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ATLANTIC 10 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 14, 2019Phil MartelliJared BynumCharles Brown, Jr.Washington, D.C. Saint Joseph's 92, Duquesne 86 COACH PHIL MARTELLI: Well, right away, the six turnovers, it was sensational. I thought the balance of our team, Fresh hit a big shot. Charlie, early. Jared, when it got rocky in the beginning, we were down ten with seven minutes into the game. But I thought -- it sounds crazy, but give up 86 points, but our defense was really good and guys that you don't really expect to be defenders gave us everything that they had. There was a little bit of panic early, being honest. Everybody wanted to have a suggestion. But that was because they wanted to play Friday. That's all we've talked about is playing Friday, and I'm happy for the players. I'm happy for the families. You know, you see the families behind the bench, so looking forward to competing against a great coach and an NBA backcourt tomorrow. Q. Charlie, Jared, first off, congratulations on a hard-fought win. Jared, tell us, what was just going through your mind when you went to the foul line. JARED BYNUM: My teammates and coaches, they have been on me all year about making free throws, you've got to make your foul shots. It just comes down to confidence at end of the day, it's just you and the basket. Keeping those guys in mind, got to help them out, help them to win and only way I can do that is making my free throws. CHARLES BROWN, JR.: We just wanted to make it comfortable for him. He's doing very well as a freshman. It was just hung him as much as we can, best as we can, so, came through. Q. Charlie, your coach mentioned contributions up and down the roster. How close did you feel like this was sort of peak offensive efficiency from the total group? CHARLES BROWN, JR.: I mean, from the jump, we picked the shots we wanted to, the people we wanted to get shots to, they got shots and they made shots, and we came down the stretch and second half, we did the same thing, you know. Picked shots, like Coach said, we can pick any shot we want and we just got to be confident and knock it in. Q. Late in the first half, you took it into the lane about four straight times. Were those marching orders, trying to get fouls? JARED BYNUM: It was just playing through the offensive flow of the game, wasn't really trying to force anything. All my teammates and my coaches keep telling me, play your game, play your game, play downhill. When I realized they couldn't stop me going downhill, either get in the lane and make a play, whether that was finishing, a free throw, finding an open man, whatever it was. At the end of the day, it ended up being something positive. Q. Williams is a great player, as you know. What are some of the adjustments you made second half against him? CHARLES BROWN, JR.: He kept me on my hooves. He's a great basketball player and he's unpredictable. I had to sometimes push up, sometimes relax off of him. It was kind of like 50/50 with him, so, yeah. Q. You had 28 points in the regular season against Duquesne, and now you get 28 tonight. Do you feel like there's like any similarity, like maybe you want to start playing Duquesne a little bit more? CHARLES BROWN, JR.: No, man, we got a W. That's all I worry about. Q. This is for both of you. When Duquesne came out and they started seven of eight from the floor, what were you saying in the huddle at that first media time-out? CHARLES BROWN, JR.: Stay with it. Stay would it. Keep going. Keep going. Keep pushing and just have confidence in ourselves, coaches, and yeah. JARED BYNUM: Yeah, they were a little bit too comfortable in the first four to six minutes and I just thought we got to make them uncomfortable. They were catching them too low in the post, and we made some adjustments there. At the end of the day, it comes down to how much heart we have and how much we want to play the next day. Q. The first half, guys (ph) was letting them shoot a lot of perimeters. He wasn't guarding the perimeters or the baseline, second half seemed like the defense shrunk, paint shrunk. What adjustments did make defensively? COACH PHIL MARTELLI: Well, I thought in the beginning of the game, we played without trusting each other, and they were rhythm shooting. I mean, that young man came in shooting 31 percent, freshman on this stage. Had 13 points in the first six or seven minutes. The kid, Norman. We knew Eric Williams was coming in here having scored 61 points in his last two games. So we had a game plan for the low post because in the last game in Pittsburgh, Michael Hughes wore us out. He just wore us out on the low post. We had a way of playing -- we adjusted that, and then is the second half I thought we came out like we were trying to catch our breath. Well, you can't catch your breath now. It's March. You've got to take every play like it's your last breath. So they got back and tied the game, and then we had a flurry. Charlie hit a three-point play. Taylor Funk had a three-point play. We broke the ball loose. We wanted real active hands, and we had much more active hands in the second half, in the second part of the first half and even the second part of the second half. Q. Taylor Funk, did his offense fuel his defense? Did his defense fuel other things? What did you see from Taylor today? COACH PHIL MARTELLI: One of the things is he was in a position where he was playing in the low post a lot defensively, and we just asked him to compete. You know, the last couple of games, we're starting to see Taylor come back a little bit. Like he hit a bomb in the first half, and he's had some blocked shots. I just want him to play, you know, and quit -- quit psychoanalyzing every single play. But that was a concern with Anthony with four and Lorenzo with four, and running Taylor's offense in the game we weren't concerned about his ability to guard in the low post because he's been bulldozed all year long. But he did a great job hands, activity, six rebounds, so hopefully he's coming out of it. Q. Would you care to comment on -- COACH PHIL MARTELLI: Sorry. Would you identify yourself? Q. Sorry. COACH PHIL MARTELLI: I've seen you around. Q. Yes, thank you. Would you mind commenting, 23-of-26, I know you always preach on foul shooting, 88 percent. Your thoughts? COACH PHIL MARTELLI: Well, I like the fact that they were pressure-free throws. It was brought up early like Jared, Jared's free throws at the back end of the first half, we scored and that was important. At the end of the game, you've got to go to the line and knock it in; so if you miss an assignment like we missed an assignment, and they cut it from nine to six, had that been a 10-point lead now you're playing a three-possession game; and when it's six, it's only a two-possession game. So you know, we work on it. We haven't been ultra successful, but I did see the stats. We were, I think fourth in the league in free throws. You know, and for us to be fourth in anything, coming in tenth in the regular season, is something. We hang our hat on -- if we can hang our hat on making our free throws and not turning the ball over, we'll give ourselves a chance. Q. It was a tough grind for you to win the game you won today. What did you learn from your team from a physical standpoint going on to Friday? COACH PHIL MARTELLI: Nothing physical. But just us, not to be shared with anybody, if somebody said to me: What has surprised you this year, it's been -- we've played in the sunshine a lot. So when the sun is shining, I've got a lot of guys that feel good. But when it gets a little cloudy and you've got to dig your car out of the -- you know, dig your car out to get on about your day, we haven't been able to do that. Today, we did it. So I'm not going to spend any time wondering about where it's been for the last four months. I'm going to say it was here for 40 minutes and can I get it back for 40 minutes tomorrow, because we're going to need it. Q. In that second half, it seemed to be you would get a lead, they would make a charge and you would respond. How do you think you were able to do that? COACH PHIL MARTELLI: Defense. I thought we broke some balls loose, and we had some guys step up. Like Fresh Kimble did not have a great offensive game. Chris Clover sat most of the first half. He made a big jumper. Chris Clover made a -- Fresh made a big jumper and then we broke a ball loose. There was a really big play where we broke a ball loose and Charlie got a run out. We broke another ball loose, and Taylor Funk got an M1. I just thought our defense the second half -- and that sounds crazy, we gave up 43 points but it was clearly our defense. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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