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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: SALT LAKE CITYMarch 18, 2017Randy BennettJock LandaleCalvin HermansonSalt Lake City, Utah Arizona - 69 Saint Mary's - 60 COACH RANDY BENNETT: Yeah, I couldn't be more proud of our team, these guys, Joe and Dane, our seniors, they're awesome. Never had better leadership on a team. Never had a group of guys that's been 1 through 15 as squared away, have as good of attitudes as this group. I'm not saying it's the best team or anything like that, just as good as you can be as a team. We pretty much had them for two years. The young guys came in and did a great job. We played well tonight. Lost to a really good team, good program, really well coached and they just got us down the stretch. It was a good college basketball game. I could not be more proud of this group that I coached. Q. They obviously started attacking the basket a little stronger in the second half. What changed from your guys' perspective as far as what they were doing on offense? CALVIN HERMANSON: It seemed like they started hitting some tough shots at the end. In the first half I felt like we did a pretty good job on defense first like 10, 14 minutes or so. And we were forcing them to take tough shots, and seemed like they were only scoring when they got offensive rebounds. And then the second half it seemed like they were a little more aggressive attacking the paint. And we just have to do a better job of limiting that. Q. Jock, after that fast start did they start doing different things to slow you down offensively or were you trying to get other people involved? What changed after you got out to such a fast start? JOCK LANDALE: No, I think they just started fronting me on the post a lot more, making it tough for me to catch. I was catching it out a lot further, which is my fault, I need to do a better job of getting deep catch. I felt like we were moving the ball pretty well in the first half. No, it's nothing out of the ordinary, we're used to that stuff. We just didn't hit shots that we usually do. Q. Jock, can you talk about your impressions of Lauri today after playing him? JOCK LANDALE: Yeah, he's really good. I felt like we took him off the three pretty well. And as far as Dane, Dane is one of the best defenders I've seen. He did an awesome job. He's an athlete and he has a nice drive to the basket. So I felt like he wasn't getting 3's like he usually does, and he just took it to the rack. I think our guys did an absolutely unbelievable job on him keeping him quiet for the most part. But, yeah, I think he got to the line a few too many times in the end, and that was probably team defense. We need to help out a bit more. Q. In the second half you only had two points off of turnovers. The inability to finish after getting turnovers, how much did that hurt the momentum for the team when you were trying to hold them off? CALVIN HERMANSON: I think that one play at the end where Joe stole the ball and pitched it back to center for a three kind of summed up the game for us, how we played so hard. And Joe forces that turnover like we never quit, right down to the end. I thought we were going to win still, until like the last 30 seconds or whatever. And then, like Jock said, we didn't make shots tonight like we normally do. I think we fought really hard. Q. If this wasn't the most physical game you played this year, was it close to it? COACH RANDY BENNETT: They're big. They're physical defensively. They're big. I don't know, we played some other ones physical. Yeah, they're physical. It was a physical game. Was it the most physical? Probably not. Q. Were you missing open shots, what's your take on the three-point shooting tonight? COACH RANDY BENNETT: My take on it was we didn't make enough. They close out hard. They work at it. They'll give you 3's, but they're flying at you when you shoot them and they're pretty athletic so they can get a big hand up there. Some of them we didn't -- we had some open ones we needed to make. Sometimes the game comes down to it. You've got to hit some open shots. We played well. We didn't play quite well enough to win. And a big part of our game is shooting the ball from three and we didn't shoot it well enough. Q. Now that Arizona and Gonzaga made it through, they're going to come to San Jose next week. I'm not going to ask you to tell me who you think would win. Can you tell me how you think that game will be decided if they do meet, given your perspective on the thing? COACH RANDY BENNETT: I have to think of something, here. I haven't really thought about that. It will be a good game. Those two, they're similar. Both teams play with good bigs. Both teams have good guards, good size, both guard you. It's a pretty even game. It will be a good basketball game. I think those two are in the top eight teams in the country, probably. Q. How much of a factor is it that Arizona had the three bigs to run at Landale? COACH RANDY BENNETT: Yeah, it's a factor because when they get one in foul trouble they can bring another one. And they're not afraid to be physical with him because they're not afraid to get in foul trouble. Yeah, they have a lot of -- they have four bigs, Markkanen is another one. All four of those guys are good size, good defensively and they can wear you out. And I think to be good -- to be good you need to have that, because you're going to come across -- when you get down to the last 32 or 16 teams, the other team is going to have some bigs. And every time we've gotten in this tournament and advanced at all that's what we've run into. So you're going to have to have a way to stop those guys. There's going to be a Landale or Markkanen. There's going to be a Karnowski. That's why those teams are in the final 32 or final 16. It's hard to get there, but when you do, you're going to see some bigs. Q. Krebs gave you a lift off the bench, is that a silver lining? COACH RANDY BENNETT: There's a lot of silver linings for this tournament. These guys got to participate in the best tournament. At the end of the year you're playing the 68 best, advance to the final 32. That experience is so valuable. And when we came into this tournament nobody had played it. But the experience of playing in these games under this pressure against good teams is so valuable. And for Tanner to play that well, I mean, he played exceptional. He's been coming on -- he looked like a real player in this tournament. I was really happy for him. I was glad that he could, when the lights were on in this big a stage he's able to step up and play under pressure. And he really helped us in the VCU game and he really helped us tonight. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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