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MOUNTAIN WEST MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 9, 2018Tim DuryeaKoby McEwenLas Vegas, Nevada New Mexico - 83, Utah State - 68 TIM DURYEA: Credit to New Mexico. I thought they were obviously extremely hard to play against, as we know. And put a lot of pressure on you and we're a pretty good offensive team in the half court. They do a great job of not letting us execute. And we had a 7-, 8-minute stretch there where we probably played about as badly as we can play. And we just could not overcome that stretch. Second half I thought we were a lot better in terms of attacking the pressure, attacking the press. Got a lot of shots right at the rim, still missed an inordinate amount of two- and three-foot wide open shots. But I thought we looked like a basketball team in there for about seven or eight minutes in the first half. That's probably the worst stretch of basketball we've played all year. So credit to them. A lot of credit goes to the pressure they put on you. Q. Stat-wise it seemed pretty even between you two teams for most of the game, except layups was a real struggle today, I think 12 of 24. Was there something that New Mexico was doing defensively or a mindset problem? What went into that struggle today? KOBY McEWEN: You know, I think we were playing real timid to start the game. After we broke their press, we weren't attacking it after that. I think we did a better job in the second half of trying to get to their basket after we broke the press. But we can't start off games like that. After we break their press, we have to be aggressive in the lane. On the other side when they came down, they put pressure on us, got our guys in foul trouble. So they were the aggressor tonight and we weren't. They hit first and we reacted. So credit to them. They were really aggressive tonight and they threw the first punch. Q. You heard Coach talk about the eight-minute period where you guys didn't really get a field goal. What happened there? Was it something they sort of ramped up or something you weren't doing, what happened during that stretch? SAM MERRILL: Yeah, they play that pressure defense. And it started with one turnover and then we just got sped up. And that's exactly what they want you to do and that's what you can't do. And then once you get sped up and have a couple of turnovers it all turns mental. And that was our issue. We had probably four or five turnovers in a row that had nothing to do really with their pressure, but we were so sped up and so flustered mentally that we fell apart for that stretch. And we got in more of an attack mode later, but that stretch was too much to overcome. KOBY McEWEN: Especially being the point guard, I've got to do a better job of just controlling the tempo of the game. A lot of that I could put on myself, just trying to control the offense and handling the pressure. I've got to do a better job of that. A lot of that falls into my hands. Q. Last night you said you weren't here just to win quarterfinal games. How has this experience helped you these last couple of nights to build for the future and advance and not just win quarterfinal games? SAM MERRILL: I think our whole season has been big for us, with all the adversity, with all the injuries we had early and the losses that we shouldn't have had and how we've grown. I think they were all big steps for us. Obviously this is disappointing, and this isn't our goal and we want to get better. But hopefully we can take what we've learned from these situations and apply it into whatever we do going forward to get better and to, like you said, be able to move forward next year and be playing at 3:00 next year. Q. There's only two seniors on the team. How excited are you for the future of this program? KOBY McEWEN: I'm excited. We are a young group and a lot of guys that work hard every single day, that want to get better and be coached. For the future of this program I'm really excited. It's fun playing with these guys, just being around them every day at practice. They show up and they work hard. And we never hung our head this season. It was rough for us, like Sam said, we had a lot of injuries, but the young guys grow up real fast. And I'm one of those young guys. So I'm real excited for what's to come. We've been through a lot. And there's a lot to learn from it and I think it will benefit us in the future. Q. On that same note, you just mentioned all the injuries to the team. How excited are you to get guys like Klay Stall, Norbert, Janicek back into the weight room, gym and try to do this thing again next season with them? SAM MERRILL: And Brock, too, we had three guys that missed basically all year. And three guys that we feel can be productive for us. We're excited for them to get healthy, they're about there, and come together as a team collectively this spring and summer. I think this summer is important to not only develop our games individually but to come together as a team and develop that camaraderie that we need coming March next year. Q. So with the two seniors, what did you see from them this season in terms of trying to overcome and play well in their last season here? KOBY McEWEN: With those injuries that they had, they never hung their head. They never had a bad attitude about it. When they got hurt it was about getting better and staying positive, keeping the guys engaged. And that was really big for us. They showed a lot of positivity during those moments of them getting hurt. And when they came back, it took them a little while just to get their feet wet and get comfortable again. But when they were back it helped us tremendously. Just for them to set that example of getting hurt and being able to take it so positively. It was good for our team. I think it helped throughout the whole team and our coaching staff I thought the whole season. Those two guys, the way they handled themselves this season really helped us. Q. If you guys receive an invite to any postseason tournament would you accept that? TIM DURYEA: We're in discussions now, and I haven't had a chance to talk to the administration or anything, but we have had a couple of tournaments reach out to us. So I don't have any details or anything like that. But I know we've got a locker room full of guys that would like to keep playing. So hopefully one of those will work out. Q. You kind of touched on that eight-minute period of time. You were up 20 to 12 before that, you had to be feeling pretty good at that point. TIM DURYEA: Yeah, I thought that stretch, we were dictating to them in terms of how we were going to play and we executed a couple of things, got a couple of layups, got some good looks. And then when the pressure turned, which when you play them for 40 minutes and they're playing 94-foot basketball for 40 minutes, the tide is going to ebb and flow little bit. When it started going their way I thought mentally as much as physically we did not handle that very well. And again, it just kind of snowballed and give them credit. They took that little period of the game and really made it the difference. Because the second half I thought it turned our way a little bit more. Defensively I never thought we got a handle on them inside. I thought Logwood and Furstinger were very good and manhandled us a little bit in there. So when we made a couple of mini runs in the second half we could never make them stand up because those guys always kind of came through and stemmed the tide. Q. Back to the seniors. Talk to me about the senior season, considering all the injuries they went through. TIM DURYEA: Yeah, they were kind of symbolic of what was happening there. It seemed like for about two weeks every day I came to the office somebody was hurt, sick, hurt again. And those guys were severely affected. And when they're out for, especially Julion, when he's out for so long and then he comes back and plays well. Like I said yesterday I'm really, really happy for him. But you forget some of the things they do well that you're missing because your team kind of takes a different shape and you start doing different things. And then they pop back into the picture and it's like, those are some things that would help our team that they do. Alex didn't get much of a chance tonight. But those guys, they just hung in there. They're two really, really good people, and raised right and persevered. I thought that was a good lesson for our young guys to learn. Q. I know Isby wasn't with the team tonight and there's a lot of rumors floating around that. Were those distractions, did it affect the team tonight? TIM DURYEA: Not at all. He left the team for personal reasons this morning and had no bearing whatsoever. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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