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AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 9, 2018Tim JankovichBen EmeloguAkoy AgauJahmal McMurrayOrlando, Florida Cincinnati - 61, SMU - 51 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from Coach, and then take questions for the student-athletes and Coach. TIM JANKOVICH: Okay, opening statement: It's just, it's the opposite of yesterday, for our seniors. I always just feel like losses in tournaments and all are first and foremost about the seniors. I remember clearly how it felt when things come to an end or dreams are not realized. So that's where it always starts with me, and just I appreciate these two guys so much and then times 100,000 I appreciate them because of what they went through. Neither one of them had even remotely what you would call a normal career. They had more adversity than any 600 people. And I won't get into it. It would take hours to tell the story, but so amazing, really. And my heart goes out to them. And of course Jahmal up here, the rest of our team, very proud of them, not in the sense of we want moral victories. I never feel great with when we lose, never, but given the odds, given that we start -- it's like we start the season with three injured players because we're on probation, like who starts with three injured players? We have less and then I think we had what six or seven guys injured during the season miss games. I think we probably missed a hundred games, if you add up all the guys, what they missed, I think we're almost at a hundred, if you can believe that. And to still -- at the end, I mean I just think it shows great character, and that's why I'm so appreciative that I get to coach young men with outstanding character. Believe me, there's a lot of coaches not that lucky in the country and I happen to be one of them. So I wish things would have turned out much better, I wish we could have had the team, our team, or the team that we started the school year with. I wish that team was here to play. I wish that for these guys. I wish that for all the guys. With you but you know what, life doesn't always go as planned. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions, please. Q. When it became obvious that Akoy was hurt, it looked like on the first possession he was already struggling, did you do anything differently and say, okay, we got to try something else? TIM JANKOVICH: Yeah, I got a little more religious at that point. I tried to, that doesn't always help, but that was the first thought. But you know, you tweaked it right away, right? Tweaked it, he had been up since the crack of dawn trying to make sure he could play today and he got to a point, he was still obviously not full speed and then he tweaks it on the first play, and then my gosh, I mean -- but it's very, it had to happen because this is our season right here. You're looking at our season. Last time we played Cincinnati Ethan sprained his ankle in shootaround. No joke, shooting, okay? So now he's sprained it here and we're already three down on probation, and we're already three guys out for the season, and we already got two guys playing hurt and it's like why not? Let's just have another one. Let's just have a guy get hurt on the first play of the game who played his tail off. And I want to say this again, this is important to me, I basically said it yesterday but I want to say it again, because I know the frustration, I do, and if you've never been injured, then it's hard to really grasp this, but he -- let's start down here since you asked about him, he's a great talent. I mean, no one's had more injuries in major college history than he has. Had he been a healthy guy, no one knows what might have happened. Look how well he played yesterday. He looked like a million bucks and he's playing with about three days of practice in the last six months, he's playing on one leg, he's got -- I mean, but he's getting healthier. But just how frustrating it would be to know your real game is here and you're playing here (Indicating). Agau obviously starts the year, he's incredible, I think he's leading the nation in three-point shooting, if I'm not mistaken. We never brought it up; we didn't want to jinx you, you know? But we noticed, okay. So playing his tail off and then he gets a wrist injury and now he can't shoot a ball from the three-point line for weeks and weeks and weeks. So basically we're playing with Agau playing left-handed and how frustrating is that? So it was well documented that the guys that aren't playing, Shake, Jarrey, Everett, they're not able to play, they're done, but what wasn't documented because we don't want to give the other team a scouting report, is these guys can barely practice and when they are in the game, they're not who they really are and that is, it just kills me because I know, I know what that feels like and that's, that is sheer misery. That's sheer misery. And they didn't deserve it. I can tell that you for sure. Q. You guys feel like you kind of left one out there tonight? A lot of maybe self-inflicted miscues, like the shot-clock violations, missed dunk, various things. Do you feel like it got away from you a little bit? BEN EMELOGU: I thought we played hard. They do what great teams do, grind it out, find a way to win. I think it was nothing that -- mistakes happen in a game and it happened, but I think we played our hearts out. I think we played hard and I think we left it all out there. They just did what great teams do and they find a way to win. Q. What happened on that technical foul at the end? TIM JANKOVICH: I was pointing out, as kindly as I possibly could, I was looking at the scoreboard saying that our opponent had two fouls for the entire half and were pressing and playing pressure defense, and we had far more than that and we were playing in a zone. And normally just in basketball theory if you zone, one of the reasons you do that is because it really cuts down on the fouls and one of the reasons that you like press and pressure and play physical is you're willing to live with the fouls. And all I was trying to do was just point