|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: DALLASMarch 17, 2018Mike WhiteGorjok GakChris ChiozzaEgor KoulechovDallas, Texas Texas Tech - 69, Florida - 66 MIKE WHITE: Obviously really competitive game, high-level basketball game. I thought congrats to Texas Tech. They're a terrific team. They made big plays. They made the plays down the stretch, of course, and got the defensive stop when they needed one. Coach Beard and his staff and his team have had a great year, and we wish them luck moving forward. I thought Keenan Evans was terrific. They got downhill a bunch. They cut really well. They drove it well, of course, defended at a high level. They really defended us from the three at a high level. Zhaire Smith I thought was terrific with 18, 9 and 7 assists to one turnover. I thought he was really, really good. I thought they hit timely shots, especially in the first half, late shot clock shots, and hit a couple there in the second half, as well. I know Evans hit a huge contested three by, I think Chris was on him late, opposite their bench, was a huge shot. Tough deal for us. I thought we played well enough to have a chance. I've said this a bunch to our local media over the past couple weeks: I've been really proud of the way this team has evolved and developed and how we finished the season beating Auburn, winning at Alabama, beating Kentucky. I thought we got a little bit out of character in the SEC tournament, and then we turned right back around, and I thought in this tournament, we were really good the other night. And I thought we were pretty good tonight and just got beat by a team who's probably just a little bit better, at least they were tonight. That said, this is a very tough night for myself and my staff as we lose these two guys to my left, who have meant a lot to this program, to this team, but more importantly to this program, two guys who are terrific players and better people, two of the toughest guys in college basketball. If all 13 of my guys were as tough as these two, we'd still be playing. Some of those young guys are going to continue to develop, but these guys pound for pound are absolute warriors. They've given us every ounce of energy and focus and work ethic that we could possibly ask for. I'm sad for these two guys that they don't have another opportunity, but I'm really proud of them, and the year that Egor had and the career that Chris Chiozza had. Q. Chris, just how difficult is it to kind of end your career in this fashion, with a chance to tie it, last second shot at the end of the game? CHRIS CHIOZZA: It's tough to go out that way. I don't think it's hit me fully yet. As soon as the buzzer sounded, I felt it a little bit, but so far I don't think it's hit me fully yet that my college career is over. But we've had some games like this where we would have made that shot, a couple times where we had a couple big shots earlier in the season and stuff like that, and we just couldn't get this one to go down. We had two chances. But that's the way the game goes sometimes. We got what we wanted, and we just didn't make it. Q. Chris, what was the defensive game plan to try to stop or slow down Keenan Evans tonight? CHRIS CHIOZZA: Just not let him get any easy looks early. He had some tough shots. A couple guys hit a couple tough shots late in the clock. I felt like we did a good job of defending them. But he's a good player, so he's going to get his points. We just tried to limit the damage he could do. Q. Egor, tell me about the look that you had at the end of the game, and also what you saw in the scramble situation and the look that KeVaughn had, as well? EGOR KOULECHOV: Yeah. We pressed. We got the turnover we needed, was kind of ready to shoot there in the corner. I bobbled the ball a little bit, and then I saw the guy kind of fell down or kind of trip. That threw me off. It was a good look. I had a good look earlier, too, with the shot clock winding down. You know, it's tough. It's tough. Sometimes you hit those shots. I didn't come through for my team today, but you know, just how it is sometimes. Earlier in the year, we hit some big-time ones, and we just couldn't come through today. Q. Egor, obviously this was your only season at Florida, but can you talk a little bit about how much it meant to you and what your feelings are, obviously emotional as you are, as it comes to an end tonight? EGOR KOULECHOV: Yeah, sure. Like Chris, I don't think it's like fully hit me yet that this is over. I mean, it's sad. It's really sad because the whole year we've been -- we've grew so much throughout the year as a team, as people. It's been a lot of fun being around this program, just around the coaching staff and players, I mean, the managers, everybody who works for the University of Florida. It's been a blessing for me because when I made my decision, I said I'm not going to look back and just go with it, and I'm just -- I couldn't be happier that I came to the University of Florida, even if it's for one year. Q. Chris, I know it's a little sudden question for you, but how do you reflect on your career at Florida and everything you managed to accomplish? CHRIS CHIOZZA: It was a fun ride. It was wild. I had a lot of ups and downs. You know, but I wouldn't trade any of it for the world. I'm glad that I chose to come here and stay here with the coaching change, and it's probably the best decision I made in my whole life, just sticking through that process and just staying with my team and just forming a brotherhood and gaining new family members. It's just something I'm never going to forget. It didn't end the way I wanted it, but I'm not going to look back and say I didn't have any regrets. I played as hard as I could, and we just came up a little short today. Q. Mike, Evans was obviously a huge factor in this stretch. Was there anything you felt like you could have done differently with regards to some of his play making and what he was able to do down the stretch? MIKE WHITE: Yeah, they do such a good job with their random movement, with their motion. I don't know what Chris calls it. We consider it a freelance passing game motion type offense. We call it motion, àla Arkansas. They really move it well. The ball changes from side to side, of course. Screens are so random, players and pin-downs and away screens and cross screens and back screens. And when we moved with the basketball, when we loaded to the basketball, all five guys, one guy being on Evans, the other four moving to the basketball, we did a decent job. We had some breakdown with all of that ball movement at times where we have a guy or two, whether he got out of his stance or not, he didn't move to the