|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: NEW YORKMarch 26, 2017Mike WhiteJustin LeonKasey HillNew York, New York South Carolina - 77 Florida - 70 THE MODERATOR: We'll get started with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student-athletes. MIKE WHITE: Obviously very, very heart breaking. To make it this far, you're right there with a chance to go to the Final Four, you're up seven at halftime, doing some good things and really we weren't playing our best basketball in the first half. We had a bunch of turnovers, we were sped up, we had some lack of communication. They had -- we had live ball turnovers that led to transition offense for them. We had some poor transition defense possessions in addition to those others ones. We had some lack of communication, yet we're up seven. And for whatever reason, in the second half, we couldn't match that same defensive intensity, again, which wasn't an A, but it was pretty good, it was probably a B for us. I thought South Carolina made all the plays that they needed to. Thornwell showed why he's starting to become more appreciated, good for him. Deservingly so. PJ Dozier, I thought stymied a couple of our runs with big baskets. They defend at such a high level to compliment those two things. And then of course, Kotsar when he's hitting jump shots, they had eight offensive rebounds in the second half as opposed to three in the first half, didn't do quite as good a job in those categories, we're sitting here on the losing end. But that doesn't take away from what these guys have accomplished. I'm really, really proud of these two guys, for putting Florida basketball -- for putting us back in the right direction, for everything that they have accomplished this year, not only on the court, but off of the floor. These are great young men, who have grown as people, been model citizens, been awesome to work with. And selfishly as a staff you say my goodness, we had a chance to go to the Final Four. I'm sick for these guys. I'm sick for these guys, along with Canyon Barry and Schuyler Rimmer, especially our seniors. Our young guys, we have a lot to work for here, starting next week, but our seniors have been awesome to work with, I'm really proud of them, and they have a lot to be proud of. THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Obviously tough the final game of your career, but what do you guys take from being a part of this team this season? JUSTIN LEON: Just, I guess, a lot of things I learned, just to never give up regardless of the circumstances. Things may not go your way, but you never know what you'll be capable of, you just keep going. I felt like that because I know a lot of people didn't think, didn't have us going this far at the beginning of the season, probably didn't even have us making the tournament. So and we just faced adversity and just got to be tough and keep moving forward, just like now. Who knows where I'm going to be after this, but all I can do is just keep my head high and hope for the best when I get done with the season. KASEY HILL: Just happy we got the university back into the tournament and that we made it this far. Q. Kasey, when you look back on this game, other than the fact that you lost the game, any second guessing on your part about either the way you guys attacked or defended? KASEY HILL: They were just the better team honestly, that's all it was. Q. Kasey or Justin, you had a late game the night before, a tough game, overtime, didn't get back until late, you were 0-14 in the second half tonight, was that any affect at all maybe that? JUSTIN LEON: No, I don't think so because we gave ourselves plenty of time to prepare for the game. So I think tonight just wasn't our night to win, I guess. KASEY HILL: I don't think that had anything to do with it either. Q. In the second half you had a bit of a harder time shooting the three apparently. Did you notice them targeting you specifically differently when you were running your half court offense in the second half or was there anything different that you noticed that they were doing? KASEY HILL: No, we got wide open shots. They just didn't fall in for us at the time. We kept attacking, trying to bend the screens and throw it back and the shots just wasn't going in. JUSTIN LEON: Kind of pitching off of what Kasey said, we still got our open looks, but they just, I guess they just went farther than what they were in the first half. Q. I know you were one of the first, if not the first recruit Coach White had. If you could just reflect on as you move on now, what he will mean to the program being left behind what has he and guys like you have meant to this program moving forward. JUSTIN LEON: I think that he's shown signs of a lot of toughness, that's one of the things Coach White preaches. And I guess with him recruiting me, it shows that he likes tough players and he just wants the program to be known as a good hard nosed program. And just as a Coach White, he's a good guy, so I mean, that's it. Q. Justin, obviously you guys shot it well in the first half. Was it, you changed ends, is there any reason that you can comprehend for what happened? JUSTIN LEON: No, not that I necessarily know. I think just, I don't know, maybe just they just weren't going in, because we still got the same looks that we got in the first half. Q. To both of you, you've had four years. Justin you've had two years, do either of you guys have a favorite memory from your playing time at the University of Florida? KASEY HILL: I would probably