|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MAUI JIM MAUI INVITATIONALNovember 26, 2019Eric BovairdEliet DonleyKendall SmallLahaina, Maui, Hawaii UCLA - 74, Chaminade - 48 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening remark from coach. ERIC BOVAIRD: I thought we played well through stretches. I thought we opened up the game with high intensity and playing good basketball, but it was an offensive struggle for us tonight, there's no doubt about it. Knocking down open shots and assist-to-turnover ratio and everything along those lines. But we competed. We tried. I know that. That's about all I got. THE MODERATOR: Start with questions for the players. Q. For either guy: How tough is it when you're playing up this competition Division-I, to lose somebody like Davenport, a guy who has some Division I experience, to not have him out there tonight or today? KENDALL SMALL: Well, I just come into the game just thinking like everybody's the same and we all play high levels of basketball. So I don't really go out there thinking that, honestly. I think everybody on my team is capable of playing with these people up here. So we always go into the game thinking we're winning, even yesterday we thought we would try to come out there and compete as hard as we can. And I thought we did that the first half and parts of the second half, but we just got hooked on the mental lapses and we just need to toughen up when times get tough. ELIET DONLEY: Losing him is big because he can switch one through four for us, especially on the defensive end he's a big loss for us. Q. For both guys: Games like this are so tough. You guys were right there early second half, obviously tied. Does that kind of thing give you guys confidence or your regular season, your D-II season coming up, does any of that kind of carry over into your journey beyond here? KENDALL SMALL: Well, of course we feel like coming into games, we really hang our hat on defense because, obviously, we're having to struggle. We're struggling with our offense right now but the main points of practice is coming in playing defense. I feel like we start off the games on a high, high intensity of defense. And then just, like, when things get tough, other teams are scoring, they get a couple like breakouts that's when we get a little stagnant on offense and it feeds in our defense and we can't let that happen. ELIET DONLEY: I think it definitely helps us in preparing for the regular season. There a couple of bigs in our conference that are similar, but not as large, so it helps. I know personally it helps me to learn to guard different types of players. Q. Kendall, I'm going to ask you about that shot at the end and what you were feeling, is it something you practiced and what did Coach say to you afterward? KENDALL SMALL: Definitely not something I practice. I just try to keep my chin to the rim whenever I try to go into the basket with contact. And Coach just told me when I came out, just I liked how you just played hard until the end. You didn't give up and stuff like that. But I felt like a couple other players on the team did that as well, but we just got to pick everybody else up and do the same. THE MODERATOR: All right. We'll let the two of you get back to your team and open it up for questions for coach. Q. Same question for you that I asked the guys: How does the, you talked about the spurts, the parts of the game where you guys looked pretty good, the defense was pretty good. How does that kind of, those flashes of brilliance, if you will, how does that carry over into the rest of the season? And can it be a confidence builder for your team? ERIC BOVAIRD: Yeah, we'll get back after these three games and show them all the good stuff and all the bad stuff that we can learn from. But to show that you can do it in stretches versus the really the good teams, you know, it definitely builds confidence in our guys. There's no doubt about it. We knew coming in playing these guys that they have got a lot of really good talent. I saw their starting lineup versus our starting lineup, you know, as far as size-wise, and it's amazing. But I was proud of our guys competing. Q. You may have addressed this already, but two minutes into the second half they had had 15 turnovers. What did they do to change? Was it different personnel? What did they do to kind of pull it together at that point? ERIC BOVAIRD: UCLA? Q. Yeah. ERIC BOVAIRD: Yeah, well, I thought they, to match up better with us even, they went to more of one big and four guards, and they actually put some more shooting in because we were helping so much on the interior every time the ball went into the post. They put their better shooters in. Middleton has not had that good -- or Singleton, sorry, had not had that good a game this year. I know he was a good player last year. But he's a really good shooter. We knew that. We just hoped he wouldn't have that type of night tonight. When you play these guys you have to sacrifice something. You can't guard -- we can't guard everything. We can't guard the interior. We can't guard the perimeter. You almost have to relinquish something and try to take away the things they do the best and hope they have off nights in the other things. Q. Did you get a chance to see Anthony Edwards for Georgia today, what he was able to do and how do you guys think you might try to match up with him? ERIC BOVAIRD: I saw, well, I saw the first game and I thought, man, I think we might be able to guard him if we do end up playing him. I saw the first half and I thought, oh, well, if we end up playing Georgia, we might be able to stop those guys. And then I watched a good portion of the second half, and I'm going to meet with Dave Odom tonight and we're going to come up with a strategy to, if we do play them, I don't know, they might, you know, that's who we are playing, correct? Yes. To come up with a strategy to try to stop him. No, it was pretty phenomenal. I kept going up -- I had to write stuff on the board to get ready for our game, but I kept coming back down and it seemed like every time I came down he scored a basket. So we all know he's a special talent, so I'm anxious to learn more about him and see how he's getting those shots. 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
|