NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - ORAL ROBERTS VS FLORIDA

March 21, 2021

Mike White

Indiana Farmers Coliseum

Florida Gators

Postgame Media Conference

Oral Roberts 81, Florida Gators 78

MIKE WHITE: Congrats to Oral. They were terrific. What a story. They were good the other night, equally good. We didn't help ourselves with the 20 turnovers leading to offensive opportunities for those guys. They are hard enough to guard, as it is, in the half-court.

Abmas and Obanor, I said it coming into the game, they're as good a one-two punch offensively as anyone we'll play all year. I think they have to be in the conversations nationally for just how elite they are.

It's easier said than done, again, for the scout to make these guys bounce the ball and crowd them. But Obanor has just got a unique ability to get it off, to create a little space and get it off. Abmas is just phenomenal with his speed, and you crowd him too much, and you want to take away that three, and it's a layup or a drive-and-kick or a foul.

I thought they showed tremendous resiliency defensively, getting stops when they needed to and getting defensive rebounds when they needed to.

Hard-fought game. Very, very tough emotional season for these guys. I really would have liked to have seen Keyontae and his teammates have a chance to celebrate and have an opportunity to go to the Sweet 16 in another week and see what happens from there. Unfortunately these guys are crushed, and that's it for this years Gators. Tough ending, but congrats to Oral Roberts.

Q. In your initial reaction to slowing it down, any regret about slowing it down the way you did in the final ten minutes, and how genius was that Osifo foul with three minutes to play, putting Osifo on the line?

MIKE WHITE: Yeah, really surprising, you see that, of course, at our level, especially with that much time. But I had faith that Osifo would step up and cash in. In his defense, this is a big moment for him, and for all these guys at the front end, hit the front of the rim, if I'm not mistaken.

You know, the slowing it down, I don't -- as I go back, and if I had more time to digest it and really study the film, I thought think otherwise. But in the moment right now, we were tired. I mean, these guys get you in rotations. You have to cover so much of the floor defensively. We were mixing in 13, which is our 1-3-1 call, and with that, you know, you've got to be super energetic and play with a ton of energy for that to be effective. And I thought that part of slowing it down would help us settle in with some of the erratic decisions that we were making offensively.

We made some passes that, boy, I wish we had back, but some of the turnovers -- part of the slowing it down is so we would make better decisions. And I thought we would need to exert so much energy down the stretch in the half-court again as they space you with five shooters to get some stops.

Q. You played resilient all season long but couldn't finish things off. How much did the turnover ratio affect you down the stretch?

MIKE WHITE: It destroyed us. It's been our biggest issue all year. I'm not sure that there's anything else that we could have tried in terms of motivation or film. We talked -- you can't talk about it any more than we talked about it, working on it in practice.

To me it was a mentality that this team, unfortunately, never fully embraced the importance, unfortunately, of each possession, and let's just get one up.

There were several times during this game where I just put it out there, let's let (indiscernible) shoot one from 40 feet before we turn it over. At least we give ourselves a chance. First off, some of those might go in. He's such an electric scorer, the way he's playing recently, and we give ourselves a chance to go get it on the offensive glass.

It's a big moment. I think our guys, we're really fired up. I think they had a lot of respect for our opponent, and sometimes playing really hard defensively, as we all know, can translate to some sped-up offensive decisions. And we struggled with it again tonight.

Q. On the positive side, a lot of guys stepped up for you in the postseason. How excited does that get you going into next season?

MIKE WHITE: I'm nowhere near that. I'm crushed right now. Our guys are crushed. It's been a long year. It's been a really long year. In today's day and age, you just -- we have to re-evaluate some stuff, of course, like every team that doesn't get as far as they want to get, and who knows, these days, who is going to return and who is not. And all of us coaches throughout college basketball will hit the ground running here when they are done playing in terms of recruiting.

We'll get there at some point. But right now, it's just a tough night for us.

Q. What did you see in the second half? Did they come out in the second half with something totally different? What did they do differently in the second half?

