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ATLANTIC 10 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 9, 2017Dave PaulsenMarquise MooreOtis Livingston IIJalen JenkinsPittsburgh, Pennsylvania GEORGE MASON 82, Fordham 71 DAVE PAULSEN: I mean, that was pretty unbelievable. I don't know that I've ever been a part of that big of a comeback that late in the game, and you know, everything had to go right for us, and I give our guys just a tremendous amount of credit for their grit, for their resolve, for not getting rattled, for making big plays, and obviously that energized us in the second half. The one thing I'll say about this team, there were stretches in the second half, it was ugly, from us. And we've had that a few times during the year. But the one thing I'll say about our guys, whether we're playing pretty or we're playing ugly, we fought every single night this year, and it was good for them to be rewarded. You know, these three guys obviously were huge but a lot of guys made just little extra energy plays. I thought Jaire Grayer, who is not in here right now, a couple big offensive rebounds and keeping possessions alive when he had maybe not played his best. That's what you have to do, all the time, but certainly when you get into tournament time is you're not always going to have your A Game, but you can always have your A Effort. Q. Take us through that last minute, including the free throws at the end. MARQUISE MOORE: Coach told me to be aggressive in the last minute to 30 seconds. So I got to the rim, got fouled, had two free throws, pretty much blew it. But Jay fought for the offensive rebound, so thankfully we got that, and then O made a huge play driving and kicking to Jay. And Jay came up with a huge finish. Then going into overtime, we felt like we had the momentum and we just wanted to come out and just play hard, play together and just play smart, is what we did. Q. Can you describe what the play call was coming out of the huddle on the final play in regulation, and walk us through what happened? JALEN JENKINS: Honestly, I for got. I'm not going to lie to you. O got the ball and Coach told us in the last minute, just be aggressive. Caught it, ripped through, and he got by his man. And we do lunge moves every day; as boring as they are, we do them every single day, and I was in the lunge spot, O ditched it to me, and a simple layup. Q. The transition from last season to this season, what led to the success you guys had for maybe those that are not as familiar, and for you to take that success and bottle it into a game like this to have this kind of an outcome? MARQUISE MOORE: Really just shows our maturity, our resilience. We grew up a lot over that last year, just coming together as one. We learned how to fight. We learned how to stay mentally and physically tough. We just showed that in that overtime period and the last two or three minutes of that game, we just stuck together through adversity and was able to come up with the win. OTIS LIVINGSTON II: Pretty much what marquis said. We took a lot of losses last year. We had a lot of like -- it was -- we just went through a lot as a team last year. So I think we really just grew up a whole lot like Marquise said, and I think we see that this year with how we're playing when it comes down to making those big plays. Q. Otis, a lot of times in a situation like you were in at the end of a clock, at the end of a game, you see guys rush shots before the clock goes off. How were you able to kind of show that poise, know how much time you had, to even make a pass to Jalen so he could tie up the game? OTIS LIVINGSTON II: I don't know, I just, I don't like to rush. I like to slow the game down for me for myself. I saw that the lane was like wide open, so I knew that was going to be there and at that point it's just a matter of knowing what all your options are going to be. So I just drove and I knew I had a finish or a pass to Jalen, so when I went, his man came up so I knew it was just the pass to Jalen. So just staying calm and just thinking the game and just slowing down a little bit. Q. Playing VCU, what are your thoughts after fueling to them twice? OTIS LIVINGSTON II: I'm really excited. We all are, you know, we want to play them again and we're really looking forward to that, to say the least. So they are a great team, and you know, we just have to learn from the last game and I think we should be fine. Q. What is it that you have to learn from the last game against VCU? OTIS LIVINGSTON II: Stay poised I think. You know, we got what we wanted on offense when we made two or three passes. We got to the rim any time we wanted to. We got the shots that we wanted when we played the right way on offense. I think just staying patient on offense, and on defense, just locking in and playing with the edge, like how we played near the end of this game today. We were really like sharp on defense to close out the game. So staying patient on offense, making it move, and then on defense, really locking in and playing with the edge. Q. Wondering your strategy after Marquise misses the first free throw. Do you want him to make it or miss it? What's the strategy? DAVE PAULSEN: Well, truthfully, all year long, whatever I've told him to do, he did the opposite. So I told him to make it so that he would miss it so that we could get the rebound. No, you know, I told him to make it because there was still like six seconds left, right, and that's a long time. So we could foul and if he makes it, we're down one, you still have time to race it up to the rim. They miss some free throws. But we also -- and I give credit, Dave Fisher said to me, because Jalen had sat for awhile was we were pressing and we were going smaller, to get Jalen for the rebound. I've got a great stat, and oh, let's get Jalen there in case he misses it and jail kept it alive. Then we ran kind of a special out-of-bounds play, and that would have been fine, like if Otis was free for a three. I had confidence in him to go for the win. One of the things somebody said, what was it he learned. Like in a lot of our losses, he has kind of rushed stuff and tried to make a great play, and he was really poised and calm and just he made the right play. And so that was really great, and not only for us to win tonight's game, but what we have to do if we're going to play better against a really good VCU team tomorrow night. Q. Did you sense it slipping away in that last minute and a half or so? Could you kind of see it in your players' body language? DAVE PAULSEN: That we were in danger of losing? Yeah, yeah, big time, yeah. You know, I mean, it's so fickle all year long, the game, but certainly we get to March. So there must have been three late shot clock, desperation, three-pointers that Fordham hit. Hawkins hit one, Anderson hit one, and I think there was another on, like late. Like we guarded incredibly well and they hit them. And you're like, Ohhhh, you know. And then they missed some free throws, and that's the crazy thing. But you know, the big challenge for this team, and this was a great step, was how do you handle adversity. Because everyone's a great player when things are going well. You know, I don't think we handled it that well for stretches there in the second half. But you couldn't have done a better job in the last men or whatever it was. So that's something we can grow from. Q. After the VCU game the other day, you said you petitioned to have Tillman graduate with the rest of the guys. He is going to play tomorrow night. What do you have to do to stop him -- DAVE PAULSEN: He is? Q. Yeah, I think he will be. DAVE PAULSEN: Darn. Q. What changes do you think your team has to make? DAVE PAULSEN: We have to grow. I don't know if that's going to happen overnight. We have to try to find a way to keep him off the glass. Now he made some really good like jump hooks and like offensive post plays, you know, that if, boy, I mean, was really impressive. But it was his offensive rebounding, and again, we play with four guards. We're small. We've been a good rebounding team all year long. We've led the conference in rebound margin but we struggled to keep VCU off the glass. I think they only got eight offensive rebounds in that game but every one seemed to lead to a basket. You know, we've just got to find a way. But he's a handful and he's not the only one. Mo Alie-Cox and JeQuan Lewis and the rest of the group, it's a veteran group and you know, they defended at a really, really high level. Q. You guys have lost twice to VCU this year. What's one thing you have to do differently to beat them tomorrow? DAVE PAULSEN: Well, one, we have to keep them off the glass; and two, we can't turn it over. And Otis touched on it; so that was good. So hopefully somehow that message got through and it translated. When we did move the ball against VCU, we had some good shot opportunities and when we tried to come down and like make a great play early on, and there's a fine line. Now I thought tonight, in trying to move the ball, we played tentatively and we played on our heels for stretches of time against a Fordham zone. So it's a fine line of being aggressive and being patient. There's more art than science to playing offensive basketball, and hopefully again, the last, whatever, six minutes, will be a springboard for us. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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