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MAUI JIM MAUI INVITATIONALNovember 20, 2018Brian DutcherJordan SchakelDevin WatsonJalen McDanielsLahaina, Maui, Hawaii SDSU - 79, Xavier - 74 MEGAN GODFREY: Start with an opening comment from coach and take questions for the players. BRIAN DUTCHER: Well, I had the team prepared for a 9:45 start, unfortunately the game started at 9:30. So they got out on us so fast, they made every three, and even as a guy that sat through a lot of games I sat there and wondered what in the world are we going to do to come back in this thing. But I told the team before the game, I love my team. They play with great grit and great determination and they got down 19 and they didn't panic and they didn't point fingers and they just kept playing hard. Of and then we started stringing some stops together and I think I told them at the 7:30 media timeout let's get it down to 10 by halftime and we got it even closer than that. I think it was a two or three point game at halftime. So we fought back and then we continued our momentum into the second half, anybody that's heard me talk about my team knows that I always love assisted baskets, I think we had 26 baskets, 24 baskets, 17 of them assisted. So I thought once we settled in and quit trying to drive the ball where it shouldn't go and just shared the ball, we played much better offensively and I'm proud of the comeback and the grit this team has. MEGAN GODFREY: Take questions for the players, please. Q. Jalen, when you get it going like that and knowing that you were down and you had to carry it, what's that feeling on the floor? JALEN MCDANIELS: Man, it feels great. It just all started on defense picking up full court playing with a lot of energy and just keeping it up. I feel like when we did that the tone we just set the tone from that point on. Q. Jalen, there's that key three you shot right at the end of the shot clock, you know what I'm talking about, late in the game? JALEN MCDANIELS: Yeah. Q. Talk us through what you saw there and did you know these rims were really, really loose and the ball would pop over like that. JALEN MCDANIELS: I remember we first got here and we had a shoot around I said these are the softest rims I ever played on. But he passed me the ball and it was like three seconds and I had no other choice and I was confident shooting it, so that's something I've been working on, so I'm glad I hit it. Q. What happened there? I mean what were you guys thinking down 19 and what do you think the key was to be able to turn that around? JORDAN SCHAKEL: I was thinking we just need to get our energy up and start a little something because we had nothing going at all and Jalen started picking up full court, Jeremy gave us a lot of energy and I think we all fed off of that and it was really the energy that got us going and the shots just fell later, but the energy really started it and I think the coaches really told us we need to pick it up and that's what we did. DEVIN WATSON: Basketball is a game of runs, and then when you're just out there not thinking just flowing and living in the moment and playing freely that definitely helps us out. Q. Devin and Jordan, Nathan comes in, he subbed in, he was a disrupter for you guys. Talk about his ability to kind of get you guys on that run and to kind of seemed like once he came in he was disruptive and was able to get you guys on those pushes to kind of start cutting the lead down. JORDAN SCHAKEL: Nate played really big minutes for us tonight. I'm really happy for him. He's been playing the same way in practice, it's really nice to see him play that way in the game. He gave us great energy and his length and athleticism gave us the different aspect that we needed in this game. DEVIN WATSON: I agree with Jordan, when Nate gets in he's going to play with energy, he's going to be energetic on the defensive end, block shots, yeah. He played well tonight. Q. They make five of seven threes to open the game and yesterday it was six of eight. What's going through your mind? Do you just start thinking oh they're eventually going to miss or did you have to change something defensively to -- I mean they missed 13 straight after that. JALEN MCDANIELS: I feel like it was just ball pressure, pressuring the ball, not giving them no room to shoot the ball and just keeping the hover hand. I feel like when they hit them first threes I feel like we were late, and they were kind of open, so in the second half and later in the first half we fixed that. MEGAN GODFREY: We'll take questions now for coach. Q. I think there was a point there in the first half where you actually played zone for the first time this season. Did you figure we had nothing to lose and did that kind of help flip the momentum a little bit? BRIAN DUTCHER: Yeah, our man defense was doing so well I thought we better try some zone. So we played a couple possessions of zone. I thought it was fine. They brought Welage back in and so we got right out of it, because he's such a dynamic sure. But once he came back in we got out of the zone and it just gave us maybe a little different look, a different feel. Sometimes a zone doesn't have to get stops, sometimes it just changes the momentum of the game, so I'll have to go back and watch the tape and see if the momentum changed at all. Sometimes they get the same baskets but the feel for the game is different and sometimes a team will say they will get out of rhythm as to what they were doing and then they have to re-invent themselves sometimes. But I don't know that for a fact until I watch the game but we are definitely going to zone more this year and more so when Nathan is in -- Nathan had a great first half, sensational -- and then he made a couple freshman-type mistakes early in the second half and I went with Nolan and Nolan played a great second half defensively. So I finally had a true five man in the game for most of the game and I think it helped us out defensively. Q. After a tough struggle yesterday and beginning of this first half these are the kind of games you learn something about your team. What did you learn about them today? BRIAN DUTCHER: That they're not pointing fingers at one another. That they come and they pay attention in the huddles they want to be coached, they want to be told what they have to do to help turn the tide of the game. We're not a blue blood, but our crowd travels like one. I thought the crowd was great for us today. Once we started some momentum, we had great Aztec support, they were loud, they were into the game and I think they really helped our energy level too. You're talking back-to-back games, I looked at the minutes and Devin played 39, Jalen played 36 or something, Jordan 30 some, and that's back-to-back games and to try to put that kind of energy and effort out there at the defensive end was really attribute to the kids and then attribute to the Aztec fans to keep that momentum going for us the way they cheered us on. Q. What happened to the mentality of a team you lose by 26 yesterday I think it was your worst loss in 10 years, most lopsided, you're down 19, you know, 10 minutes into the game today. What happens with the mentality of players, they just decide that's enough or what goes on there? BRIAN DUTCHER: That's where you find out about your team. You don't know until it happens. I thought we played a pretty good first half against Duke. We had it hovering around 10 or 11 and they hit back-to-back threes to end the game and it's 17. That's like every game I watched them play. You think you're playing pretty good and you lose a segment by five points, well that was a pretty good segment. Well, the next one you're down 10 and the by halftime you're down 20 and you've been playing pretty good basketball. That's how good they are. And so to get 19 today, at the start of the game when both teams go out to mid court to jump, jump ball, the coaches are like, well that looks more normal and that's the size kids we normally play and that's a very good team and they got big kids but Duke is just so much bigger than everybody else. So it shows, you come here to learn about your team and we learned that I have attempt that doesn't give up when they get down, that they play hard all the way to the end and I'm proud of them for that. Q. There is a lot of focus obviously put on playing the No. 1 team in the country but in a tournament like this you have a chance to get out of here with two wins, just talk about the importance of that possibility. BRIAN DUTCHER: Out of the last seven, eight years I think every event we played in we come out with a minimum of two wins. I think we won the Diamondhead a couple years ago and last time we played in this event we lost to Arizona in the championship. So I wish we were on the championship end of the thing, but this is the bracket we're in, and we will go home and prep like crazy and try to come out of here with two wins tomorrow against very good Illinois and Iowa State teams. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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