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MAUI JIM MAUI INVITATIONALNovember 19, 2018Brian DutcherDevin WatsonJeremy HemsleyLahaina, Maui, Hawaii Duke - 90 SDSU - 64 MEGAN GODFREY: We'll start with an opening statement for coach, please. BRIAN DUTCHER: First of all, I thought our Aztecs competed at a high level in the first half. A lot of the threes that we gave up were scouting report threes. I told them that. That was a coach's decision. We tried to pack the paint against Duke, tried to play that top nail help side, tried to collapse and make them kick and shoot perimeter threes and to their credit they made them. We watched the Army game, we thought they did a lot of the same things, tried to make it tough for them to penetrate and to their credit they were able to kick the ball out and shot the ball at a really high level from three-point range. When they did that, obviously they were tough to compete with. I told our kids at halftime we had to find a way to get three stops in a row. We got two to start the second half and then they went fast break, fast break, fast break. So our defense wasn't good enough today against a very, very good Duke team. MEGAN GODFREY: Questions for the players, please. Q. For both guys, what were you guys impressions of the, of their four starting freshmen. JEREMY HEMSLEY: They're good players, it is plain and simple. They know how to play the game of basketball, they play it at a high level. I think they did a good job of just staying true to themselves and just playing their game, but they're good group of freshmen for sure. Q. For both, could you talk about what happened there at the end of the first half? It was, you had a guy on the line to make it a single digit game. You had kind of been trading baskets with them and then all of a sudden you're down 17. JEREMY HEMSLEY: I think we just had some defensive lapses there, the last three minutes or so in that first half and I think some guys just fell asleep a little bit. We just lost track of guys and we just -- simple mistakes, silly mistakes, and I think we just, it was just a little mind lapses and things like that. It wasn't really anything like the game plan. It was really just on us as a team, the players on the court. Q. Devin, just talk about the same thing. What happened there at the end of the first half and at the beginning of the second half when you seemed to get back into it a little bit and they just put a big run on you. DEVIN WATSON: I would say I agree with Jeremy, just mental breakdowns, yeah, they hit shots and they got on a run. We got on a run too, but they hit shots, got to the free-throw line, so... BRIAN DUTCHER: Some of the half court baskets we can live with because like I said we put them in the position -- yeah, we were slow on a close out or two, but the thing we wanted to do was prevent a lot of the fast break baskets which we knew would open the game up. And then they had that string where they had fast break, fast break, fast break, we didn't get all the way back and protect the rim and that kind of broke the game. It was, you know, they were always up double digits, but it kind of made it go from 15, 16 all of a sudden to 20, 21 and then the flood gates kind of opened from there. Q. Jeremy, how do you sort of process a game like this? You lose by 24, 26, do you live feel like you guys played reasonably well? Or do you feel like you guys played terrible and got what you deserved? JEREMY HEMSLEY: I don't think we played terrible, obviously there's a lot of things that we have to work on on the defensive end and I know the coaches will do a good job of handling that and telling us what we need to do better, but I don't think we played terrible at all. I think Duke just did a good job of being Duke and they knocked down a lot of open shots and we have to do a better job of just making it harder on guys and following the game plan that the coaches give us, whether it's hard or not. MEGAN GODFREY: Take questions now for coach. Q. You got a quick turn around, so what are the things that you're going to try to do to kind of get focused back on their feet getting ready to play tomorrow? BRIAN DUTCHER: When you play in under 24 hours it's all about mentality. You'll find out how tough your team is mentally. Because there's not going to be a lot of X's and O's. We'll give them a simple game plan like you would in a conference tournament where you play back-to-back-to-back. And we'll meet as coaches, we'll give them something before they go to dinner tonight real quick on personnel, then give them a final game plan before they go to bed tonight, and then we'll come out and play tomorrow. So I like the way my team played the game in the first half. I thought we really attacked them on the bounce. Obviously they got a lot of fouls, we put a lot of fouls on them, we got to the foul line a lot and really spread the floor. And I thought we played the right way, we drove and really moved the ball. I thought Devin Watson was sensational in the half and lot in the second half, he just seemed to find open areas, find open people, he got in the paint. So I liked the way we played offensively, I liked we made a few more shots, open shots that we got, but obviously they're long and athletic and tough to score over at times. But I liked the way we played offensively as far as sharing the ball, playing the right way and hopefully we'll carry that over into tomorrow. The danger I wanted, you know, I know my kids wanted to play against Duke, so I always ran the line of saying how long do I leave them in. They're young, it's early in the season and I felt like they wanted to be out there, so maybe I left them a little longer than I wanted to. But I got a real good group of kids and I think they will bounce back and be energetic and ready to go tomorrow morning. Q. A little -- expanding on that a little bit you talked about at the press conference wanting to, you didn't want to come here and not face Duke. After having experienced all that Duke is are you happy that you did get that chance to play them? BRIAN DUTCHER: Yeah, I mean, it's the ultimate measuring stick for us. We played the No. 1 team in the country, we did some things well, obviously there's some things that they do way better than we do. Sometimes that's just talent and it's obviously good coaching, Coach K knows what he's doing. I thought they played the game the right way, they moved the ball, they shared the ball, they executed their game plan and so I'm glad we got a chance to play them and obviously you want to come here and win this event. Last time we were here we played in the championship game against Arizona. I think I have been here five times. I came in 1988 with Michigan with Glen Rice and Terry Mills and Loy Vaught and we won it. So I've been here quite a bit and I've seen a lot of good teams and Duke's a very good team. But our task now is to find a way to win two games, to leave here with two wins, and that's what our goal is. Q. Late in the first half in that section that Jeremy was talking about I think he had two fouls and Jordan had two fouls and you decided to both put them on the bench. Do you regret that, do you second guess yourself on that, seeing as sort of the defensive mistakes that led to those two threes? BRIAN DUTCHER: Yeah, I wish we would have kept it around 10 to 12. Then they hit the threes and they really expanded it, that last one in the corner. But that's just a case of Adam Seiko being six feet tall closing out a six foot seven guy in the corner. So he tried to get there early, but that lack of length in the close out and the contest -- he was there but he wasn't there because he wasn't tall enough to really contest that shot. So, he has to get there quicker if he's going to be smaller. So I thought our kids, the guys off the bench played hard, they tried to make the right plays, but Duke made a couple plays at the end of the half, I would have liked to have stayed closer in the game at a halftime, but they got comfortable and in the second half we got back-to-back stops and scored both times. I felt we could run Duke if we could get stops, but we couldn't get enough stops so they had us in a half court offense almost the entire game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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