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MAUI JIM MAUI INVITATIONALNovember 21, 2018Brian DutcherMatt MitchellLahaina, Maui, Hawaii Iowa State - 87, SDSU - 57 MEGAN GODFREY: Coach, your opening statement, please. BRIAN DUTCHER: I thought Iowa State was sensational. They shot the ball at an incredibly elite level and I think when they get all their pieces they're going to be a very, very dangerous team. With that being said, there are so many things we have learned about our own team, one is that we are not a very good rebounding team right now and there were times where we would have three people standing under the basket and they would send one guy and end up with the ball. So we have to do better rebounding. Coaches always know, you got to recruit a rebounder, but that's not an excuse. If you don't have an elite level rebounder you got to get the guys you have on the roster rebounding better. And so that's something we have learned over this week here that we have to become a better rebounding team. The other thing we have to do is we have to get out and contest some three-point shots. I mean three teams in a row shot incredible against us from three-point range. So we're not closing out tight enough, we're not dictating, people are towing the line on us and getting good looks at three. So you're here to learn about your team and I said yesterday I really like my team and so I can't be a hypocrite today and because we lost say I don't like my team. I like my team. But there are things we have to get better at, we all know that, the team more than anybody, so I look my team, lesson learned, we have to get better. We all know that. MEGAN GODFREY: Questions for Matt. Q. How do you process this? This is the worst loss in I think almost 20 years by a program that usually doesn't take big losses. How do you guys process that and what do you think went wrong today? MATT MITCHELL: I think we just got to learn from it. Coach said it, it was not a very good defensive rebounding team. Every time they went it felt like they got the ball. We just weren't putting bodies on their bodies and what we got to do is learn from it moving on in practice and in the upcoming games and get better. Q. In terms of three-point shooting, all three games teams got out to a really, really hot start against you. Were they just making threes or was there something you guys weren't doing? MATT MITCHELL: We just weren't closing out tight enough. All three teams got hot, but at the same time we got to be there and we know we're a good defensive team, we know we can be and we know our potential, but at the same time we have to learn and excel and especially in tournaments like these and which we want to be in and we know we can be in and play up to the level and the level of intensity that these gyms partake. I feel like just moving on we'll learn from it and we'll get a lot better. MEGAN GODFREY: All right. Take questions for coach. Q. Same question, you guys have a history of not getting blown out and you have taken two of your worst losses since you've been at San Diego State. How do you get over that and process that? BRIAN DUTCHER: Got to use it as a motivator. Can't sit here and cry about it. Got to use it as a motivator to get the team better. And test their pride a little bit. I will say this, Jeremy Hemsley -- and I used him as an example -- we're down 25 with four, five minutes to go and you look up and Jeremy is playing as hard as any guard you've ever seen play at the defensive end. And I got on the freshmen, I put you guys in for the last three minutes and you're on an audition for me and you don't meet that intensity from a senior that played all the minutes? And I used him as an example to show what is required if we're going to be great. I thought the only game that we won was the game we dictated defensively. We got into the ball harder, we set the tempo. Everything else we were on our heels reacting to everything the other team did. And so lesson learned, we have to continue to be aggressive. Matchup-wise, we were going to switch the five man ball screens at the start of the game so I put Matt on the five man and Jalen on the wing and the wing went to work on Jalen right away. Hit a three on him, ran the baseline on him, and so maybe I set the tone by not having the right matchups, but I thought we had a good game plan we just didn't execute it very well. Q. A lot of things you're talking about those are effort plays, those are the kind of things that are published in the locker room sometimes with the players. How do you poke and find those folks who in that space hold each other accountable for these kind of efforts and being consistent? BRIAN DUTCHER: I had -- I did talking after the game, but I thought it was important to hear from the players. So I had Jeremy stand up, talk to the team about what he felt. Just felt we had to compete harder, said we got big brothered in the two games we played, we have to be tougher, we can't be the little brother. We have to be tougher. And then I had Devin stand up and Devin's not one for a lot of word so I had to coax it out of him, he just basically delivered the message we have to play harder. And it's always easy to say play harder, there's some strategy in there. There's being alert when you're on the floor, knowing where the ball is, play with your head on a swivel -- playing hard is just easy, everyone says you got to play harder, so now we have to use that play harder to teach and say, how do we play harder. Is it getting up on the ball tighter, is it picking up full court more, is it over playing a little bit. We're a gap defensive team, how can we adjust to what we do instead of just say, play harder, you know, what things can we do to get better at and make it look like we're playing harder. Q. Injuries to your freshmen in the pre-season obviously stunted their growth a little bit and you had a pretty short rotation here and probably some tired legs today. How much did that hurt you and how much do you need at least a couple of those freshmen to give you quality minutes going forward? BRIAN DUTCHER: We have to get quality play from our freshmen. I thought Nathan had some moments, but missing a month of practice sometimes you watch them out there and he can't get to where he's supposed to be or if he gets there it's that half second late where, instead of grabbing the ball it falls to the other team. So we have got to get him up to speed game minute wise and I think if we do that he'll continue to improve, AG, I like AG a lot, we have to get him playing at the pace of the game a little better and that's just freshmen. So I think they will get better, I thought the six veterans played pretty good for the most part and Nathan had some moments in the tournament where I thought he looked like he belonged out there. AG's got to catch up. And we have to just keep -- Adam Seiko obviously was a freshman, a red shirt freshman, I thought he gave us a good level of play off the bench. So we are a work in progress. So we got to keep progressing, that's the key, we don't want to be a work in progress all year we want to progress and be ready to play on Tuesday when we take the floor again. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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