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ATLANTIC 10 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 9, 2018Dave PaulsenGoanar MarOtis LivingstonWashington, D.C. Saint Joseph's - 68, George Mason - 49 DAVE PAULSEN: First thing I'd say is, you know, tip our hat to Saint Joe. Congratulations on the victory and wish them the very, very best. I think the only thing we didn't do well tonight is we just couldn't shoot the ball. I thought our guys competed really, really hard. I thought for the most part we defended very well. Really that first half after they got out to a jump, we really defended well. I thought we had good looks from guys who made them all year, and the ball just didn't go in the basket. If you're going to have a game like that, you don't want it to be in the conference tournament. Unfortunately that happened. But I think the big message to our guys in the locker room was this team has improved more than any team I've coached in 24 years for the course of the season, collectively and individually, and all those guys are coming back. We want them to reflect on the growth. I want them to feel good about the growth and the improvement and the progress they made for two weeks, and then I want them to remember the sting and get back to work and be consumed with getting better. Q. Otis, take us through the shooting by you guys; it was slow in the first half but Saint Joe's struggled, as well. What's going through your mind as this game is unfolding and shots just aren't falling? OTIS LIVINGSTON: Yeah, Coach told us to just keep shooting those shots. If we're open, shoot them. If we're not open, drive it and try to create for yourself inside or create for a teammate. But Coach is all about making the right play, and if the right play is to shoot it, then you shoot it. You don't want to think about it too much if you're missing or anything, just shoot the open shot. Q. Just looking back at this year, I wanted to know some of your thoughts about your first year here at Mason and just kind of reflecting -- GOANAR MAR: I think it was a good year. We had a lot of -- me and the other freshmen got a lot of experience. We were put in a lot of different situations, so leading into next year, it's good to know that everyone will be back, and we've been in so many different situations that we'll have that much more experience, so in the long-term I think it was a really good thing. Q. Coming into tonight, you had won seven out of ten. Was the team finally playing the way you hope they would all season long? DAVE PAULSEN: Yeah, I think, again, as I said before, I think this team has improved as much if not more than any team I've coached in 24 years, and that's a real tribute to them. Their work ethic in practice every day has been great. Even in the -- we had some rough patches early in the season, I had fun going to practice every day, and they have practiced with energy. They're a close-knit group. They allow me to coach them hard. They bounce back. They want to work on their game. They represent George Mason really in a really, really good way, on the court and off the court, in the community, in the classroom. But we weren't necessarily seeing the results, and then if you do the right things and you embrace the process, hopefully eventually you're going to see the results, and so second half of conference play, we really did. It was a Catch 22. You know, eight scholarship guys, no seniors. To push them to get better and also worried about running out of gas. Again, you don't want to take anything away from Saint Joe. They played a great game. But I think a lot of that was we ran out of gas. There's nothing like just having experience. You know, I'm down, I'm disappointed, I'm sad, but I'm more sad that I won't get to coach them again this season because it really was a fun group to be around. Q. You guys missed a lot of pretty good looks today; just curious, as a coach when you see that going on on the floor, what, if anything, can you do about it? DAVE PAULSEN: You know, there's not a lot. There's not a lot you can do. You maybe try to move guys to different spots, which we did. We tried to get Otis down on the baseline, tried to get him to drive, and we missed not only a lot of open threes, we missed a lot of little bunnies around the basket. Sometimes good play is contagious in a positive way, and sometimes bad play is contagious in a negative way. There's not a lot you can do, you just implore them to play hard. I thought we played hard all the way until the end and even cut it to nine at one point, and gosh, we just couldn't get the ball to go down. There's not a lot you can do. Q. Is it easy or exciting now, even so soon after this game, to look ahead knowing that you have this group back plus a transfer, freshmen coming in and all? DAVE PAULSEN: Yeah, I mean, I'm really excited and optimistic about the future of the program. We can't take anything for granted. Everyone will say, oh, you guys have everyone back, you're going to be back. No, we've got to work, but if we work like we did, and every indication we've got a group of high-character guys who want to work, who want to be coached, and there's no substitute for experience. You know, truthfully you're like, gosh, can we survive this year, and I think we survived it and actually in a pretty good fashion and gave ourselves some momentum, and we'll go from being young, small and lacking depth to next year we'll be older, we'll have two seniors, we'll have a fourth-year senior transfer, we'll have more depth, we'll have more size, we'll have more competition at practice. So nothing is guaranteed, but I feel comfortable next year that we'll have the roster where I want to have the roster in terms of guys who really buy into our culture and who have experience and the size and athleticism and skill level to really compete, I think, at a high level in the Atlantic 10. Q. After a game like today, what were you going to say to your team in the locker room right after the game? DAVE PAULSEN: Well, it took a minute to kind of compose myself, but one, I thanked them, because they let me coach them hard. They gave everything they had, and they're a fun group to coach. And I praised them for the growth that they had as a team individually. We took some time to thank the support people. One of the things that we did early January, we doubled down on player development, like we just said, X's and O's aren't going to win games in February unless guys get better. So my staff, Duane Simpkins, Dane Fischer, Aaron Kelly, just did a great job working one-on-one with guys, and just you could really see -- I at least could really see the progress, not only offensively but defensively. Our manager staff, our support staff, and then really two people that I think just deserve an unbelievable amount of credit, we had eight scholarship guys who we're like, gosh, if we can just get to the finish line without anyone getting hurt, so our strength and conditioning coach, Handy Handerahan, has got to be the best in the country, and our athletic trainer, Bekah Schmidt, is nothing short of a miracle worker. I mean, we had a lot of lingering issues and guys were out on the court, and so a real tribute to them. So it's a whole group enterprise, and we want to make sure our guys took time to acknowledge and thank all the people who put so much time in. Q. Yesterday you spoke about A.J. and Calixte being the star of the game, and today I don't know if they got in past the 16-minute mark to go in the game. I'm just wondering what you saw that kind of pulled them out of the game. DAVE PAULSEN: Yeah, I mean, one, they were both in foul trouble, add to -- they were just not as effective today, and we were back -- like we had to try to make a comeback. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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