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AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 16, 2019Kelvin SampsonFabian White, Jr.Corey Davis Jr.Memphis, Tennessee Houston, 61 - Memphis, 58 COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: I thought our defense was outstanding for most of the game. You know, our biggest challenge was just keeping Martin off the free throw line. He's a veteran, has a lot of moxie, is very clever, knows how to get fouled, knows how to draw fouls. As we saw tonight, when you got to the free throw line, it's important to make them. He scored 23 points but he was 5 for 24, but the total 12 for 14 was problematic for us. But most of our wounds were self-inflicted. We had some kids that just didn't play with a lot of confidence, for whatever reason. You know, this isn't rocket science. Sometimes that unguarded 15-foot shot can be daunting and that's kind of what we made it tonight. But credit Penny's kids. Penny inherited a situation that I don't think's easy. He inherited a really good team. You know, he's very fortunate to inherit the five guys that started tonight. Usually when you have a coaching change, you don't inherit a very good team, but he did. What I thought that Penny did a great job was to integrate those young kids with those guys. That's not always easy to take five seniors and five young kids and make them a team and that's -- I thought Penny, I thought he was outstanding. We hadn't seen Memphis since first week in January, I think. And it was obvious that he'd done a really good job with this team. But proud of my team. I'm not going to sit here and overevaluate tournaments, Conference tournaments, not when every time I go back to my room and everybody's losing and being sent home and we won. So I thought it was a great defense on that last possession. I didn't think about fouling. I've said, I've had moments where I have thought about fouling, but not there. I wanted to make sure we didn't foul them. So helps to make free throws, though. Q. Kelvin, was this one of your toughest games of the season if not the toughest game especially that second half? COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Define "toughest game"? Q. In terms of intensity of the crowd (no microphone). COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Yes. Usually when you get to Conference tournament, you don't play a road game -- that's unique. If you look at the SEC, the SEC is a national, the ACC is in Charlotte -- who am I missing -- Big East Madison Square Garden -- who else am I missing? Big Ten. I don't know where they are -- Chicago maybe, Indianapolis? That had a factor. The good thing about when you get to the NCAA Tournament, you're on neutral courts. That crowd was a factor tonight. I thought they bullied Memphis. We got up 13, I think we were at 13 with about five or six minutes to go, maybe. And then that's when we started missing the free throws. And, you know, like I said, if we're up 11, we miss two and they make two, now it's nine, you know. We started playing that game way too much. You make your free throws, you probably go and win by 10 to 12. But like we've done for most of the year, we had some games we had no business winning. We're not -- it's not like we are some juggernaut. We never said we were. We could have easily lost to St Louis, we were down 15 to LSU and came back and won. Had those games been on neutral court, we probably would have lost them, but we were at home. When you are at home, sometimes your fans are a huge, huge advantage. And we beat LSU because we played them at home. Had we played on neutral court -- the same with St Louis. So -- but that is why you have nine road games and nine home games in Conference play. Next year when we go to Fort Worth, it will be a true Conference tournament because it will be a true neutral site like this game coming up, Wichita State playing Cincinnati in Memphis. That is a neutral site. I told Penny after the game that I admired the job he's done. He really has, that's not easy to inherit. He inherited a good team, I'm not saying he didn't inherit a good team. To integrate those new guys with these veterans, he did it seamlessly, so a lot of respect for him for doing that. Q. Coach Sampson, near the end of the game, you were running that five-guard line-up before inserting Fabian back in. How do you think that five-guard line-up performed while they were on the court today? COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: If they made their free throws, it would have been outstanding. Are you a golf fan? When a guy shoots 61 and 60, what does he shoot the next day? 72, 69, 73. They're human beings. Nate Hinton yesterday looked like, I don't know, you know, a lottery pick. Today he was in the witness protection program. (Laughter). I couldn't find him. Where was he? But that's -- these are lessons. Basketball is a hard game. It wasn't as easy as we made it look yesterday. We're not nearly as good as we played yesterday. Connecticut is not nearly as bad. One team is playing downhill, the other team is playing uphill, you will have a score discrepancy like we had. Sometimes these kids think they are -- and the good Lord will say, I'm going to humble you. Do not disrespect this game. It will get you. But when you shoot 14 for 27 from the free throw line, you usually lose those games. We found a way to win them because our defense was good. Q. Two questions: One, did it feel like in the second half that the other Memphis players kind of got caught waiting for Jeremiah to do something? And then, secondly, they're not going to be on the NCAA bubble after this loss, which means he will never get to the NCAA tournament. Any sympathy for another guy that's got a great game, that is not going to get to experience that? COREY DAVIS, JR.: To answer your first question, Jeremiah had it going honestly from the start of the game, so they were nit-picking when he got the ball and let him do what he does best because he is an amazing basketball player. He can play out the dribble, shoot the ball, draw fouls, and he was doing that very well tonight. I'm actually good friends with Jeremiah, so to know that he