|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MAUI JIM MAUI INVITATIONALNovember 25, 2019Mick CroninJules BernardLahaina, Maui, Hawaii BYU - 78, UCLA - 63 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement by coach. MICK CRONIN: Well, I give BYU credit. We couldn't get, we couldn't finish the game. We're a young team, still figuring out, finding our way. But they made it hard on us, so I think you got to always give the other team credit. Obviously not happy with our defensive effort, but they have a lot to do with that. Last nine minutes they did a tremendous job of putting us on defense for 30 seconds, a couple times we didn't get crucial rebounds that broke our back. So they're a, when they went to their small lineup it really hurt us. But give them credit. We're still growing as a team, trying to figure out how hard we have to play to be a good basketball team. We're a work in progress. THE MODERATOR: We'll start with questions for Jules. Q. They made half their 3-pointers just like Hofstra did, but they added the component of being really good in the paint. How hard was that to kind of matchup with both of those things, of having to guard them on the perimeter and also their dribble drives and getting into the paint? JULES BERNARD: I think they, BYU, did a good job of moving the ball a lot and also, like, dribbling and kicking out to the three. I think that once they established their paint presence we started keying in on the paint presence and they just kicked it out for threes. We knew they were going to be good on offense, but we just got to stay strong for 40 minutes. We played for about 30 minutes strong on defense and then we let off the gas. So it's just about sustaining our effort on defense and focusing on what teams do, especially like a team like BYU who runs their offense really well. Q. Prince went down and I think it was about a one point game. What did it mean to lose him for a stretch? JULES BERNARD: He's one of the leaders on the team, so it was kind of scary. It looked like he was hurt pretty bad. But in times like that collectively as group we have to come together and make sure we don't give up runs, especially when one of our leaders are out. I think that we're a young team and we have to learn that throughout this year, but we're glad that he's okay. Q. You, obviously you want to win games but is it hard to focus on the process when you're not getting the results that you want As a young team trying to grow early in the season? JULES BERNARD: I think as basketball players we all know that you're going to have wins and losses. We fight every day in practice and in games and losses are going to come. We're going to make mistakes, but that's part of the process. We have to grow and as the season goes on, hopefully those mistakes are to fix themselves. But losses come. We have to learn from them. THE MODERATOR: All right. We'll open it up for questions for coach. Q. Kind of the same question I asked Jules. Was there ability to hurt you inside and outside, was that a challenge that was really hard to overcome? MICK CRONIN: Oh, yeah. I thought they made a couple of really hard shots. One that was a desperation shot that hurt us. I thought the -- but overall our, the nine freshmen and sophomore factor hurts us. Because I've coached veteran teams and when you know when you got a young team you can just, can you see the other team taking their level of intensity up and your guys struggle. You can see your team. And we alluded to it, Prince is the one veteran out there for us. When he went down it had an effect on the game. But, hey, I'm a big believer. Yes, they're really hard to defend, okay. Once we started taking away the three, what really hurt us was we were getting beat off the dribble. But a mark of a young team is we, when you hit a point in the game, seven, eight minutes left, where we missed a dunk, we had a bad turnover. And in a game like this you can't do that against them because they're going to go put you on defense for 30 seconds and wear you down. It wears you down. When you play teams that play BYU style you have to really take care of the ball. So what I would tell you is our 13 turnovers, in my mind, in a game where they were running the shot clock, when you play a team that's going to run the shot clock as long as they are, you can never turn the ball over. Like I told our guys before, we cannot win this game. We have to have eight turnovers or less to win this game, which would have given us a chance to get fouled more and get more second-chance points. We had 13, so. Q. David didn't have any minutes in particular tonight. Any reason for that? MICK CRONIN: No, just strategy. He missed a blockout. But you're trying to find five, right now I'm trying to find, I'm just trying to find five guys that can get a stop. That competition changes everything, but hopefully our guys, make it real simple, our guys, we were giving up about 62 a game and we were 4-0. Last two games we have given up 83 a game, you know, on average. Can't win that way. So and nothing against, it wasn't David. He didn't do anything in particular. Just searching for five guys who can get a stop together. And it's a struggle right now and until it's not a struggle we're going to continue to struggle to beat that word to debt. Q. I wasn't here yesterday but you seemed to say that you have to focus on maybe the process more than the results right now for you in evaluating this team and kind of shepherding it through this season. MICK CRONIN: Yeah, I mean, hey, look, we're 17 of 15, we lost our best three players. So it's going to be a process with the whole building. I knew it. So there's going to be ups and downs with it. It's like I told the guys, have you two choices: You can quit and go home, make excuses. It seems to be popular in today's society with young people. Or you can stand and fight and learn how to be a guy that can defend, learn how to be a guy that never gets beat, learn how to be a guy that never turns the ball over, learn how to be a guy that remembers that the offense and can execute. You got to stay in the ring and fight. The second thing I would tell you is, for us, until we learn how to respond, it seems that there's a, when they hit a couple of baskets, I got to teach these guys how to respond. You cannot turn the ball over. We had a crucial, Tyger had a crucial turnover. And then Chris cut on top of Jalen and it was just two really crucial turnovers. Again, you can't, you got to get -- they're hard enough to defend, like, you got to be able to get shots off. What did we shoot for the game? I don't have a stat sheet. Nobody gave me a stat sheet. Yeah, 45 percent? In the last five years of my career you would struggle to find a loss where we shot 45 percent. We're just not there yet defensively and rebounding. So our shooting percentage isn't the issue. On offense our turnovers are our problem. Now, you can't go, in a game like that, again, you're going to have to make free throws. Because they're so hard to defend tonight we went 5-11 in the second half. You give yourself no chance. Q. Curious about quick turnaround, no prep time between games like this. What's your strategy? What's your input -- MICK CRONIN: Same thing for Chaminade. Q. Sure. Just in general overall, though? MICK CRONIN: Don't know. Never done it. Never been in the loser's bracket. Get some rest and play. At some point you got to have some pride and character and it's about fortitude. Q. A lot of folks are going to focus on defense, but so much of that is about communication, and you guys have a young team like. How do you teach that? MICK CRONIN: Well I think the sad part is you can think you're good at it based on your competition. Then when you play guys that can expose you and it puts -- it's just like anything else, it's like you turn up the pressure gets turned up on the pipes and you find out how strong they are. The team that takes care of the ball and keeps you on defense forever, you're going to find out how well you communicate. You're going to find out how well you stay in front of the ball. They, so, again, they did a great job. I can sit here and be upset with my guys. They do a tremendous job with what they do. But I think offense is, our offense really hurt us. I mean, there were times I was upset with our defense there was a few crucial block outs, but they're a team, because of their lack of size and strength, that we should have been able to, like early in the game we should have been able to score inside. Cody missed a bunch of chippies that he normally makes. I think that obviously hurt us. You got to score on them. And then the second thing is the turnovers killed our offensive rebounding, they just killed us, killed our offensive rebounding. So you, against them, you have to really be efficient on offense when you play any team that runs this spread Princeton stuff, because if you run, you throw one pass and turn it over they're going to go down and throw 17 passes and make you chase them around. So we didn't get the job done with that. 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
|