|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ATLANTIC 10 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 10, 2018Bob McKillopPeyton AldridgeKellan GradyWashington, D.C. Davidson 82, St. Bonaventure 70 BOB McKILLOP: Congratulations to St. Bonaventure on a tremendous year, an absolutely sensational year. Courtney Stockard, a vital part of their success this year, did not have the joy of playing in this game, and I'm saddened about that for him, and for St. Bonaventure. They certainly are, in my judgment, deserving of an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament and I hope the committee feels that that's something that they have earned through their body of work this year. Q. After a couple of near misses, you're going to the title game for the first time. What is that like? PEYTON ALDRIGE: It's a great feeling. I mean, the last three years, we've got to the semifinals and was unable to pull it out. This year, a lot of upper leadership who has been through that position with a lot of seniors, and we knew we had to just find a way to finish it and find a way to win there to give us a chance to get back to the championship, and it's a good feeling. Q. After losing the game of the year to St. Bonaventure a couple weeks ago, what does it mean to come out here on such a big stage and take care of business? KELLAN GRADY: It's definitely a really gratifying feeling; to battle for three over times and give it our all and just come up short was obviously very disappointing, but we didn't hang our heads after the game and we still believed that we were capable of beating them and continuing to play well. So it was just a great feeling to be able to do it in the conference tournament and to get a chance to play in the Championship. Q. 24 points and seven rebounds. Can you tell us what goes into a performance like this? PEYTON ALDRIGE: Just trying to stay active out there on the floor. Teammates did a great job of finding me for some open looks and I was just trying to continue to crash the glass. I mean, they got -- I don't know how many how many offensive rebounds they got about, but I know Coach probably wasn't happy about the number of that but we were just trying to battle and keep fighting in there, so every opportunity I was trying to sink it and grab a rebound; and on the offensive end, I was just trying to stay aggressive. Q. There was a point where you guys were up by one and St. Bonaventure was coming back and the crowd was coming into it and there were two in-bounds play under the basket. Did you take it upon yourself to just take over at that point in the game? PEYTON ALDRIGE: Well, I mean, they made a run. They came back, cut it down to one point and the crowd was loud. We just knew we wanted to get a basket to just kind of silence the crowd. We ran the play for the corner three and I got that, which just kind of a little momentum-booster back for us. Then they overplayed the next one, so I had the back cut for the dunk and that just kind of gave us a little more momentum to boost the lead right there for us. Q. Were you surprised at all in the first half about how many open looks you guys were able to get? Looked like you had a little more time and space than you had in the previous game, and when you guys were open, you know, you guys were incredible in the first half from long range. PEYTON ALDRIGE: Yeah, we had great ball movement in the first half and got a lot of open looks and we put them in kind of scrambling situations where we were able to throw the next one and get some open looks and people were able to knock them down. Rusty Reigel stepped up and had two big threes in the first half for us. Q. For either of you, you made 16 threes in the triple overtime game, and another 16 threes tonight. Is it something that you just matched up well with this team? Is it a specific kind of defense or size or anything that gives you guys such amazing stats against them? KELLAN GRADY: Not sure it's exactly how we matchup against them. I think it's just us sticking to our game plan and sticking to what we do best, which is move the ball, attack appropriately, find the open man, throw to the next one. I think we just both, in the last two games, we have done a very good job at attacking when we are supposed to and throwing the next one, and we have been fortunate to get good looks and luckily we've been able to make most of them. Q. I forget the exact number, but something like 14 of your first field goal attempts were all three-pointers. Was that part of the game plan or taking what the defense gave you? PEYTON ALDRIGE: It was definitely taking what the defense gave us. We wanted to try to get inside-outlooks and even though a lot of threes were taken, I thought we were getting some good ensued outlooks early on. But we definitely wanted to try to stick to getting to the basket and later in the second half it's kind of stretched out a little bit and we were able to get some the basket with some curls and stuff like that. Q. You mentioned that the Bonny's crowd had pretty loud atmosphere. How do you combat that atmosphere and how do you handle the pressure? PEYTON ALDRIGE: That's really just from playing all throughout the year. I mean, four years of experience and Kellan just playing all year in atmospheres like that, it's just how you grow over the year. You noticed that when the crowd is into it, you've just got to relax and stick to the game plan and just stick to attacking them. That's what we did tonight. Q. You knocked down a lot of shots but John and Rusty with eight assists and no turnovers. How did that help provide those looks and make those opportunities possible? KELLAN GRADY: John did a tremendous job of attacking appropriately and really making the defense collapse. I mean, in the last four minutes, John attacked left and the defense collapsed and Peyton got a wide-open three on the right wing which was a big momentum-booster for us; and Rusty was doing the same things when his guys are over playing and he would take a hard dribble or two and the defense would collapse and we would get good looks. They were a pivotal part of our game today and they did a great job. Q. You probably have more tournament championship experience than anybody. You've been in so many. When you're entering a title game, what kind of message do you approach or how do you motivate the guys to try to come out successful? BOB McKILLOP: I've not even thought about that at this point. I will certainly spend the next two or three hours putting my thoughts together. We have a 7:00 dinner; I think after the dinner, we'll review that. At this point, I'm a jumbled mess in terms of my mind. Q. You rode on Rusty Reigel a lot in the second half. What did you see out of him? BOB McKILLOP: He wears Davidson on his heart and he played like it. You know, I coached his dad. I coached his brother. His brother's an assistant. He's wanted to go to Davidson since he's a little kid. You have a kid like that in your program, he's going to fight, and he fought. Q. Your first 14 shots for threes, you made seven of them. Was that a game plan? BOB McKILLOP: It was great defense by St. Bonaventure. In the overtime game, Kellan Grady really attacked the rim, and you saw he attacked the rim early on and got the charge. They swarmed the basket very, very well. He made one layup in that sequence, I think best side, baseline drive, and he tear-dropped and he made it, but there were two guys waiting for him right there and it could have almost -- one more step and it could have been a second foul on him; so credit St. Bonaventure's defense. Q. You said in your opening remarks that you think that in your mine, they are a tournament team. Is that an easy conclusion that you draw? Is it a no-brainer? Does it take any thought? Is it obvious to you? BOB McKILLOP: As I've watched a 13-game winning streak, and as I've watched who they have beaten this year, it's not that it's a no-brainer, but I think it's something that when you look at bubble teams, they clearly are a team that should be off the bubble and in the Tournament. The footnote to the question about Peyton getting that three-pointer and the dunk; I have a tremendous assistant coaching staff, and those two calls were made by Matt McKillop, who was the St. Bonaventure scout, and that happens a lot on our bench. I allow our assistant coaches to have tremendous input because my job is to give them an opportunity to be a head coach sometime in their life. So I think Matt deserves credit. He's the one that made those two calls and I just communicated it, and sure enough, they both worked out for five points in a row. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|