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AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 15, 2019Johnny DawkinsB.J. TaylorMemphis, Tennessee Memphis, 79 - UCF, 55 COACH JOHNNY DAWKINS: Well, you have to give Memphis a lot of credit. I thought they played with a sense of purpose. We ran into a bustle. I thought their guys played well. They beat us in most areas of the game today. I look at all the stats sheet and I'm looking at the different areas, and they outperformed us in each one of them. Disappointed with our guys and how we played, but I give them a lot of credit because they played with a sense of purpose, with a sense of desperation and it showed. They won the 50/50 balls, they beat us offensive rebounding, they were able to get extra shots, turned us over and they played real well today. Q. Coach, coming out at half-time down ten in the second half, it seemed like they were able to take the energy to another level and got on the boards at lot -- got off the boards a lot. Why weren't you able to match that? COACH JOHNNY DAWKINS: We had to be better. I think you give them credit because they were very active, and sometime the ball bounces funny. The ball takes some interesting bounces and it may bounce closer to a player than other times. And so I think some balls bounce well, bounce in areas where they were able to grab them a little faster than we were. But the main thing is they were coming to the boards quite a bit, and that is something we have done a good job most of the season, keeping guys off the boards, giving up second and third shot attempts. Tonight was not a night for that. They made a concerted effort to get in there, some balls fell their way which always helps and we have to do a better job. Q. B.J., how did that crowd make a difference? It was almost deafening. Could you hear each other on the court? B.J. TAYLOR: We could. We knew coming into this game it was going to be like a home game for them in their building. So like Coach said you have to give them a lot of credit for the energy their players played with on the floor. They played hard the entire night. So, you give them credit. Q. A loss like that heading into possibly the NCAA tournament, do you still think you're comfortably in the NCAA tournament or do you think the possibility for NIT? COACH JOHNNY DAWKINS: That will be made by people on Sunday. All we do is go out and win games and put ourselves in the best position to play in a post-season. We will see what happens, but I think we've had a very, very good season. We have proven that. We won in hostile environments, we have beaten top 25 teams, I mean, and we finished in third place -- tied for third in our conference. That is a very good conference. Thinking of all the things we did well, I think that we've had a very good year. Q. B.J., you were here in the same situation last year. I wonder if this feels a little different because you probably do know that you have more basketball to play after this? B.J. TAYLOR: Losing never feels good in any situation. So, in terms of the game, we came with a 1 and 0 mentality for us. We weren't looking ahead to what's after this, so it hurts. It hurts a lot to lose a game like this. We wanted to leave here with the Championship and we didn't achieve that goal. So, this loss hurts a lot. Q. Aubrey really struggled. Talk about -- was it something in their defense, or was it one of those days where he wasn't getting shots to fall? COACH JOHNNY DAWKINS: He's gonna make shots. He will have nights where he misses them. That is the life of a shooter. It was a tough night for him. They did a good job. They stayed with him on the floor, so they made a lot of his catches difficult and put him in positions where he didn't normally get the looks that he normally gets. So you have to give them credit for staying locked in and focused on him for the period of time they guard him. Q. What does this team need to do over the next week to prepare for what's next? B.J. TAYLOR: We need to remember this pain from this game. We have to keep this pain. You can't -- you know, you can't forget about it, you know. We do have more basketball ahead of us. But we've got to remember what happened out here tonight and we got to use this to push us going forward. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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