up with either one of them, they made two big, big shots on us. By the time we got those guys back in the game, but we had our chances again, after that. We just didn't make the plays we needed to. Q. Fran, you talked about, you didn't make the plays needed to. Is that basically been the story this season, play here, play there, just -- COACH FRAN DUNPHY: Yeah. I think so. I think we talk about it a lot. The games change on a play. We had a runner in the lane I thought that would have gotten us over the hump later in the second half, but it didn't happen and they stepped up and made shots like they needed to. Our defense needed to be better. We were -- I thought we were really well-prepared. They didn't do anything that we didn't expect, but they did step up and make a couple of great shots. We missed a couple of assignments that allowed them to have a clearer look than I would have liked to. Q. Coach, you had a lot of players, young players, in this game, who got minutes, a couple freshman who got their first post season tournament experience. What positives can you take away from their play and the young guys how they played? COACH FRAN DUNPHY: Yeah. For the most part, they did what we were asking them to do. I thought Damion Moore had really good plays. Q. Rose is going to be an outstanding player. Alani Moore had an open jumper away from our bench in the second half that I felt very was confident was going to go down because of all of the work and time that he's put in. I think the three of them are terrific player, terrific guys, and we're anxious to see how their futures will be at Temple University, but proud of them all. Q. Fran, same question I asked Shizz. Is that more go-byes that the guards game up than you would have expected? COACH FRAN DUNPHY: There's quickness. Sheppard is pretty good out there. We did a lot of switching out front. There was probably an abundance of it that we would have liked to cut down on. We got to our bigs a few times. There was some foul shooting. We were pretty decent in the first half. We kept them off the line in the first half and in the second half. We fouled late for obvious reasons. I thought they got to our bigs too much. But a couple of those threes were killer delays for them as well. They gave four for seven on threes. They were very efficient on threes in the second half. We gave up too many of those looks, and some of that is led by getting in the gap and driving and kicking. Q. Obviously, you got to the foul line a lot early. Was that an emphasis and then as the game wore on, maybe the guys, did they settle too much for -- COACH FRAN DUNPHY: Well, again, we're a three-point shooting team. I would love us to be a team that can get it to the rim and make plays at the rim. We had a couple plays at the rim that I thought we just didn't finish, a couple of them in transition. But we're always trying to get it down on the block and see if we can't play out of there and kick out and get open opportunities and get ourselves to the foul line, but we obviously didn't do that enough today. Damion Moore got himself down there a document of times. He didn't play that many minutes in the second half either. Q. Fran, can you talk a little bit about how many young player did play this year, and maybe how that bodes for the future? COACH FRAN DUNPHY: I certainly like our future. We -- those three freshman, Shizz, and Ern being sophomores out there. We're going to have four new guys come and join us next year and probably the biggest thing is Josh Brown joining us as well, so, that's the -- I think we're in very good shape, and I'm excited about what the future holds and -- because of how many minutes those guys got, the kind of play that they had, and the new guys coming, but most of all, Josh Brown. Q. Josh's absence this year -- THE MODERATOR: I appreciate Shawn's question, but revision is history. We don't have him. There's not much we can do about them. When he is in there he's great at keeping people in front of him. There's not that many go-byes. That and his leadership are critical things. I thought Dan, Mark, and Mike did their best as seniors on this team to help us, and I think Shizz did a lot of really good leadership things for us, that helped our team this year. Q. Fran, generally, on the season, did the guys not make as much improvement, as you would have -- expected, as, you know, in-season improvement? A. Well, I think the younger guys -- I think Damion Moore made great strides throughout the year. Quinton Rose made great strides throughout the year. I thought Shizz played so many minutes, but I think he had a really solid year for us. Obi had a unbelievable beginning, a little bit of a downturn in the middle, and then I think he picked it up in the end of the year. We played really some good basketball teams this year. I was proud of our efforts in so many different ways. The only thing I would have liked to have done better is on the defensive end and been a better defensive team. THE MODERATOR: Coach. Thanks for your time. COACH FRAN DUNPHY: Okay. Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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