MIKE WHITE: Are you talking offensively? Defensively? Just in general?

Q. Offensively.

MIKE WHITE: I didn't see any major changes. As a staff, my guys do a terrific job, and all of us collectively watched -- we probably ended up watching 10 or 12 games. We knew what they were going to run. They knew what we were going to run.

But it's hard to guard. The stuff's hard to guard, and individuals are hard to guard, just like us. You might know what we're going to do, but guarding in space is very difficult, just like those guys -- I think that, if I remember correctly, a couple late rotations on corner threes in that left corner in front of their bench, left slot three on Obanor, with some late communication, where you're just not quite there, and then a jab three that Obanor hit again in the left slot where he jabbed our guy a couple times.

And the focus there is he can jab all he wants. You've got to make that guy drive. We didn't quite do that well enough. He hit some huge shots. But the actions I think were very similar. Just credit them. It's not like weren't playing really hard defensively, and they put 81 on us. They are an elite offensive team, and they are playing with great momentum right now.

Q. Do you kind of think this game -- you've been over-fouling all year, over-turnovering all year. Is this kind of the season in a microcosm in a lot of ways?

MIKE WHITE: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, in this team's defense, again, what they have been through, my gosh, you wouldn't want any team to have to go through. There's been five or six things that we've gotten considerably better at throughout this season, but those two things -- and even fouling late in the season. We were a little bit improved there.

I don't know that fouling tonight, it's not like we just had some -- five or six really bad ill-advised fouls. We are fouling as we are trying to stay in front of Abmas. He's a track athlete out there who shoots as well as any guard in the country. It's hard to stay in front of him. They learned a lot of those fouls.

But the 20 turnovers, yeah. This group, I just did a poor job of embracing the level of basketball that's needed to compete at a high level.

Q. Tre had his last points at 17:06. I know you slide some things down a little bit. He didn't shoot very much for the rest of the game.

MIKE WHITE: Yeah, I'd like to credit -- I don't want to butcher the spelling of his last name, but I'm assuming it's Jurgens, No. 11, he was really good on him, moved his feet well. Down on ball screens, I heard them yelling blue, but getting him pinned on the sideline, and after he really got it going, I thought led by him but also their bigs did a good job of making him give the ball up.

Q. (Audio interference) -- around that double-digit mark?

MIKE WHITE: I can't hear anything.

Q. There have been a few times this season where you've led by eight, ten, 12, 14 points and failed to put teams away. Was there a lack of killer instinct tonight?

MIKE WHITE: You know, I don't know what you would call it. We played a lot of really good teams and we also came back from deficits that were similar, just like our last game. I just think it's part of college basketball. I think the team that ends up winning this thing, and those few teams that get to the Final Four probably have a little bit more of a killer instinct than these teams like us that had good years but wish they had gone a little further for sure.

Q. Don't know what that sound problem was --

MIKE WHITE: All good.

Q. Tre tried to carry you guys and still put up 19 points and seven rebounds. Can you just talk about the overall season he had and tonight he was playing very well.

MIKE WHITE: I'm really proud of Tre. He's a terrific young man. He's come so far. He's matured from year one to year two as much as any guy I've coached, and I really mean that. And there's probably a couple other guys that I would put in that argument with Tre.

He's going to be a really successful player for a long time if he continues to work and he continues to have the humility has and the maturity. He's a high-character basketball player. He's a high-character kid. He finished the year really strong. I wish he could keep playing.

Q. Colin fought tonight, too.

MIKE WHITE: Colin was good. I thought they did a good job collectively. They swarmed them. Had them up there a couple times -- I say tied up, I don't think they ended up being jump ball calls but ended up being turnovers where he had it in a scrum. They were just really active at swarming him. So credit those guys.

But these last two games, he kind of got back into a rhythm, of course, and then I thought late game, better than all of our other front court guys. I thought he did the best job of -- in a lot of those switches on their guards, especially with Abmas of getting in his stance and using his length to get the ball in front of him.