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AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 17, 2019Kelvin SampsonArmoni BrooksMemphis, Tennessee Cincinnati - 69, Houston - 57 COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Yes, we've had three terrific games with Cincinnati, at our place, at their place, and today. Obviously, that's a difficult team to have to beat three times, especially over the course of five or six weeks. Watching how well they played today -- and you can see how well we played the other two times when we beat them. But congratulations to Coach Cronin. I thought his kids really, really were ready to play. You could tell that they were -- had a bit of an ax to grind. I thought we got on our heels but we came back, you know. And when they elbowed us, Corey went to the line and made two. I think that cut it to -- what did that cut it to -- four. And then Corey had two great looks from the three-point line, but I thought Corey played tired, you know, he just looked tired today. But I think Cincinnati's defense had a lot to do with that, too. So, tough game, we move on. I'm looking forward to five o'clock to see what seed we are, what bracket we're in, where we're going. I'm a lot more excited about that than I'm disappointed about this game. Q. Kelvin, sometimes it's a make or miss. Was it a lot of that today, just make or miss for you guys? COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Yeah, they played good defense. But that's the third time we've played them. I thought we were the two best teams in the league. We would have liked to have won today. But Dejon and Nate -- we can play a lot better than we did today. We didn't play very well. But I thought Cincinnati did. Mick he got us off balance with the way he played Cumberland. Cumberland hit some tough shots. He hit some really, really tough shots. There won't be a lot of days where Corey Davis goes 2 for 10, 3 for 13. He's a lot better than that obviously. Q. What was different in today's game that was different from playing Memphis yesterday? COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: What was different? I think any time you play three games in three days, it's a bit of a crap shoot. Memphis played a lot of small ball yesterday. The last -- I think the last two times we played Cincinnati, we out-rebounded them. It seems like whoever out-rebounds the other team usually wins this match-up. They out-rebounded us today. I think we out-rebounded them -- we were plus 14 at their place, so they got the better of us today. Congratulations and I hope Cincinnati has a deep run in the tournament, as I do us. Q. Coach, when you took Corey out with 3:20 left, what did you tell him at that point? COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: I started to pull him at halftime. John was in there -- I knew he was hurt before the game. I didn't -- you know, Corey is not going to complain. Maybe I didn't understand the extent. But when I went in at halftime, he said, Coach, it is really sore. It was his hip, can't remember left hip, right hip. But John was giving him a lot of treatment. I said, Look, Corey, this game is not near as important as the one next week. I don't want you to run the danger of getting that thing hurt worse. Why don't you just go ahead and sit out the half. Then sometimes coaches have to save them from themselves. I don't remember how much time was left. I started thinking about taking him around the six-minute mark, five-minute mark. Finally by the time the horn blew, I think there was 3:30, something like that. But I told him how much I appreciated him as I do all our seniors Galen, Corey, Breaon, they have all been tremendous. We have a lot to look forward to this next week. Q. Coach, in addition to that, you dealt with some other injuries in the second half plus foul trouble, correct? COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Yes. Q. What were the other injuries you had at that point? COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Fabian had a knot about the size of a plum on his elbow, so we sat him out. Somebody else got out, we had two or three injuries. Yeah, Jarreau had hurt his knee, he sprained his medial collateral a couple of weeks ago, and he banged it today. We were limping there. When you look at the score, we got beat by 12, it felt a lot worse, but it was a 12-point game. Again, we've had a tremendous year. 31 and 3, getting excited about five o'clock. I'm not going to spent too many minutes thinking about this game. Just excited about what's coming up. Q. Armoni, what do you take away from this game? ARMONI BROOKS: We have to come ready to play each and every day. We can't use three games in three days as an excuse on why we didn't come out and execute our game plan and play the way we normally play. We have to use it as a learning experience and try to move on and take whatever we got from this game and don't let it happen again. Q. Are you concerned about any of these injuries having lingering effects going forward? COACH KELVIN SAMPSON: Not really, no. If you lose the first game, you go home. Nobody talks about you losing this game. You lose the first one, you're done, you go home and you rest. We won our first one. Then we won the second one. Had we lost yesterday, and gone home, we wouldn't be sitting here. We came here 29 wins and we left with 31. I think Corey's -- I'm not sure the extent of Corey's -- I haven't talked to John. It might be a hip strain, which -- I'm hoping we don't play till Friday. I hope we're in the Friday bracket. That gives us an extra day of rest. The Thursday bracket means you have to leave probably, depending on where they send you, Tuesday or Wednesday. Tomorrow's Monday. It's a fast week for us. Those teams in the other conferences that lost the first day or second day, they've been home resting for a couple of days, whereas we don't get the benefit of doing that. Just proud of my team. Proud of them all year. Proud of them this week. Proud of them Friday, Saturday, and proud of them today. We -- our kids kept fighting. Cincinnati was a better team today. So hats off to them and congratulations to Mick and his group. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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