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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: SAN JOSEMarch 24, 2019Russell TurnerJonathan GallowayRobert CartwrightSan Jose, California Oregon - 73, UC Irvine - 54 MODERATOR: We have u joining us. We have Robert Cartwright, Jonathan Galloway and Coach Turner. RUSSELL TURNER: Thank you, everybody, for being here. Congratulations to Oregon for an outstanding performance. They were the better team tonight. They played at an incredible level in a game that coming in tonight I thought we were going to win. So credit to them. But credit also to my team, especially these two guys who are up here with me. But also all my seniors. Really the whole group, because we did something special this season, and so while we lost, tonight it feels to me in many ways like we've also won. I don't want to talk too long, let these guys say what's in their hearts. Just really, really proud to be part of UC Irvine men's basketball this season. MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach. We'll open it up for questions. Q. Jonathan, you guys had kind of that fast start in the second half, come out and take the lead. What went wrong after that? Why were they then able to put that run on you guys after that? JONATHAN GALLOWAY: Well, yeah, like you said, we came out to a good start, but then they picked it up on defense. They made us uncomfortable, and we started to turn the ball over here and there. A couple of their guys started hitting shots. And we just weren't playing them, and they made it really hard for us overall. Q. Can you guys just reflect on the historic season you guys had for UC Irvine and what it means to be the seniors of this incredible run, a team that's never made it past the first round of the tournament, and now competitors in the round of 32 and what this means moving forward for the UC Irvine community? ROBERT CARTWRIGHT: I told the team just a few minutes ago how grateful I am and thankful how they embraced me this year and the coaching staff and everybody around the program. Obviously it hurts, and once the reality of the fact that our college career is over, it's going to hurt, but my heart is full. I feel like we gave everything we had, and I know the final score isn't indicative of how hard we played tonight and our entire season, but looking back on it, we're extremely grateful that we've had this experience, and I know we believe we could have gone farther, but there's so much to look forward to in the future. So many guys are going to be coming back, and we have so many great players that are going to continue to shine once we go, and Gallo has over his five years really laid a foundation for this program, and it's going to continue to grow, and I'm excited to see what the future holds. JONATHAN GALLOWAY: Yeah, like Rob said pretty much, we just laid it all out there. And I know we didn't win tonight. But honestly, walking off that court, I can't even really be mad about it. Oregon is a great team, and they outplayed us tonight. But overall, we had a great season. Everybody played their part, especially Rob and like my other seniors. Everybody did their part. And it was a really special group. We worked extremely hard for what we earned, and all that work throughout the season, in the summer, all that hard work paid off, and that's a good feeling to know that we made history with this group. Q. Robert, this one is for you. Pritchard had another great game tonight. You played solid defense on him. How frustrating is it to play that kind of defense and have them hit shots late in the clock, and a couple of times he got in the lane and threw some lobs and hit a couple difficult shots? ROBERT CARTWRIGHT: Well, I've known him since he came into the Pac-12. Obviously we've played against each other multiple times while I was at Stanford, and I know how good of a player he is, how crafty he is, and he's really been playing well as of late. And if he continues to play like that, Oregon is going to be extremely hard to beat, especially with the defense that they're playing. I did the best I could to try to make it hard on him. He made a couple tough shots, and that's what really good players do. And, you know, some guys that we didn't expect maybe to make some shots did, and obviously that's frustrating, a bank shot at the end of the shot clock, down the stretch is a little deflating. But, you know, like I said, they played well. All the credit to them and all the credit to him. MODERATOR: Anything additional for Robert and Jonathan? Okay. Thank you, fellas. Questions for Coach Turner. Q. That's a pretty good 12 seed that you played just in terms of their ability. RUSSELL TURNER: Yeah. They are. Q. And I know their length was a concern. But when you did a good job on the boards and then they hit all those threes, I mean, it's kind of a matter of picking what you need to stop among those things? RUSSELL TURNER: Yeah, I mean, the way the game unfolded, you know, was rather similar to what happened I think last night against Kansas State. We got behind. It's hard to play against really good teams. We had to figure that out. And then we made a nice run to get right back in the game. They're good. And they're confident right now. Their young players have gained experience this year. I feel like their coaching staff has done a great job emphasizing the defensive end with them. And so I think they draw confidence off of their defense, and that's what they did tonight. They came and attacked us. We knew that they were going to search for weaknesses, much like teams we've played before have. They just have a special ability to try multiple different things with really, you know, impactful players to get you to make mistakes. And we made a few of those. We had crucial turnovers in several situations. 15 turnovers, but that doesn't count the times we went in and served layups up for them to speed up. Those were plays we were forced into because they sped us up. It's not easy to do that to my team. But credit to them, they did it. And then when they did that on top of making 13 threes, you know, the game got away from us. I didn't envision them making 13 threes with the level of defense that we played, but they're shooting the ball with real confidence right now, and we were maybe a step late, or slow a couple of times, especially at the end of the shot clock. We thought that the game would come down to some end-of-the-shot-clock plays, and they made a lot of those defensive plays that we weren't able to finish. The final score maybe is not indicative of the way the game went, but credit to them. They've worn teams down and separated recently from most of the teams they've played. Q. Russ, you mentioned in your opening statement that you felt like you won, too, tonight. Can you maybe just tell us why you feel that way? RUSSELL TURNER: You know, one of the things I learned coaching in the NBA is sometimes when you lose, you just have to act like you won, because you're going to lose. And there's some of that with the NCAA Tournament, you're going to lose, unless you're the one team that ends up at the top. And so while it's painful for our season to end because it's been such a great journey, it doesn't feel like we lost. It feels like, you know, kind of what we did this year was better than -- you know, it's like a cartoon or something, or a movie. Because all the guys bought in, embraced