out that it was 19-2 in the free-throw shooting. And I just, I didn't mean it in a mean way, I just thought it was extremely ironic because normally the zone team will foul far less. So really I was just pointing out some irony and not criticism at all and maybe they took it as criticism, but I was, I just saw the irony in the moment, that's all. And so I just was pointing out the numbers and the free throws, that we shot two for the entire game and they shot 19. And in no way does that mean that it wasn't just, who am I to say that? I was just saying, isn't this ironic? And so it was very ironic to me. Q. How do you try to neutralize a team with the same size that Cincinnati on the offensive boards? TIM JANKOVICH: Well, the first thing that you would do if your first goal is to try to negate a great offensive rebounding team is to play man-to-man. Because at least you have, have you a matchup block-out, and you're accountable for your guy. That's the first step. And anybody that's been following us, we have played about how many possessions of man in the last five or six weeks? We have not had the ability to do that. We don't have the numbers. We have got seven people, some playing hurt, some that are not as mobile, so we had to make that choice that we had to become a zone team, and when you do that, rebounding is far more difficult. But then if you look around the country and you look at zone teams, let's say Syracuse is the famous zone team, right so what's the difference between Syracuse's zone and our zone, and I would say four and a half inches at every position probably. They recruit to that zone. They play 6'5", 6'6", 6'8", 6'9". So they play a gigantic zone which allows them to negate rebounding. We're playing our starting lineup is 5'11, 6', 6'2" -- are you five or six? I want to give you every inch. Five or six? BEN EMELOGU: Five. TIM JANKOVICH: 6'5", so we go 5'11, 6', 6'2", and 6'2", 180 pounds by the way, and 6'5" and then Akoy in the middle and that's not, that is not a team that you want to go zone for 40 minutes. But when you don't have a choice, then you got to pick your poison and say, well, if we foul, if we foul out. If we have got some matchup issues that we can't overcome, then we made that choice to try to get better and better from zone defense and without question, I mean, we knew, we talked, it was probably the No. 1 thing we talked about is, we just have to keep trying to rebound better out of the zone. But it's not an easy thing, trust me, when guys are flying in from everywhere and you're trying to run some people off the line as well, because you can't let people shoot H-O-R-S-E shots against a zone or you're just going to get torched. So you extend and you leave a small little group in here with guys crashing the boards. It's not easy. It's really not easy. So but we had to pick our poison. We had to pick our poison. That was the poison we picked as opposed to fouling out and having some matchup issues that we would not have been able to cover up. So given our situation, we felt like that was the best we could do. And I don't like playing zone by the way but it was out of necessity. Q. Ben and Akoy, you guys had to go up against Kyle Washington and Gary Clark tonight, from a game-plan perspective and just a difficulty challenge, how do you face up against those guys? BEN EMELOGU: Well, Kyle you don't want to get to his right shoulder. Seems like every shot he throws up with his left hand it goes in. So that's one thing we tried to do. And Gary Clark is just a dog, he's a junkyard dog. Does whatever his team needs to do to win the game, and you just got to try to contain that as much as possible. I think we did that. I think we frustrated him a little bit throughout the game. And it was just hard to keep them off the boards and late in the game they just got in the paint and they started hitting shots and they grinded out a win. Q. Coach, if you're offered a NIT Tournament bid would you accept? TIM JANKOVICH: Sure. Of course. Absolutely. A hundred percent. Yes. And who knows, the health of our team by then, you know, so but regardless, absolutely. Certainly before all the health issues we were, if you believed the projections, which I really try to ignore, but people don't allow me to ignore. All my friends are constantly texting me what they find out and I can't tell them I don't want to know, but before the injuries we were a four or five seed. We had three top-15 wins. We were right where these guys would hope to be. We were ahead of where maybe we could expect to be with only three returning players, and then the bottom dropped out with the injuries and of course we would accept a hundred percent, yes. Q. Big theme at the beginning of the season was the youth of this roster. When you look back, how did all the freshmen on the team progress? TIM JANKOVICH: I thought they did a great job. It's sad given the injuries. Everett being a freshman he missed out on a lot of time he would have gotten as well. That would have really helped his progression, and he was really continuing to improve and get better and better and earn some more time, and obviously a really good rebounder that would have helped with one of the questions here. Being a freshman, it is funny, a lot of high school guys, they think it's going to be completely different than it is, their perception is a lot different -- now every now and then, don't get me wrong, there's some freshmen that can just, they just kind of have it, they just have got a lot of things that are ready or college ready, but it's certainly not everybody. So it was great from that standpoint. They're going to have a complete, much better understanding of what they have to do spring, summer, fall, to be a high-level Division-I player and not just a guy. So I think it was really valuable, but would I have hoped for all these injuries? No, no, I wouldn't, we would not. We had a nice progression going, bringing people along, and to speed that up was really not in the plans. THE MODERATOR: SMU, thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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