ball. We didn't load to Keenan Evans a couple times when we needed that, at least a couple times. He got to the rim too much, of course. We got straight line driven, just one-on-one, just Keenan Evans versus a defender, like he's at the park one-on-one, he's at the rim. That can't happen to get to the Sweet 16. That said, it's very difficult to contain him. He's big. He's strong. He's physical. And he's got a really explosive first step. It reminds me of Jalen in person. I didn't know he was quite that explosive. I thought we did a good job of going under ball screens when we switched to zone, doing a better job of, again, just keeping him out of the paint. And again, all that said, he goes three of four from three, as well, so he hurt us from everywhere. Q. A lot of people will say that your team lives and dies by the three, but it seemed more with Chris Chiozza out after he picked up his fourth foul. Would you say it's more accurate your team lives and dies by Chris's play? MIKE WHITE: At times. We've been effective with him out of the game a few times, of course. Obviously with Chris in the game, we are better both offensively and defensively. He's our best defender, recognized by getting that award, deservedly so. Offensively, he's arguably the best passer in college basketball. I don't know if he stacked up with all those numbers, but taking care of the basketball, getting guys shots, we weren't the best shooting team, the best scoring team. Otherwise his numbers would have been inflated even more. But we do play through him. When he's out of the game, we have a tendency to call more stuff. We're a little bit less freelance. And so yeah, at times we have been stagnant with him out of the game. We're going to miss him dearly, of course. Q. You had a time-out left, but the floor was scrambled. Did you like how it looked at the end there? MIKE WHITE: Yeah, you know, I'm going back and forth in my mind, of course, do we call one, do we call one. They're terrific defensively, and we had a good offensive lineup out there. The ball is in Chris Chiozza's hands with the floor spread, and I'm not sure we would have drawn up anything better in a couple looks we got. I'm pleased with those looks, of course. Chris got to the rim. I thought Keith Stone made a great decision when he got -- he got a tough rebound and hit KeVaughn, and just unfortunate they didn't go for us. But you know how it is. If we had made a few earlier in the game or gotten a couple stops or kept Keenan Evans out of the paint or bum rushed him, late clock, you know, when we allowed him to get a couple of those threes off, and we're up five right there, we don't need those shots to go. So we were in a position. We had to hit a huge one, and they got a stop when they needed one. Q. Zone defense was really effective at the point -- MIKE WHITE: The first time all year. How about that? Q. You had to use it because of the foul situation, right? MIKE WHITE: Yeah, fouls and just the flow of the game. We were afraid that it was going to get away from us. They were scoring at a high clip. It was a tough decision. I'm glad we went with it. It obviously gave us a chance. We've worked on it all year, and we've thrown it out there at times for whatever reason, probably because it's very average. We've gotten torched with it. Tonight it was pretty good. It was good for us. I thought that we communicated pretty well. Our attention to detail was decent. We struggled to rebound out of it, of course. They got a big offensive rebound, extra possession versus it, if memory serves correct. But I thought our guys made a pretty good adjustment. Q. Coach Beard said he wanted to keep this game in the 60s and limit the pace. Did you want to play it in the 70s or 80s or even higher, and if so, how did Texas Tech slow the game down or keep you in a lower scoring game? MIKE WHITE: Yeah, first off, we always -- we want to play in the 80s, but we want our opponent in the 50s. Every team, every coach wants that. If you've got to choose a ton of possessions versus very little possessions, we'd rather more, but we've also fallen into a trap because we've been so prolific at times in transition offense and inefficient in transition defense where we've been taken advantage of in terms of falling into a trap of shooting it quick and having teams grind us out defensively. Four or five games this year, the time of possession for us, kind of like a football game, was very, very lopsided. It's hard to make shots when you play three fourths of the game on defense. So we've had to evolve as a team. I don't know if you saw us earlier in the year, but when we were playing with teams that wanted to run with us or teams that -- you say whether it had to do with us or not, teams that were playing really fast, our guys liked that, and we were pretty good with it. And then we ran into some teams that were making us defend for most of the game and weren't really as effective. Getting back to your second question, how did they do that, I think that -- I think Chris has got a disciplined team first off. I thought their transition defense was good. I thought their floor balance was good. They're really, really fast. They're as fast as I've seen this year at changing ends, both offensively and defensively. And then I thought they grinded us out. You can hear them over there demanding some passes and some movement, and they -- a part of our 6 of 22 from three is probably having to do with the fact that we're in a stance and we're negotiating screens and playing long stretches on defense, and I thought they did a good job of that. Q. Just how difficult was it navigating the foul trouble? You had Jalen with three fouls, had to sit him for about five minutes in the second half, and Chris, bringing him in and out, and how much did you wrestle with bringing either back sooner? MIKE WHITE: A bunch. The whole second half, it was just probably the biggest topic of conversation amongst the staff, whether we were in time-outs or not, when do we get this guy back in, what's your gut feeling, what do we do without Chris on the floor, when do we go back with Jalen. Some of that had to do with the decision to go zone, too. We threw it at the wall and it happened to work, and we considered another zone that we've dinked with a little bit. But yeah, it's no fun dealing with foul trouble, of course, but we've put ourselves in that situation. Overall, I don't think it was a huge factor. I think Texas Tech was just good, and I thought the environment was great, so hats off to their crowd and the way that they brought it. It was a great college basketball environment. 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
|