|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA MEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: LOUISVILLEMarch 30, 2019Matt PainterCarsen EdwardsRyan ClineLouisville, Kentucky Virginia-80, Purdue-75 THE MODERATOR: As the Boilers get set, we'll have an opening statement from Coach, then questions for the student-athletes and the coach. Great game. COACH PAINTER: First of all, want to congratulate Virginia. Obviously, it was a hard-fought game and I thought our guys did a great job of hanging in there. Obviously, a special performance by Carsen shooting the basketball. It's exciting when you beat somebody like Tennessee to get into the Elite Eight. But it's also pretty humbling, you look back and our game against Tennessee could have went either way. You feel very grateful and fortunate to be in this situation. And then you play a game that see-saws like it did against Virginia and you don't get a couple breaks and things don't go your way, and they make a special play there at the end, and that's just part of competition. That's part of basketball. The other night was pretty cool and today stinks. These guys have been great. They've battled. They didn't let other people's opinion tell them how good they were going to be this year, and I think that's what it's all about. But really proud of Ryan Cline and Grady Eifert for what they've done for our program, and obviously Carsen has worked very hard and put himself in a special category and had special performances here in the NCAA tournament. We obviously would like to be playing in Minneapolis, but that's the way things go. Like I said to start this, I want to congratulate Tony Bennett. He's a really good coach. He's a better guy. And Virginia's a class program. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Carsen, can you just describe, I guess, the zone that you were in and how much maybe you felt like you had to try to carry the team today? CARSEN EDWARDS: Well, I just felt pretty comfortable. Never do I feel like I need to carry the team, because we're all putting everything into the game. We're all trying to do the right things and put ourselves in the best position to win. Never do I feel like I'm choosing to carry the team. It's just I felt good and had rhythm on the shots I was taking, and they were just able to go in. Q. Carsen, on the play in overtime, five seconds left, talk a little bit about how the play was designed and what happened in that. CARSEN EDWARDS: It was a play where we just had to -- I tried to get a catch and we were down three so we were expecting the foul, which I was expecting them to foul. And so we had a screen in for Ryan, and I was trying to kick it ahead before he fouled me, and I just, just kind of -- I kind of -- it was a tough catch. It was a tough catch for Ryan, and just how it happens. Game of basketball. Game's moving quick. It is what it is. I felt like the play was able to work. It's just kind of how things ended up. Q. Ryan, could you also take us through that final possession, what happened, what you saw? RYAN CLINE: Yeah. I mean, the play was drawn up for either Carsen to go make a play, but he thought he got fouled or thought they were going to foul. And he wanted to kick ahead before he got fouled. Q. I know it's tough for all you guys at this point, but what do you take from this experience, Carsen? From this entire season and from this NCAA tournament run? CARSEN EDWARDS: That's a good question. I think, which I've said this, I mean, since the first game of the tournament, before that and everything. It's just, first off, being able to play at this level and play with a good group of guys, it's a blessing for me. That's mainly what I take from this experience, it's just a blessing to be able to learn and be around a bunch of good guys, not just on the court but off the court and continue to learn with them and going through ups and downs and learning ways to handle things when they don't go your way, not getting too high, not getting too low. A great experience for me and I'm happy. Regardless of the outcome, I still thank God for everything that he's done for me throughout this season. Q. Carsen, right before the tip in overtime, Mamadi was coming off on the court. Looked like you two kind of exchanged a glance and a smile. What was that like? Did you say anything to him there? CARSEN EDWARDS: Yeah, we just kind of joked. Mamadi and I, back in high school in NBA Top 100 camp, we were on the same team so we knew each other before this game. We just kind of jokingly, just was like it was crazy shot for it to go in, just like how that happens. Just kind of a -- just kind of back and forth thing, it's crazy how the shot went in. Good game by him, good player. Good dude as well. Q. For both players, did that shot at the end of regulation take anything out of you? Did it feel like an anti-climax after that? CARSEN EDWARDS: I don't know if you'd say it took anything out of me, because going in you understand that it's going to be a close game. You understand that it's not going to be easy to win it. I mean, it just is what it is. It just happens. Just more basketball. So I don't know. I mean, just kind of how it was. So whatever. RYAN CLINE: I feel like towards the end of the game, especially against a team like Virginia, you know, you're happy to be even in the race. And we were ahead and we blew that lead towards the end. But no, I think we were still excited and ready to play in overtime. It just went back and forth. It just didn't go our way. THE MODERATOR: Guys, thanks for your time. Now we'll go to questions for Coach Painter. Q. Matt, can you take us through what you saw on the shot that forced the overtime? Obviously, kind of a broken play. COACH PAINTER: Some things actually went in our favor there. You wanted to foul. I've been in this situation a couple years ago in the NCAA tournament, it was about 18 seconds to go, and you're up 3, and you think it's too much time. So we wanted to foul, but we didn't want to foul right away, because we didn't want them at ten seconds. Think about them getting that basketball and instead of having it for three or four seconds, them having it for nine seconds. Now you can lose that game by that 3. So at that point, I thought we got it at a really good time. I think it was around five seconds. And so, we couldn't be picky about who we were fouling there. Ty had the ball. So we weren't really concerned, you know, thought he would make both and you'd have to ask him. But I thought he tried to make the second one. And the one that he missed, I don't think that was an intentional miss. Maybe it was. But didn't look like it was an intentional miss. So we're just setting up for our press offense but we're also understanding we have to box out. That was a favorable tip-out. That's what you want. You want the ball to go away from their basket. A 3 can beat us. As a coach, when that happens, you're like get the basketball, guard the arc. The last thing you're thinking -- because what do you have? You have two big guys boxing out. They should be right there by the rim. You're not worried about that as much. But it's also, the ball's so far out when it goes past half court that you're not thinking that. Carsen went back to Ty Jerome. We were talking about it in the, you know, walking here. He went to Ty Jerome because the last thing I wanted was him to get the ball. We had the ball in the guy's hands that we wanted. Clark had the ball. So now he has the ball. With that being said, he made an unbelievable play to find Diakite, and then Diakite had the wherewithal to shoot it immediately. Made a tough shot. Those intermediate shots right there, those catch and shoots at 12 feet in between are difficult. Then I thought Matt did a good job of challenging it. Obviously, it was a huge play. Play of the game. Q. Matt, Virginia won the rebounding battle, 39-31. Seemed like they got a number of key offensive rebounds. What were they able to do to really keep you guys off the glass and get those second chance opportunities? COACH PAINTER: They're quick to the basketball. We had to play -- they played a little bit bigger. But if you look at the guys who got offensive rebounds, they had a lot of guys get offensive rebounds. And we tried to match up with them as it went on, and just tried to put the ball in Carsen's hands from an offensive standpoint. But, you know, give them credit, because when we were getting stops from them, we couldn't secure the basketball. And if we could have done a better job defensive rebounding, it would have really helped us, and we could have carried just the individual play by Carsen. Q. Coach, take us through the play. Down one, in overtime, with the game Carsen had, was there any consideration to getting the ball to anybody else in that spot? COACH PAINTER: No. Q. It had to be Carsen, right? COACH PAINTER: Yeah, yeah. What they did, when we played one of our guys that wasn't a perimeter shooter and we had a couple turnovers there, they locked a guy at the top of the key. That's what I told our guys, you have to be able to make yourself available right there. We had a couple turnovers, so we subbed out so we'd have a more skilled guy in there. If they wanted to double-team, we could knock down an open 3 or be at the rim. We were trying to get him in a lot of the same action that he was having success with. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much. COACH PAINTER: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|