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ATLANTIC 10 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 8, 2018Travis FordHasahn FrenchJalen JohnsonWashington, D.C. Saint Louis 70, George Washington 63 TRAVIS FORD: Really proud of our team's efforts and focus, especially in the second half. I thought in the first half, we were playing hard but we were playing with a mentality of not to lose. Second half I thought we played with a mentality to go out and play to win. At halftime, we kind of threw caution to the wind and our halftime talk, as far as we changed a lot of things at halftime. We wanted to send four guys to the offensive glass. We wanted to attack more on offense and fastbreak and usually we are kind of just the opposite. We're trying to control the pace of the game. And at halftime I told them, "Hey, we've got to go. I've got to let you out of the gate and we've got to go: We started switching everything, which we weren't doing in the first half, and I thought our 1-3-1 made a big difference in the second half. But it was the mentality change. I told our guys: We were playing hard the first half. We just weren't being productive. We weren't being very productive at all in the first half. Playing hard. Intent was right. We just weren't getting anything done. So really proud of these guys coming out the second half with their back against the wall, because I thought GW was really in a rhythm and really playing well. So really proud of these guys. Q. You hit a couple big threes in the first half to keep you guys in it. What was behind that? Did you feel like you needed those shots in order to just keep you guys within striking distance? JALEN JOHNSON: I mean, most of the shots probably came from this man right here. So the credit goes to him. He's the one down there getting double-teamed and taking all the bruises and stuff for me to get the open shots. Yeah, they were big shots, and they are big shots; and I know I'm supposed to shoot the ball for my team because that's what they want me to do. They want me to knock down shots, and I love them for that because that's what I've been doing my whole life. Q. In the second half, you were able to get the ball inside and be able to score in the paint. What was the difference in the second half for you? HASAHN FRENCH: Just playing more aggressive. I knew my team really needed me to play aggressive on defense and I knew that would spark my offense. So that's what I tried to do and then just doing anything and whatever it takes to win, just helped me the second half. Q. Coach said that you guys kind of threw everything against the wall at half. Was it a calm locker room? Was Coach upset? Or did you guys know that it didn't go well in the first half and you could play better in the second half? JALEN JOHNSON: I would say, Coach is so great at being calm but being motivated. He's able to motivate us at our lowest. Like when he came in the locker room he's like, "Guys, don't worry, we got this. We going to make our run and we are going to do this, we are going going to do this, and here is our game plan. He's so good at that, and when he does get mad we feel it. Yes, we feel it, but today, he's motivating us. He's like, "Guys, we're here. This is the Atlantic 10 Tournament. We belong here. This is our stage. This is what we need to do." TRAVIS FORD: What he said is I'm a lot nicer tonight than I usually a.m. (Laughter) And I was. Q. Second half, I think you shot 67 percent. You've said before, you guys aren't the greatest offensive -- TRAVIS FORD: We were the Warriors in the second half. Q. Was there anything that you could put your finger on that would make such a difference from 25 percent to 67 percent? TRAVIS FORD: I think you made a good point earlier. Jalen Johnson was our only offense first half, he was it. I told our coaches, "We have to get some other people involved. We have to start manufacturing shots." We're a team if you've seen us play, we're a team that runs offense. We move the ball. And I told our team at halftime, we're going to have to -- first of all, we're going to send everybody to the offensive glass. That's one way we're going to get more shots and plus, psychologically, I was trying to just get them to be aggressive. I was hoping, all right, they field it, all right, I'm letting them loose, I'm letting them play so everybody go to the offensive glass. Keep it alive because we're getting killed on the offensive glass. We've got to return the favor a little bit. Second, I told them, we need to pick up the pace. We get a rebound, we need to put pressure on them. You saw Davell Roby really doing a good job. You saw Javon Bess doing a good job and we were attacking the rim. And I thought that was a difference, and just, you know, I told them, we just need to move the ball a little bit quicker than we moved it. We need to play inside to out with drives, not just post feeds but with some drives, as well. Shots went down. You know, one of the coaches, one of the assistants said, we actually got pretty good shots the first half. We just didn't make any of them. Then the other thing I would add, our defense really created some offense for us. Our defense, they shot a very high percentage, I thought, for us, against us, we're one of the better defensive field goal percentage teams in the league in the first half and I told them we have to get off that mark. Every number at halftime on the stats sheet, as I told our team, is going against us. Every number goes against who we are: Points in the paint, second chance points, everything that we dominate, we're getting dominated. We're absolutely getting dominate in it. It was just a change of mentality. It was a change of mentality. Q. You guys are shorthanded obviously and you had foul trouble. Just the balance of just keeping everybody in and -- TRAVIS FORD: It might have been the worst foul trouble eve been in all year long. We were in -- we had four guys I think with two fouls in the first half and I normally don't play guys with two fouls but I had Javon Bess had two fouls, D.J. had two fouls. Davell had two fouls. And that might have been it. But we were in serious foul trouble. So we had to go zone, we played about four to five minutes of zone, but what helped us in the second half stay out of foul trouble is we were scoring more and we were scoring more and it allowed us to set up our 1-3-1 which we don't foul as much out of that, and we were probably in our 1-3-1, probably for 20 seconds of the shot clock, which allowed us to sustain two things. Sustain foul trouble and fatigue a little bit. Q. Finally, you just won this game, but looking ahead to Davidson, what challenges do they bring to you guys? TRAVIS FORD: A lot. I mean obviously what they have done in our league says enough. They have got some incredible stats. We played them so long ago, it was the second game of the conference season. So it was a long time ago. We're going to have to, you though, familiarize ourselves a little bit. Our players, you know, go back to what they do, our guys know their players. They have a lot of respect. They have some of the best players in our league. They really had a great, great conference season, and you just look at all their stats, really, really impressive basketball team. We're going to have to get some rest and play extremely well. We understand the challenge. It's going to be a tough tough challenge because we have a lot of respect for Davidson and what they have accomplished. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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