say the shot that Choizz made, honestly. Everybody was happy for him that he made a shot and that we won the game. JUSTIN LEON: Yeah, probably the same thing Kasey said. That shot, because I ain't never really been a part of something like that, especially on this big or this high of a stage. And probably for myself, just making it this far, especially being a JuCo guy, you know, you can say I transferred and went to the Elite 8, so. Q. For both guys, when you guys go off and make your way through life, as Coach White builds this program, will you guys look back and say, hey, we were part of getting this thing started? KASEY HILL: For sure we will say that. I'm just happy that we got in the tournament or got the university back into the tournament, and I'm happy that Coach White could be a part of that and everybody else can be a part of that. JUSTIN LEON: Same thing. I'll be happy to say I was a part of it at getting Florida back to Florida basketball back to what Florida basketball is known for. Q. No one's more familiar with South Carolina than you guys are. Three times you faced them this year. They're going to be the surprise team to the rest of the country going into the Final Four. What do you all see in South Carolina that makes them dangerous? And what's, what do you see that the improvement with them? KASEY HILL: They're just scoring the ball a lot better. They're making shots. Dozier's attacking, Thornwell is being himself, and they got the two big guys, they're scoring, too. So they're always going to play defense, but they're scoring the ball a lot better. JUSTIN LEON: Yeah, a lot of that -- guys around Thornwell, are stepping up their game and scoring the ball well. So I feel like that's probably one of the main things that guys, that allowed them to get the momentum and keep moving. THE MODERATOR: All right we'll excuse the student-athletes and take questions for coach. Q. Can you just describe what the last two weeks have been like for you? MIKE WHITE: Hectic, whirlwind, exhausting, gratifying, exciting, emotional. I wish they were all like the other night. Rewarding. It's been a great group to work with and to see them have the success that they have had, knowing how much they have worked, knowing the adversities that they have had to overcome. Like, give you an example, we talked about it a lot lately, it just came up in the locker room, but our own people know this, obviously, we're really, really happy about Exactech Arena, it's gorgeous. These guys, we're flying and driving all over the country and these guys overcame that and it was never an issue. Never a complaint. Not boo out of him or him. All fall. Adversity. Johnny Boom, this guy's coming from Junior college trying to figure out how the heck to get to class a mile away on University of Florida's campus. Kasey Hill's adversity with what he's been through in this four years, it's been unbelievable for him just to say over these last couple coaches, I just want to help you get back to the tournament. I want to help Florida get back in the tournament. He was this close to a Final Four. He goes to an Elite 8. The Wisconsin game. Just the microcosm of it all. So, sorry for the long-winded answer, but those are things that are going through my head. Q. Obviously 0-14 was the difference in the game. And it allowed you it to get, 7-12 allowed you to get the lead. Do you have any explanation for why they just weren't falling? MIKE WHITE: No, I'm so glad these guys didn't make any excuses, that's not what we're about. South Carolina was better than us. Period. It's funny, until you said 0-14, I'm embarrassed to say I didn't know we were 0-14. I know we were really struggling to make a shot, I didn't know how bad it was. I didn't know to what extent it was. I coach these guys and not that it's special or unique, we all coach our guys in this way. You try to control what you can control. We could have controlled the offensive rebounds more so than making an open shot that we gave up in the second half. Gave up three in the first half and there's just, we can control that. Couple of ill-advised passes that we threw against a great pressure defense, obviously. Maybe the best in the country in terms of pressuring you and turning you over. But a couple of those possessions I wish we could have back. The times that we had opportunities to wall up in the paint and not jump and be sound, but we jump and we send their front court guys to the foul line. I wish we could have had those back. And we could have gone 0-14 and still won the game. Obviously, you want to make shots, it's a big part of basketball. I don't know why. I know they're a terrific defense. We took some contested ones. We had a few open ones. Just they just didn't fall for us. Q. Did you have a message for them at halftime as far as let's keep it going, what was the message at halftime? MIKE WHITE: Yeah, it was one stop at a time. That's all it was. It was guys, I believe we had correct me if I'm wrong, did we have 11 turnovers at halftime? So we had 11. So all we talked about offensively is, we know we're going to be sped up, we know we're playing as quick and as strong and as physical a team as there is in college basketball. They can't speed us up. We're putting our defense in peril, guys. I mean, they're good enough in transition offense, especially as of late, but for us to have the pick sixes that we had, we're not going to win the game if we do that. That's all we talked about in terms of offense. Defensively we watched every field goal make