what we were trying to accomplish. Started back when we took a trip to Korea like 45 games ago or something now. And we just continued to get better. And in doing that, I think there's just a real special bond that develops amongst the team. It flows from the team to the coaches and back and forth. We had that. I told the players in the locker room we had something that is really rare to experience at any level in team sports and any sport. So that feels awesome. And to see the impact it's had, our team's success has had on the UC Irvine community, showed up out here and represented so well tonight is also really gratifying, feels like a win. I know we disappointed them by not winning tonight, but I know we thrilled them with our resilience in this game tonight and throughout this season. So I feel really good about all that. Q. Russ, that second half run, how proud are you of that and how satisfying is that at least to take from this game? You obviously didn't go down quietly. RUSSELL TURNER: Yeah. Well, we didn't expect that. We, like I said, had a similar experience against Kansas State. Got down 10 points at some point in that game and came back. We had shown the video to our guys prior to coming here to San Jose of our win at Texas A&M. And the first clip that came up we were down 14 in the second half in that game and came back then, way back in November. So this team has that ability to continue to fight and believe and stay together. That's a special ability for a team to have. It's really a special ability also for a team to maintain throughout a long season like we've just experienced. But that's never gotten away from us. And that's a credit, really, to every person who's a part of it. And so that's great. I mean, that's -- I've coached a long time, a lot of teams. That's rare. It's unique almost. I knew we'd come back. Q. Russ, first of all, congratulations on your season. RUSSELL TURNER: Thank you. Q. I wanted to mention that earlier. I've got two questions, two final questions. Jim Rome tweeted midway through the second half or more towards the later part of the second half that Oregon is the nastiest 12 seed that he's seen. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are for those teams that might face this Oregon team moving forward. RUSSELL TURNER: I don't really want to comment too much about Oregon, if it's okay. I mean, they're an excellent team. They've earned what they've gotten. They're Pac-12 champions, and they're on a roll. I respect their players. I have incredible respect for their coach. He's one of the guys that I most admire and try to emulate in this business. They're real. There's not any question about that. I mean, they did to us the same thing they did to Wisconsin, you know. So Wisconsin played them close for a while, and then Oregon pulled away. They're a difficult team to play against. They're well conditioned. That's something that stands out to me. They're really well conditioned. I think that's because Dana pushes his team so hard. He and I have that in common. You know, they're good. They're really good, and they're a problem to play against because they're unusual. And with Payton Pritchard playing at the level he's playing, they're going to be a tough out. Whether he can maintain that, I don't know, but he was outstanding tonight. He was as good a guard in controlling that game as really he could have been for them. And then made clutch shots. The clutch shots that they made at the end of the shot clock were daggers. It's hard to overcome something like that for us. If they can play that way, yeah, I think they can beat any team. Q. In the handshake line you were talking closely with Louis King. Can you share maybe what you were talking with him about? RUSSELL TURNER: Yeah, I'll tell you. I was saying Double Team Queen to try to see if I could irritate him. And I did. And I kept talking to my team about what we wanted to do. We were calling him queen, because I knew it might irritate him, because of how important he is to their team, the queen in chess. It was a play on his name of King. And it bothered him, started thinking about me, started thinking about Max. But he came back and finished the game really strong. And he'd had a thing or two to say to me during the game, and I wanted to let him know that what I'd done was out of respect. Q. Was that early in the game when you called him that? RUSSELL TURNER: In the first half they're right in front of us. So I got a voice. I can make the offensive team hear me. So I utilize my voice the best I can to help my team. Q. Coach, I think it's safe to say that UC Irvine is now nationally well known. You made this team get on the map of college basketball, like you said before. Your team was probably looked as the little brothers of USC, UCLA, but at this point I don't think that's the case anymore, and can you just expand on that? And also, what are your hopes of topping an incredible season like this? RUSSELL TURNER: Well, two-part question. I guess the first part, you know, I said what I said about -- about feeling like a little brother to the universities, as I mentioned, and maybe to their fans. That's a feeling that comes with the territory in athletics when you're trying to get established, when you're fighting and scratching and clawing to be respected. And so that's just been a little bit of our reality. But our university has earned that respect. Our university is incredible now. In 51 maybe years of existence to see what our university has accomplished is really rare. And athletically what we would hope to do as a basketball program is match that level of excellence. And that level of excellence is really high. So we've tried to do our part, you know, in representing our university through our platform, men's basketball. And this is a special platform. So we've made some progress, clearly, by being here again and by advancing in this tournament. I know we've brought great pride to the students of our university, to the alums of our university, to the faculty of our university, to the people who live in our community. And that's special. It's special to feel what we felt over the last week and even longer. So that's I guess the answer to the first part. The second part, can we top it? Yes. I know we can. I don't know if we can top 31 and 6, because the record we had this year is really, really -- I don't even know how to describe 31 and 6 for a team like ours that's played four guarantee games, to do that just doesn't happen. Probably hasn't ever happened. So I don't know if we could top that. But maybe we can get better, just as other programs have. I do think that we can get back to this position again and have a chance again to advance. But advancing in this tournament is hard because it's so competitive. So we'll have to continue to work at being better, try to be even better than we are now, which won't be easy. But I'm really looking forward to trying to continue to grow because I love the guys on my team. I love the type of people I get to recruit to UC Irvine because of the way they embrace the mission of our university, the academic challenge of our university, the demands that our program and our department in athletics puts on them to represent our place well. I like that. We can keep getting better. MODERATOR: Great. Thanks, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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