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AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 15, 2019Mick CroninJustin JeniferJarron CumberlandMemphis, Tennessee Cincinnati - 82, SMU, 74 COACH MICK CRONIN: I want to congratulate SMU, I thought their effort tonight was tremendous. They've been a couple of years with decimated injuries. We played them last year in this tournament, Shake Milton didn't play. We played them this year, both times, Jarrey Foster didn't play during the regular season. Just happy to see him back out there. They have been through a lot playing short-handed. So I knew after watching them play last night, it was going to be a tough game. Them at full strength, Coach Jankovich does a great job and they've got five guys that play together on offense. They can all shot, they share the ball. They all play smart, they play to their strengths. The drivers drive it, the shooters shoot it and then they can make guarded shots. And teams that can make guarded shots, they're dangerous. You can play great team defense, a guy just jumps up and makes really a pro shot, because pros have to take those shots with the short shot clock. So really proud of our effort. We had to win with offense tonight and our passing was excellent, 15 assists, 8 turnovers. And obviously these two guys with me made big-time plays which they've been doing all year. And I thought Tre Scott was probably the key to the game, we were down 29-21, and he started imposing his physical will on the game. He looked like number 5, Justin Jackson, who used to play for Cincinnati. And I have been trying to challenge him to embody Justin and his effort was awesome. His effort on the glass, he hit 17-12 tonight, so he really changed the game for us. And then obviously Jarron does a great job closing the game out. He's been doing it all year for us. Q. Justin, what was it in that first half that was able to get you going and help you propel the offense for the first 25 minutes? JUSTIN JENIFER: Just being ready to shoot. The coach has always emphasizes everybody being ready to shoot. My teammates did an amazing great job of getting in the paint and drawing the defense so I could get open shots. Kudos to Ted because he got me a lot of shots today. Q. You pride yourself on passing a lot, so eight assists, what does mean for you to just get guys good looks. JARRON CUMBERLAND: It means a lot. Actually I knew Justin -- I knew SMU was going to help off of me -- well, help off of them, and I knew they'd be open. I knew Coach was telling me all week to find a open guy and we got guys open shots. So eight assists, I'm happy about it. Q. Justin, you had a rough day on senior day, you come out and you don't miss tonight and momentum is so big. Tell me about that shot as it goes in, how you feel. JUSTIN JENIFER: It feels great when it goes in. I always -- I get on myself for missing shots. And today it was going in. Today was my day. And it looked like I didn't miss today. Perfect games don't happen like that. They don't happen often. So, you know, coming in from -- my senior night, I didn't make any shots and coming in making all my shots today is just -- shooting comes and goes. Coach always emphasizes that as well shooting comes and goes, but as long as we can control our effort, that is what is going to win us games. Q. How much of a challenge do they present because you can play great defense on them for 29 seconds and they've a couple of guys that can step up and hit shots. Is it difficult to keep that intensity up when they do that? COACH MICK CRONIN: You have to give our kids credit. We were adjusting the entire game trying to figure out different things. We were talking with the guys, these two guys made some things happen on their own, defensively in the second half. Trying to take a few things away that SMU was doing to us. Because if you don't switch and you double the pick-and-roll, the guy they have popping is Isiaha Mike and Ethan Chargois, who are both great shooters. We were trying to dictate the guard, because if he is defending and going on one-on-one, it eliminates him from the defensive glass. We change defenses quite a bit. We actually went straight man down in the first half -- we were down eight -- and continued to adjust. The guys did a great job communicating with it. We started limiting them to one shot. That was the key to the game, our defensive rebounding. Q. SMU kept it really close until two minutes left. What would you say it says about the composure of the team to be able to still pull away at the end? JARRON CUMBERLAND: The guys that we had from last year and the people from the bench that started this year, they really stepped up. And Coach told us we have to keep our calm, we have to stay calm and just do what we had to do to win games. Because at the end of the -- at the final score, that's the only thing that matters. Q. I know you have to watch Temple and Wichita State here, but the first two games, are you surprised they were blowouts, the Houston game and then Memphis, the home team, obviously, has a lot going for them. COACH MICK CRONIN: Houston -- to me, Houston is one of the best five teams in the country. You know, our league does -- if you watch SMU played tonight at full strength and realized that they were the 10-seed in this tournament, that ought to tell you how good the American Conference is this year. And for Houston to be 29-2 -- I thought this year 14-4 would tie for the league. I can't believe they went 16-2. That is how good they are. They're an elite basketball team so anything they do doesn't surprise me. Memphis is at home, and so much of this is about match-up. They beat Central Florida 20 the time they played here before. The only two teams that have beat Memphis in this building all year is Tennessee, who's been in top five all year, and Cincinnati. So it doesn't surprise me at all how well they have played today. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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