against us, every foul that we committed. And a lot of it was in transition, we had a for a few miscommunications there or lack of communication, we addressed those things. And we talked not about holding on to a lead, not about next 20 minutes. We talked about staying in the moment, being right here, right now and the first defensive possession of the second half, let's address that. And then let's move on to the second defensive possession. Obviously, those weren't the right words, because we didn't get off to a very good defensive start in the second half. Q. Kotsar and Silva are both impressive big men down in the paint. What did you think of the job that Kevarrius Hayes did tonight and the job Gak did tonight? MIKE WHITE: Gak's come a long way. We got to have him rebound the ball and play with more physicality, he's going to get there. He's going to get there. He's barely lifted any lower body, he got to campus late. He hasn't done much with the weight room. And that's to me, that's going to be where we're going to see his biggest improvement with getting stronger. Kevarrius I thought was good. Kevarrius was good. Unfortunately, those guys have continued to develop too, to the extent that they have Kotsar is hitting 15-footers on us, which he wasn't doing earlier in the year. He just wasn't making those shots, he wasn't playing with the confidence that he's playing with now. Silva as well. He's a terrific talent, both those guys are the young guys scoring it the way they are. Our guys said it, PJ Dozier is playing downhill, he's playing with more confidence, especially in transition. They have changed, they become such a better transition offensive team, and then Thornwell is, he's just being him. He's shown the country now why, in my opinion, he's been unappreciated, why our league can be unappreciated, he's one of the best players in the country. Q. What did this run mean for you, your program, moving forward and what's next? MIKE WHITE: It's been great, but and I'm not celebrating anything right now. I'm like our guys. I feel as lousy as I could feel with just being so close. I'm sure in a couple days, couple good nights of sleep, getting a chance to spend catch up with my kids, seems like I haven't soon my kids in a month. You know what I mean? Happy birthday Rylee by the way, I know pops is here -- that's my nine-year-old's 10-year-old's, excuse me, my little girl turned 10 today. Some of the sacrifices we have to make in coaching with just being so far away. Be home late tonight, Rylee. But I'm sure when you take a step back and take a deep breath I'll feel more and more pride about what these guys accomplished. My staff's been tremendous. Love my staff. Our support staff is unbelievable. So blessed to work with these guys. Our administration is terrific as we all know. And I'm just I'm proud of, I said it earlier, but these guys, there's just been no drama this year. And I've never been a part of that. In 17 years not to get one call at midnight that your guys did something crazy or not to have to breakup a fight in the locker room or deal with man, I'm going to transfer if I don't play more. You know, we just, our culture is back to where it needs to be to just to give us a chance. And it's mostly the same guys. So, I want to credit Kasey and Justin Leon for what he's done. Canyon Barry's been an incredible addition to our program, not just to this team or a few games where he scored 30 or what have you. Our freshmen, they're just much more mature, they have grown as people. KeVaughn Allen and Kevarrius Hayes are much more mature. They're closer to being grown men than they were a year ago. And I'm leaving guys out. The sacrifice Schuyler made as a senior, hasn't played much, I could go on and on. Chris Chiozza, his, his development, are you kidding me? Think about how far he's come. And then Devin Robinson has grown as much as anyone. It wasn't his best night tonight. Talk about growing as a person and maturing and becoming more serious about your game and want to go show everybody how talented you are. Getting tougher. It was fun to be a part of. I'll feel better about it in a couple days. Q. A lot has been made about the SEC narrative. You guys were going blow-for-blow most of the game today. What did the country learn about SEC basketball? MIKE WHITE: It's really good. It's really good. You know, I hate to, I don't want to be one of these guys, the way better than people think, you know. It's just so unappreciated, everyone's crazy because the computers say what they say and numbers don't lie. But I think our computer numbers will continue to increase. They probably obviously have over the past two, three weeks. I think we had some unfortunate non-conference losses throughout the roster of our league. But there's a bunch of teams in our league that would have been capable. Vandy had a rough go at it, otherwise who knows how far they would have gone. Georgia was really close. Alabama played everybody really tough. Alabama goes to South Carolina and beats them. You kidding me? South Carolina lost six games in our league. We lost four games in our league. Our league is really good. I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's the best league, but it's building, it's talented, it's quick, it's fast, it's strong, it's well coached. Frank's done an amazing job, he's one of those guys I'm glad he's going. I would rather have gone than Frank, but I'm happy he's going. He's done an amazing job there. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|