won't be able to make it to the NCAA tournament, it is sad, but not to -- I don't want to not go to the Championships. It's a win-win situation. Q. Coach, Memphis never got over 25 percent shooting for the game, what did you do defensively to keep them off track? COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Let's be honest. This was our third game in three days. I'm sure that that played a factor. They had some shots that they would normally make. That's why -- the Conference tournament is an outlier. I don't know that we always crown our best team. Sometimes it's, you know -- Memphis is a good team. They've been a good team for about a month and a half, maybe two months now. You could see them getting better and better and better. But if you are one of the top four teams, it is difficult to win four games in four days. Your kids play as hard as they play, it's hard for them to be good. I'm not going to take credit for that shooting percentage. I think fatigue on their part probably had a lot to do with it, too. Not to take anything away from our kids, but they are a lot better than that. Q. Fabian, can you speak to how difficult -- when Memphis was coming back down the stretch, how difficult it was to play in that kind of environment especially at the line, when everything is going the Tigers' way? FABIAN WHITE, JR.: Well, at the line, when the first one feels good and you miss it, the second one kind of gets to you. But the crowd, the energy that they had and the way Corey was going to the boards helped out with them coming back. Because without those second-chance points, I don't know if they had been in the same position as they were today. Q. Corey, I hope you don't mind the question. I wonder if you could compare -- you got called for a charge in the last minute here -- compare it to the charge that got called in the last second at the Temple game? COREY DAVIS, JR.: Honestly, I don't have an explanation for one of those. I mean, that's a discipline thing on my part. Both times -- I've been told many times in practices go vertical instead of trying to go forward, and they seem to catch me in those positions a lot. So that is discipline on my part and I have to do a lot better there. COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: We won one and lost one, that was good. Q. This is for Corey and Fabian. Whether you are active on the court or sitting on the bench, do you think it is more exciting as a team or do you guys get more excited about a great offensive play or a great defensive play and whey is that? COREY DAVIS, JR.: Honestly, I don't think we weigh them any differently. Other players are good players and we want to be successful. We like to see each other be successful, so our energy never changes when it's offense or defense. It is one of those things that we level out and treat the same. FABIAN WHITE, JR.: Same thing, of course. But we get extra hype when we got a stop because that is what we pride ourselves on, defense. When we get a good stop and we are able to go down the other end and get a good offensive play, we pride it on defense so we get excited on that. Q. Coach, does Corey get enough credit for his efficiency? If you look at the shots some other star guards need to have that kind of impact and what he is able to do with his efficiency? COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Yes, it's been fun to watch Corey's improvement since the first day he's stepped on campus. His personality is like his game. He doesn't have any highs or lows. Some kids are so emotional, they are like on the 85th floor and when things go wrong, they are in the basement. Corey is the same kid and that carries over to his game. He's -- he never has a bad practice or a bad game. Some days are better than others, he is a human being. He doesn't force things. We try to get him the ball and keep the ball in his hands because he's an 88 percent free throw shooter, but they were doing a good job of denying him. Other guys have to make their free throws too. Corey is just solid. He is an outstanding player. I thought he was the best player in this league this year, at both ends. He is an excellent two-way player, plays both ends the same. Q. When you won as many games as you guys have, how hard is it to maintain levels of consistency every night? COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: That's a great question. You know, I think you focus on who you are. I don't -- I was sitting here looking at our record, 31-2. That's surreal. The Final Four team we had was 31-5, something like that. This team has been so good, just about every night, at one end of the floor. We're a good offensive team, but we're not a juggernaut. We don't have a lot of great shooters. I think we focus so much on the process, you know, and the -- how we get good. We never -- we have a ritual after the game. I go in and put a record on the board, our overall record, our Conference record, and I put who we play next. The one I focus on -- kids are going to get their cue from their coach. That's the way it's always been. We just always move to the next game. Like, we're going to play the winner of Cincinnati and Wichita State. So, nobody mentioned our record or any of that. We've got to go back and get ready for the next game and tomorrow is also Selection Sunday. We're in the same position last year. We played in the Championship game and -- Orlando -- and went up to a suite in that arena and found out where we were going and we will do the same thing tomorrow. We are very much a process team. We focus on -- we've been doing this from day one. Our first, our first big win this year was at BYU on the road. And ever since then, it's the next game, next game, next game. That's why -- it's always amazing to me that finality of a season. You always focus on the next practice, the next game, the next meeting, the next this, the next that and all of a sudden it's over. I've got a great group of young men, I'm very honored and lucky to be able to coach them every day and it's been a fun ride and we'll ride it as long as we can. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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