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AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 9, 2018Tubby SmithKareem Brewton Jr.Mike ParksOrlando, Florida Memphis - 67, Tulsa - 64 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student-athletes and coach. TUBBY SMITH: It was certainly a clutch shot that Kareem Brewton made there at the end. I thought our guys showed a lot of, again, courage and a lot of heart and a lot of toughness. Good balanced scoring, good team effort all the way around. Do a better job taking care of the ball. We have been okay, but certainly I was impressed with Tulsa. We were pretty much controlling the game there for a while, then they gained some momentum at halftime. But it was an impressive win for us and we're excited about advancing. THE MODERATOR: Take questions, please. Q. Kareem, can you just take us through that shot. Was that the plan, was it just instinct? How did it all develop? KAREEM BREWTON: Yes, that was pretty much the plan. To have Kyvon and Jamal go ahead and cross to distract those two going down, and then pretty much get the ball on the curl and just go all the way to the basket. But Mike's man stepped up, so I was like man it's like 0.5, so let's go ahead and just shoot it, so I just shot it. Q. You said after that Temple game when you hit the buzzer beater there that you practice that type of shot. Do you practice floaters from the three-point line and all? KAREEM BREWTON: Pretty much I just looked to get any way to pretty much get the ball in the hoop. That's all I do. Q. And then Mike, it was just a release as soon as that ball went through. What was the celebration like? MIKE PARKS: Oh, it was definitely a good feeling. He already hit one of them, so we trusted him to have the ball in his hand at the end of the game. Q. Kareem, did you have a sense when it was going in? Did you watch the whole way? What was your feeling? KAREEM BREWTON: I watched it the whole way. I followed through on it, too, and then I just followed it under the goal, and when it went in, I just seen everybody just start screaming and running towards me, so. Q. Kareem, when you let go of the ball, how certain were you that is it was going to go in? KAREEM BREWTON: I came off, it was just basketball instinct that you have when the ball come off good, you feel like it's going to go in and that's what happened. It went straight through the net. Q. Does something like this feel like -- I mean people are really excited afterwards not only because it was a buzzer beater but was there more to it than just one shot there, that release that your whole team had? MIKE PARKS: Yeah, it felt good, because obviously we won and we know we can do it. So like we just have faith in each other. And it brings more confidence to the team as we keep going on. So it was a very exciting feeling. Q. Kareem, the whole last stretch it was five junior-college players who were on the court together and does it say something about what y'all are capable of? Sometimes you take heat for being from junior college, does it say something that you were out there winning that game? KAREEM BREWTON: I feel like as we're on the court, pretty much most of us went through two years of junior college, and pretty much when you get to this level, pretty much all you got is heart. You're trying to show everybody that just because you go juco don't mean you could play at that level. Q. Coach, for you, I saw you after the game, how good does this feel? Obviously you guys, you played well for much of the game, to advance to the semi-finals, what sort of accomplishment is this for this group? TUBBY SMITH: Well, we have been playing well for a while. Seven out of eight games, six out of seven something we won, so other than the hiccup we had at home, I thought we were playing about as well as we had all year long, and this is the time of year that -- we knew with so many new players it was going to take a lot of time to, more time than we expected, but once the guys continued to believe and trust in the system, trust in what we're trying to do and the process. We have a lot of talent, as I said before, we got a very talented group. We did have one of the top recruiting classes in the league and it just takes a while for people to adapt. We're happy and we're pleased with the performance. There's a lot of things that we have to improve on between now and tomorrow. So we're always concerned about the next best thing, next best action, that's part of coaching and that's what we do. Q. Cincinnati gave a lot of teams fits this year, obviously they gave you guys fits, just looking ahead to that game, what do you guys think you guys need to do to be able to pull off an upset there? TUBBY SMITH: Well, you're right, we got to take care of the ball. Obviously they're one of the top teams in the country defensively. I think they are one or two as far as field-goal percentage defense, forcing turnovers. They remind me a lot of West Virginia and the way they attack you physically and that's what we have to be concerned about, being physical, just taking care of the basketball, fighting the pressure, because they're going to, and Mick Cronin they play a system, that switching defense that's very -- makes you go to your second, third, fourth options. So you have to be very patient and really work the ball around to get the best shot. That takes a lot of experience, but I like that our guys have got a lot of experience. These guys have now -- when we recruited them they had about 60, 70 games under their belt. Now they got another, what, 33 now under their belt. So they have had a lot of games under their belt. So I expect them to perform well and compete hard against the Bearcats. Q. As a follow-up to what you just mentioned about this team growing together and playing well now, going into this tournament did you sense that they would be able to make a run here and make some noise? TUBBY SMITH: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we, I felt we were, we won four in a row and I knew we had something going on and guys were starting to really, they have been believing all year long. It's just that I think guys now accept it that, hey, this is my role and I'm making the right decisions and I'm making the right sacrifices. And that's hard to do when you've been a star at your previous school. Now Coach is asking me to give up this and give up that, it's hard. I don't know, that's why I got the most respect for this group of young men and how they've responded, with a lot of distractions. Q. Tied basketball game, you were up by one at halftime, what did you talk to the players about at halftime? TUBBY SMITH: What did I talk about? We talked about taking care of the basketball because I think we had like, we had quite a few turnovers at halftime. We had 13 turnovers. That was the No. 1, that was the No. 1 thing we talked about. The other thing is, because I thought we were rebounding the ball well and they ended up outrebounding us. Things we know we had to do and continue to do. I mean, we were defending our butts off, as we were holding them to just only, what, 37 percent, well, actually they were 0-for- 9. So we wanted to take away the three and we wanted to continue to do that, and I thought we did a good job of that in the second half. And they did some good things to get back in the game, to get themselves with their 1-2-2, three-quarter press. Made us take time and but I was really impressed with our guards and Malik, Kareem, Jamal, made shots. We've made some good decisions in the second half and we cut back even though we had 18 turnovers, we only had five in the second half. THE MODERATOR: Memphis, thank you. TUBBY SMITH: All right, thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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