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NCAA MEN'S FIRST FOUR: DAYTON

March 13, 2018

Dayton, Ohio

Radford - 71, LIU Brooklyn - 61

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by the head coach of LIU Brooklyn Derek Kellogg as well as Blackbird student-athletes Jashaun Agosto and Julian Batts. Coach, an opening statement.

COACH KELLOGG: I wanted to let the guys know and the administration and staff at LIU how proud I am for our team, to battle through some adversity throughout the year and continue to push and fight forward. What a really great group of kids who represented our university at the highest level.

We didn't come away with a victory today but I thought we played our hearts out. I thought they gave everything they had, like they did all season long. And I'm just happy to be a part of this LIU family and head coach this team for the season.

Q. You actually took the lead in the second half. Just from that point on, what do you remember about this game, about it slipping away?
JASHAUN AGOSTO: I mean, we needed to bring energy from the start. They came with energy. We came with a little energy but they hit us with the first punch. So they was ahead for the majority of the game and then we brought a different type of energy and that's when we got up. Then we kind of slipped back down and they got ahead.

Q. As far as they ran a lot -- they had some foul trouble, but they ran a lot of guys at you, ran a lot of guys at you. Was that a factor all, just their depth? What did you think about that?
JASHAUN AGOSTO: Are you talking individually?

Q. Just in general their team being deep and playing a lot of guys, did that wear you down at all or how did you feel about that?
JASHAUN AGOSTO: For me I never get down. I'm pretty composed. You never know what I think, you never know what's going on in my head. But I try to play to my best ability and try to bring our guys up and they hit shots. We hit shots towards the end. And that was the difference. They stayed the same the whole game. They were just hitting shots.

Q. You got that interception there with about, what, a couple of minutes left, and I think the score was like a six-point difference, and you drove the other direction and all of a sudden guy comes over the top and blocks it. Just what do you remember about that play, and did it kind of take something out of you guys?
JASHAUN AGOSTO: I mean, I was trying to get a foul. I thought there should have been a foul called. But obviously the refs didn't call it. They came down after that. I think they might have scored, but that gave them a lot of energy, that block.

Q. Both you guys, did you all look at it kind of dissolved, it looked like a battle of the guards out there. Was that in some respects fun to play?
JULIAN BATTS: It was fun. But I mean when I have Jashaun on my right, I think that us two, knowing -- no one compares to us. That's just the confidence we have in each other. But it was definitely fun, just sucks we couldn't come out with the win.

JASHAUN AGOSTO: I like battling. So if the other guy is going to bring something, I'm going to bring something back. And like Batts says, me and him, we're always together, we always -- our minds are connected.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach.

Q. I think it was the last 6:47 or so, you guys had no shots made from the field. Was there something they did different defensively to clamp down on you, or was it just --
COACH KELLOGG: I think they're a very good defensive team, well-coached. We were getting to the free-throw line a bunch there. I thought we missed a couple easy layups.

Joel had a nice one he just didn't put in. And you mentioned earlier Jashaun's push there. So nothing they didn't do they hadn't been doing the whole game, we just missed a couple of easy shots that normally had been going in. I thought we went on a nice run leading up to that point, then we stalled a little bit, mostly on the offensive end of the floor.

Q. Their coach just talked about how concerned he was with your dribble-drive offense and your transition. What were they able to do to keep you from being too successful at that?
COACH KELLOGG: I thought they did a nice job grinding it out on the offensive end of the floor and taking time off the clock to where we couldn't get moving.

They did a good job of clogging the paint. The big kid, Phillips, never really left the paint defensively, which meant we took a lot of 3s from our 5-men.

And so I thought they paid attention to detail on keeping Hernandez out of that scoring area and making our guards shoot some pull-ups and 3s.

In games this year where we've shot a low percentage from 3 and missed free throws are the games that we really didn't kind of come out the way I like to come out. So that was kind of the double-edged sword tonight in throwing 15 turnovers, that helped give them a little boost there.

Q. Again, their depth, playing a lot of guys, what factor do you think that was in the game?
COACH KELLOGG: Well, we played seven or eight ourselves. And I think that's kind of, with the two-and-a-half-minute timeouts and the breaks that you get in the NCAA Tournament game, doesn't play as much of a factor as maybe during the regular season, but I thought their size of big guys they were throwing at us affected us some.

Some, where defensively they got a couple of easy ones late, and on the offensive end they were able to pack the paint a little bit because they had more fresh bodies moving around. I thought it had something to do with it, but I wouldn't say that that was the end-all-be-all to why we came out on the losing end.

Q. Hernandez, is that his -- I don't know if frustrated is the right word -- he didn't seem really frustrated, but is that as good a job as anybody's done on him this year defensively?
COACH KELLOGG: I think so. Maybe not the whole year, but definitely coming down the stretch, I thought they did a nice job clogging up on the paint on him when he got in there, of walling up on him with the 4 and 5-man when he drove to the basket.

And he just missed some 3s that he had been making as of late. And so some of it was their defense. Some of it was he just missed some plays that I live with as a coach.

He has a lot of rope and autonomy out on the floor. When he's gone on some of those 30-point runs, we've been very successful. And when he's not scored it to that level, we've struggled some.

Q. Not to get too big picture or anything, having come in where things were a year ago and to lead them to the NCAA Tournament, how you guys did this year, how do you feel about the foundation you've set up for the years to come?
COACH KELLOGG: I feel very grateful to be the head coach at LIU Brooklyn and to have this opportunity. I'm very grateful for the team, and I let them know in the locker room how excited I was to coach this team every year and be the head coach here.

And I'm looking forward to working with the guys that are coming back, the returnees, and adding some recruits in kids that are sitting out to hopefully once again get back to the NCAA Tournament. And I'd like to win one of these times, you know.

So, like I said, I'm excited to be the head coach here. I feel grateful to be here. And I'm looking forward to building a program and trying to be in a position where every year we were compete for a championship.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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